My mother died when I was 12 years old. It was the single most traumatic experience of my life, and I’d be lying if I said I’ve gotten over it. But that isn’t what has affected me most lately.
Whenever a parent dies, most people just talk about the death itself. There’s a lot of “how” and “when”, but not a lot of “then what happened?”. It is that lasting legacy of what happens afterwards that really marks you for life.
As my dad had to pick up extra hours to make ends meet, I had to help take care of my sisters. At that age, I barely made my own bed. Now I had to cook and bug my sisters about taking their showers. My younger sisters were far more depressed than I was. I didn’t have time to be depressed; I had shit to do.
So now, as an adult, I can kinda see that I got stuck in that rut. I’m still taking care of people. Maybe I’m afraid of what’ll happen if I stop.
Originally, I wanted to be a doctor, but we just couldn’t afford that kind of education. I considered studying abroad, but my sisters still needed me long into their teenage years. Instead I studied to become a nurse, which was the cheaper option. No less work though, just slightly cheaper.
Once my sisters and I moved out, I got my own place, and I bounced around various hospitals and nursery homes around the state. I’ve worked at a rehab clinic, an open clinic, as an in-home nurse… all kinds of positions. I had eight different jobs all in all, changing back and forth between them as one closed and another opened.
But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I saw an opportunity for a stable job. The biggest hospital in my home area had an opening for a nurse in the maternity ward. While I hadn’t worked there before, I knew most of the procedures around the LDR rooms and the NICU unit. Sorry, I’ll stop with the abbreviations.
I got my first interview just days after the wanted ad went up. I was called in to talk with two of the nurses and one of the doctors. I could tell it was sort of rushed, and it all seemed like a bit of a formality. By the way they acted, I figured they could really use the help right away. Especially Dr.Gellen, who never even sat down. She was asking me questions while still pacing around the room.
Surprise surprise, I got the job!
Starting Monday the following week, I got my first tour of the place. The first few weeks I would mostly act as a helping hand while they figured out a more static position for me. In the meantime I’d be moving from nurse to nurse, assisting them one by one. I didn’t really have any responsibility of my own, at first.
The first few days I spent with Dr.Gellen, helping out in the LDR. I have pretty good bedside manners, and several expecting mothers were happy to have me distract them from whatever they were going through. I also had to run a few tests, sit in on ultrasounds, and help deliver some bad news. I don’t want to go into details, but pregnancy isn’t always this amazing and beautiful thing.
After a few days, I helped out in the reception. Then, at the emergency room. And so on, and so on.
After about a month of working there, I had been pretty much everywhere but the nursery. You know the fancy room with the glass windows where newborns rest up. I had seen it in passing once, but it was sort of off-limits to newbies like me. There’s a lot you must be aware of when working with someone that helpless.
It was when I was assisting nurse Rina that I finally took my first steps into the nursery. It was this large square room with several units lining the walls. Well-lit, with cheerful colors. It was empty when we went in there, having been cleared out for a proper spring cleaning, so it was a bit eerie.
“We usually have half a dozen or so in here at a time,” said Rina. “A few more around August and September.”
I was a bit distracted. I kept hearing this strange noise.
“You with me?” she asked. “What did I just say?”
“Sorry,” I sighed. “There’s this noise…”
“There’s gonna be plenty of noise,” she groaned. “You better get used to it.”
“No, it’s like…”
It was hard to describe. It seemed to come from the center of the room. Some sort of machine noise. A broken vent?
“…a thump. Some kind of machine,” I continued.
“Focus. What did I say?”
Ka-ka-ka-chung. Ka-ka-ka-chung. Ka-ka-ka-chung.
It was there. Somewhere in the middle of the room. But what was it?
”Sorry,” I smiled. ”One more time?”
As we left the room, the noise stayed in the back of my mind. It felt familiar somehow. But from where?
The following days, things were getting busy. About half the patients we received had either some sort of condition or were oddly particular about their care. One woman had her partner sing-scream some kind of poem, for example. They had to be escorted out of the room. Another woman refused to have her baby without her favorite plant on the bedside table. Never seen a blue sunflower before. Never saw the kid either, for that matter.
I was still assisting Rina in the nursery, and I got the opportunity to spend some time alone in that room. Even days later, the sound persisted. It was low, more like a hum, but it was definitely there.
Ka-ka-ka-chung. Ka-ka-ka-chung.
I thought it might be a heating issue, but I couldn’t locate where it was coming from. I suspected the ceiling, but it had this strange echo to it that made it just as prominent near the floor.
Strange.
At one point, we had five kids in the nursery at the same time. Rina had the main responsibility, but she took me along every now and then just to quiz me and see how well I fared on my own. But now that there were little patients in there, she had no tolerance for mistakes or hesitation.
One Friday night, as I was working the evening shift, I went into the nursery to roll out one of the children. Rina was already halfway down the hall, calling out to Dr.Gellen, so I had this short moment completely alone with all five kids.
The lights were a bit dimmer, and at first I didn’t notice anything. But after a few seconds, I could hear that sound again.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
But there was something else. As I looked around the room, I could see all the kids breathing in sync with the sound. Little chests heaving up and down.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
I gently pushed one of the units, accidentally waking up my little patient. As she stirred, she let out a soft cry, and for a moment, my mind blanked. I was just standing there, in the middle of the room, and it felt like I was about to do something. And the machine noise was louder than ever. The kids were stirring.
Maybe they could hear it too?
It started to bother me. I asked a whole bunch of staff about it, but no one seemed to have any idea of what I was even talking about. If anything, the nursery was the quietest room in the entire ward. It had to be; you don’t want to wake the patients. So when I started rambling about machine noises, they all just sort of tuned out. Even Dr.Gellen.
Even after my time with nurse Rina was up, I started coming back to the nursery every now and then. Sometimes, on my lunch break, I’d just stand there and listen; trying to find the source of the sound.
That’s actually how I got started here on reddit. I started asking other medical professionals what that noise could be, and no one had a clear idea. I tried recording it, but it just wouldn’t stick. Also, it is generally frowned upon to stand with a cellphone in the nursery, recording what could be a video. Big no-no.
I went back over and over again, and it actually landed me in a bit of trouble. I had a private meeting with Dr.Gellen, who tried their best to understand my strange fascination with the nursery. Finally, I had to agree to leave my phone in my locker.
I didn’t go back there for a long time, but it was inevitable. The nursery is somewhat central to the entire ward, and you have to actively avoid it to never pass it.
One night, as I was passing the glass window, I stopped to listen. But that time, I had a good reason.
There were four kids in there, and they were the first thing I heard; not the strange machine noise. The kids were crying, but they were crying in unison. Short bursts of screams. It was rhythmic, in a way. I stopped to listen, and my mind immediately return to the noise. I was sure that if I stepped inside, I’d hear the noise again.
The kids.
They were screaming in unison with the sound.
I could feel it.
And that was just the start. I could start ‘feeling it’ even at home. I’d get frustrated whenever I heard my washing machine, as it was out of sync with the sound that haunted the back of my mind.
Ka-ka-ka-chung. Ka-ka-ka-chung.
Every rhythmic noise I heard just seemed ‘off’ by comparison. It bothered me just how stuck that sound was, and I still had no idea what it was. And where had I heard it before?
It came to a point where I sat up all night, listening to a four-hour recording of a construction site. Nothing. Nothing sounded like that goddamned machine.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
At the end of a particularly long shift, as I was changing into my ordinary clothes, I stopped to listen to the hum of a fluorescent light in the bathroom. I could almost hear the rhythm of the electricity, and right there, behind my eyelids, was that rhythmic thumping again. I held my breath, and it felt like the sound was growing louder. I could feel my pulse go up. Why was I getting angry? Or was it fear?
But it was real. The sound was real. The longer I closed my eyes, the clearer it was.
With my eyes closed, I turned my head. The sound changed pitch.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
There. A direction where it was louder than ever. Loud enough to change the beat of my heart.
It was coming from the nursery.
Goddamn it.
I slammed my locker shut and hurried out. I had to get to the bottom of this. The sound was so prominent that I could just close my eyes, and it’d be there. It was beating in rhythm with my heart.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
I didn’t care about anyone seeing me. I had to find out what it was.
As I burst into the nursery, the newborns woke up. There were seven of them in total. One by one, they started screaming. A steady, rhythmic scream. How had no one noticed this? How was I the only one?
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
Scream.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
Scream.
It wasn’t a pained scream; more like a chant. This… primal, instinctual grunt-scream. Almost melancholic. The sound grew louder, and my chest was pounding harder and harder. I thought I was having a heart attack. My fingers were aching, like someone was slowly turning my nerves counter-clockwise. I didn’t even realize it at first, but I was screaming too.
To the rhythm of the grinding machine.
I closed my eyes as hard as I could, trying to force the sound out of my head. Instead, it became clearer. And there, in the dark of my closed eyelids, I could finally see.
It was a strange feeling, looking around the room with closed eyes. There were lines of beetles on the floor, reaching from the unit of every newborn to a spot in the middle of the room. It was clear as day, despite the darkness of my closed eyes. Black and grey beetles, marching to the rhythm of the machine, carrying little globs of white.
And in the middle of the room, was the source of the noise.
From the side, it didn’t look like much. It was sort of a pipe, with a faint yellow shine. It was about three feet wide, positioned in the center of the room. Line after line of beetles dove into it, the little globs of white falling out of their mouths.
Despite my body screaming for me to get away, to get out, to take a breath… I had to look. With my eyes closed, I crawled forward.
I looked down the pipe.
It is strange not being able to close your eyes to make something go away. When you watch a scary movie, you can turn away. You can hide behind a pillow. But looking down that pipe, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t turn away, and my eyes were already closed.
It is hard to describe.
It was deep. Impossibly deep. Somewhere, miles below, there was a fire so bright that it burned my closed eyes. I could barely see it, shrouded behind hundreds of cogwheels, chains, live wires, and steam pipes. I just stared, watching the little beetles tumble over the edge, bumping against the absurd machinery. I could hear the little clicks and clacks of their shells as they struck the moving parts.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
Something was moving. Something organic. Something living. There were hands reaching towards me. Hands getting burned on steaming pipes. Getting mangled by cogwheels. But still, it kept coming upwards.
I hadn’t even realized that I’d stopped breathing. I’d held my breath for so long that I was getting light-headed. I was being pulled away from the center of the room, away from the machine. Something pushed against my back, forcing air back into my lungs. There was a distant voice.
Two people were carrying me. My eyes opened, and I could see the nursery with my open eyes again.
All seven kids were lying on the floor, outside of their units. They were screaming at the top of their lungs, just like me.
They heard it. I heard it. But somehow, I think they knew more about it than I did.
I was carried away. They tried to get me to breathe again, but it was like my body forgot how to do it. It wasn’t until I got a mask over my face, forcing air into my mouth, that I snapped back to reality. My heart was hammering away so fast and hard that my head hurt. I had no feeling in my hands, and both my feet had fallen asleep. My face was burning hot.
Dr.Gellen was shining a light in my eyes, but it felt so far away.
For a split second, I blinked.
And there, in the darkness, I sensed something. It was a different shade of dark. It had followed me here. It was so impossibly tall, able to cross the room in just a few steps.
As it reached for me, beetles tumbled onto my chest. Little globs of white getting ripped from my chest.
Then, nothing.
I must have passed out.
They say it was some kind of psychotic episode. Hyperventilation, seizures… it didn’t look good. I could no longer be around the children, so they were gonna have to either fire me or find somewhere else for me to go.
It took me two days to recover, and I was so scared to close my eyes that they had to give me eye drops. My hands cramped from grasping the side of the bed, terrified of being picked up, or pulled away in the middle of the night. At times, I could almost feel the little beetles crawling over me, picking globs of shining white out of me. Sometimes, I felt the presence of something in the room.
Even with closed eyes, I was scared to look. Some things can’t be unseen.
I was going to have a short interview with Dr.Gellen about the incident, but he was swamped that day. Instead, I got to talk to the chief physician, an older man who was a full head shorter than me.
He asked me several questions about my medical history and my experience. It didn’t really lead anywhere. That is, until we started rounding off the interview. As I read my social security number to him, to make sure he had my insurance info, he stopped.
“Where you born in the area?” he asked.
“I guess,” I said. “You can tell?”
“The area number” he nodded. “It is quite unique. There are three hospitals that cover that area, but two didn’t have fully staffed maternity wards at the time you were born.”
Handing my papers back to me, he gave me a long look.
“You were born here, in this hospital, weren’t you?” he asked.
I had no idea, but it made sense. Mom had lived in this town all her life. I just nodded.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he just looked at me and sighed. Without a word, the meeting ended.
The following week, I lost my job. While one could think it was because of my psychotic meltdown, I’m pretty sure it was because of that meeting with the chief physician. I think he knows something.
If I had been born there, maybe I’d been in that room long, long ago. Before I could even form memories.
But if so, how could that noise sound so familiar?
This was a few months ago, but I’m still looking for answers. That, and I think I’m going insane. I can still hear the click-clacking of little beetles falling to their deaths, and if I concentrate hard enough I can hear the machine.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.
It is not a memory. It is always there. I think there’s a piece of me down there, inside it, still connected. Something listening, from the inside.
Something that… hurts.
Little globs of white.
I don’t know what to make of this. I just want it out of my head. Somedays I can distract myself enough not to hear it, but other days I can barely hear myself talk. It is always there, no matter what. It is like a rhythmic, haunting tinnitus. But I know there’s more to it.
Sometimes, as I close my eyes, I can still see a faint glow in the distance. Sometimes not even in the direction of the hospital. Sometimes it is closer. Sometimes it has eyes.
But the sound is the same. Always the same.
Ka-ka-ka-chung.