The Night Shift Nurse Who Knew Too Much

At 3:27 in the morning, I heard the sound of coins falling from Ward 302 for the sixth time. This shouldn't happen - Mrs. Margaret, a patient in the late stage of Alzheimer's, stopped swallowing reflex last week, let alone playing her favorite coin tossing game. Amid the regular heartbeat of the monitor, I felt the abnormal temperature of the intravenous infusion tube, 37.8 degrees Celsius, as accurate as a constant temperature box.

"New here?" The old head nurse who had been on night shift for 30 years suddenly appeared at the door of the pharmacy. She wore a wedding ring on her left ring finger that didn't fit her size, and there were fresh scratches on the metal edge. "Remember, don't change the sheets for bed 17, the child is allergic to fiber dust."

I looked down at the shift schedule, and there was no bed number 17 in the entire hospital.

The smell of disinfectant suddenly became sticky. When I pushed open the door of Room 302, Mrs. Margaret was sitting by the bay window folding paper cranes, and the moonlight made her hands covered with age spots almost transparent. The glass on the bedside table was frosted, and there were three rusty coins in it, all dated 2024 - but this year is clearly 2023.

"They use our dreams as fuel." The old lady suddenly turned her head, her pupils glowing an unnatural silver-gray, and handed me a paper crane. When it was unfolded, it was a yellowed copy of the Boston Globe. Behind the headmaster who was cutting the ribbon in the headline photo, stood twenty women who looked like the old head nurse.

The creaking sound of a trolley bed came from the corridor. When I flashed into the storage room, I knocked over a box of medicine bottles marked "Vitamin D3". The falling pills glowed faintly in the shadows, and each pill had a micro QR code engraved on the back. The mobile phone scan showed an encrypted live stream: At this moment in the dean's office, seventeen display screens were synchronously monitoring the dreams of each elderly person.

"Found you." The old head nurse's voice suddenly exploded from the intercom, and there was a roar similar to a particle collider in the background sound. I rushed to the emergency passage clutching the paper crane that was beginning to heat up in my pocket. The thermometer on the fire door handle showed minus 18 degrees Celsius, and the sound of waves could be heard from behind the door.

(Is the camera indicator light on your mobile phone flickering slightly when no one is operating it? It is recommended to check whether there is a 17-second blank clip in the call records of the last 48 hours. Don't worry, it's just a story - probably.)