The Patient in Room 13

Prologue: The Midnight Admission

St. Ignatius Hospital - Classified Admission Log

*"12:14 AM - Male Caucasian, severe radiation-type burns (pattern matches 1945 Trinity test subjects). Delivered by unmarked military vehicle. Patient screaming in backwards English until sedation. Notable anomalies:

No detectable pulse or respiration

Skin temperature 112°F (internal)

Burns regenerate during observation

Assigned to Quarantine Wing Room 13 per Project Bluebook Protocol 9."*

The first night I worked the cancer ward, Nurse Wilkins pulled me aside. Her hands trembled around a rosary wrapped in lead foil.

"Room 13's patient was here when my grandmother worked this floor," she whispered. "He's not human. That thing in his chest? It's learning."

At 3:33 AM, the heart monitor flatlined.

And the screaming began in sixteen voices at once.

Chapter 1: The Impossible Autopsies

Declassified MKUltra Addendum (1953)

*"Subject Gamma-9 demonstrates:

Cellular regeneration surpassing planarian worms

Spontaneous uranium excretion through sweat glands

'Foreign mechanical presence' in thoracic cavity

Termination attempts failed (see Appendix D: 'The Albuquerque Incident'). Recommend indefinite containment as radiological hazard."*

The medical charts read like a nightmare:

1947: First admission. Skin sloughing off in sheets, regrowing by dawn.

1972: Attempted cremation. Morgue cameras showed him reassembling in the ashes.

2020: MRI revealed the truth—his ribcage contained a miniature plutonium core suspended in a web of blackened brass filaments. The technician who saw it swallowed a bullet that evening.

Yet here he lay—charred lips moving soundlessly, fingers plucking at his restraints.

"Morphine..." the air itself seemed to whisper. "Just one dose..."

When I reached for the IV bag, Wilkins grabbed my wrist. The patient's heart monitor showed a flatline—but through his burns, I could see something pulsing.

Chapter 2: The Night Shift Protocols

Project Bluebook - Containment Procedures

"1. Salt/silver alloy lining all doorframes (replenish q4h)

2. No metallic instruments (induces 'awakening')

3. Mandatory Geiger counter checks (alert at >3.6 roentgen)

4. ABSOLUTE MORATORIUM ON OPIOIDS (triggers 'bloom event')"

By my third week, I'd learned the rhythms:

3:33 AM: The flatline. The screaming. The visitors emerging from the walls—shadowy figures in 1940s radiation suits.

Full Moons: His burns would split open, revealing gears made of an unknown black metal.

Code Blacks: The only code called without overhead announcement. Just the sound of lead-lined curtains being drawn.

The old janitor showed me the basement archive—Polaroids dating back to the 40s, each showing Patient X with different hospital staff.

All the staff in the photos had the same hollow eyes.

All eventually died of "acute radiation poisoning."

Chapter 3: The Demon Core Connection

Los Alamos Incident Report - May 1945

*"Gamma-9 exposure: Scientist Louis Slotin exposed Subject to demon core plutonium sphere for 17 minutes via screwdriver wedge. Subject walked away complaining of 'sunburn.' 48hrs later:

Slotin dead (radiation poisoning)

Subject vanished from quarantine

Security footage shows Subject absorbing the screwdriver"*

Dr. Singh, the only surviving surgeon to operate on Patient X, chain-smoked through his story:

"We opened him in '92," he said, ashes trembling off his cigarette. "His ribs were... gears. Turning without touching. And the core—" He grabbed my pen, sketching a black sphere with protruding rods. "It's still critical. The morphine doesn't ease his pain. It fuels the reaction."

Above us, the PA crackled:

"Code Black, Room 13. All personnel evacuate Wing B."

A sound no civilian hospital should recognize.

A sound that meant "it's awake."

Chapter 4: The Bargain

Security Footage Analysis - Room 13

"03:33:17 - Patient sits upright (restraints intact)

03:33:29 - Medical equipment floats in anti-gravity spiral

03:33:45 - 'Visitors' emerge from walls (radiation suits now fused with flesh)

03:34:01 - Feed terminates with 9-frame image of Subject's thoracic cavity exposed"

The syringe of morphine glowed blue in my hand.

Patient X's jaw unhinged vertically, his voice coming from the walls, the floor, inside my skull:

"One dose...and I'll tell you what we found in the New Mexico desert...what really crashed at Roswell..."

Nurse Wilkins tackled me as the first tendril of black metal emerged from his sternum.

"That's not pain relief!" she screamed. "It's priming the pump!"

Behind us, the visitors raised their arms in unison.

Their lead-lined gloves had melted into their skin.

Epilogue: The New Vessel

CDC Quarantine Notice - Current

"St. Ignatius Wing B sealed following radiological event. All staff rotated to new assignments except Nurse J. Carter (missing) and Dr. R. Singh (retired)."

They found Wilkins in the parking lot—her skin blistering with strange metallic boils.

Patient X's room sits empty.

But sometimes at 3:33 AM, the heart monitor activates by itself.

If you're foolish enough to peek inside, you'll see:

The bed restraints torn by something from within

The walls whispering in Geiger-counter clicks

The hollow where a human-shaped mold peeled itself outward

The morphine's gone from the pharmacy.

And the new night shift doctor?

He's asking very specific questions about Oppenheimer's "unfinished work."