The following story/stories have been either submitted by one of my readers or found on other websites.
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I was temporarily appointed to guard a sick prisoner in the district headquarters hospital. I liked this duty because it was just for 8 hours daily while my usual is 12 straight hours and secondly It was calm and nice.
I’d just sit there on a bench in the hospital ward and read some old newspaper or have a looksie at those nurses. Got nothing to complain about.
Everything was fine and alright, except the very person I was guarding.
The old patient. He was tall and thin, old and feeble. I don’t know what was he diagnosed with but he was just a skeleton underneath the skin. Big bald head, eyes popped out the sockets, mouth wide open. It was torture to witness him taking vaccines. No muscle at all on limbs or butt cheeks.
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He was indeed enduring the worst phase of his life. You’d never find him asleep. Strangely… I never felt that pity or sadness for him, which I usually would for others. He was something else. I used to think while looking at him… “he’s not here, he is not looking at this front wall but some other realm waiting for his acceptance or approval. He’s damned and cursed”. I know this sounds strange.
There was something astoundingly creepy about him, I am telling you.
Anyway…
I used to sit beside this man for 8 hours from 4 pm till midnight. He would not move or talk to anyone. He wouldn’t feel anything, He wouldn’t look around at all! Just a straight constant gaze on the front wall.
It was my fourth day there. I was tired and filled with boredom, waiting for the next guard as the clock was saying midnight. There was complete silence and inactivity in the ward. To kill the boredom, I picked a magazine and tried reading it again.
Barely a few minutes passed and I felt sudden discomfort of some sort.
I raised my head and found that the old man’s head is turned towards me and he was staring at me.
