Ward Part III

“What is it, doctor?”

“I thought I saw something black running past the counter. Did you see it?”

“There is nothing here. You might mistake it."

“Maybe it is,” said Doctor Aun before slowly jumping off the counter. He tidied up the clothes before heading to the nearby doctors' lounge.

“I will stay in the doctors' lounge. If you have any urgent cases, please call me.”

"Yes, Doctor." She nodded to the young doctor before continuing to work hard on the documents on the counter. While Doctor Aun was pondering whether the mysterious shadow he saw was due to his blurred vision or not.

Let's just hope it was just an illusion!

The doctors' lounge was not huge in the obstetrics and gynecology building. It was repainted to make the room look brighter. Looking at the painting, he could guess that the hospital had definitely recruited male nurses to paint the room themselves. There were still traces of the old painted wall showing up in the corners or crooks that the brush was difficult to get into. Even though the sound of an old air conditioner was ringing, it still worked well. In the middle of the room, there was a desk of a good size, not specified who owned it. He assumed that it was a desk for extern medical students like him. There was a long white window on the left that didn't provide him with any views because the light inside the room was reflecting on it. On the right was a bookcase which he couldn’t call empty because it contained a few medical magazines from four or five years ago along with the hospital's free journals. Looking at the condition, the patients waiting to be examined must have read them countless times.

The doctor sat there and looked around. The comic books he had brought from the dorm were still lying on the table, all curled up from his grip when he heard a rustling sound coming from behind the counter. The young doctor leaned on the cushion with low-quality leather patch repairs. He fell asleep in a moment, as if by magic...

The young doctor had a strange stomachache; it was tight and stiff as if it was about to explode.

“Ouch…” he cried out in pain. But in that pain, the doctor flinched when the sound from his throat was a woman's voice, not the one he had used in the past twenty years. And when he looked down at his stomach, which was as big as a pregnant man, he became even more alarmed. His hands were slender and soft with no trace of roughness. His stomach was thumping as if something was kicking from inside. It kicked harder and harder.

Doctor Aun felt gooey liquids gradually flowing from his legs. He decided to open his maternity robe to see that his legs were tainted with blood running down to the floor. His pain intensified… so much that the young man gritted his teeth before letting out another scream.

“Urgh…”

Suddenly, the young man woke up with beads of sweat on his forehead bursting from terror. His surroundings remained silent, only the sound of the air conditioner humming as always. The doctor let out a long sigh of relief. Damn! He dreamed about being pregnant when entering the OB/GYN ward. If he went to a surgery ward, wouldn’t he dream about having appendectomy surgery?

All of a sudden, there was a shadow running past the young man's face…

He lost his breath. He really saw a mysterious shadow run past him. Suddenly, he turned to a gentle knock on the shading glass. The knock grew harder and harder till the whole glass shook as if about to shatter. The young doctor got up from his working chair and walked towards the window with a brave heart. He slowly unlocked the shabby glass window and slid it open to see what was hitting the glass until it sounded like someone knocking outside.

As he had expected, it was a tree branch scuffing against the glass pane making a knocking sound.

“Oh my… what was I thinking of?” The young man couldn't help cursing himself before slowly sliding the window back down. But then, the reflection from within the room made him flinch as he saw a woman in a maternity dress. Her long hair covered her eyes as she was standing in the corner of the doctor's room. Doctor Aun didn't dare to take a breath now. What should he do?

An anonymous woman’s howling screams interspersed with her laughter. The doctor could do nothing but close his eyes and chant every prayer he could imagine. But he couldn't think of anything, his brain screamed one thing, “I’m scared... I’m scared...and I’m scared” ...until he couldn't think of anything else at this time.

The figure of the ghost slowly walked towards the doctor, who stood with his back facing her. But it wouldn't be right to call her "walking," rather than "floating." She came so near that she stood next to the frozen young doctor who was still like a lifeless stone.

“What do you want…." Doctor Aun thought, even though he didn't know if the ghost could hear it or not.

“Help me, please help... Help me!” A cold voice asking for justice rang over and over again before she slowly faded into the air as if she was nothing but intangible dust.

He was startled from his reverie by a soft knock on the door.

His brain was heavily blurred. While he was shaking his head to regain focus, he argued to himself whether this whole thing was a dream in a dream or a dream that came true. What actually happened in this dream?

"Doctor Achira, I'm a nurse on the night shift. I’m bringing you some coffee, can I come in?" A female voice from outside penetrated through the stained-glass door.

“Come in,” shouted back the doctor. The young nurse pushed the glass door open with her shoulder as she was holding a coffee tray and a plate of beautiful jam rolls from a convenience store in the hospital. The young doctor quickly took the tray from the nurse with consideration.

“I knew from Koi that you are on the shift, so I took the opportunity to buy you coffee and introduce myself.”

"You shouldn’t have bothered."

“It's not bothering me at all. Our ward is friendly like this with everyone. Professor Kawee has trained us well.” She smiled sweetly as the doctor nodded his head thinking that he had never felt that he was this important before.

“Then I really appreciated this. Oh... You can call me Doctor Aun. You don't have to call me by my full name. If you need any helps, please tell me."

"Yes... Doctor Aun, then I'll go take care of the patient. If there’s anything, you can call me." She said before bowing slightly and walking out of the room.

Leaning back on the chair, the doctor let out a long sigh and drank a cup of coffee to quench his thirst. Then he almost choked out because the coffee tasted so bitter. The nurse had served him black coffee with separated sugar and cream to add because she still didn't know how he liked his coffee. Doctor Aun thrust a bite-sized jam roll into his mouth to sweep away the bitterness and made the coffee as he liked. He sneaked a glance at the corner of the empty room.

The doctor prayed for it to be really empty with nothing there like his dream.