my r/nosleep favorites | volume one

Three girls came into my ER last night.

Three girls came into my ER last night. I have no idea what they are and I am violating the shit out of HIPAA right now.
by somenurse193433

So I've been working at the same hospital for years now as a nurse in the ER. I've seen a lot of things, all kinds of horrific shit, blood and gore and just about every household item you can think of inserted into some guy's rectum. I've seen limbs ripped off, I've seen intestines coming out... almost ten years working in an ER and you're going to see a lot. You're going to be hard to shake.

But last night something happened, some girls came in, and I've never been scared like this. I've never had that feeling of I have no fucking idea what's going on with this patient the way I have with these three girls.

It was a sad, fucked up story to begin with. One of those men who gets off kidnapping girls and keeping them prisoner in his basement or his garden shed. Real sicko. But those poor three girls were found and rescued and brought right to us.

Now, my hospital isn't that big. There's about five of us who've been trained to take a rape kit, and there were two of us on duty for that last night. Me, and this new nurse named Laura. She's maybe been with us six months. We were both paged to a set of examination rooms that were made up special for such a horrific occasion, put aside so they're a little more private. They're subtly different, the assault victim rooms. A little less sterile, a little more comfortable. With a few extra chairs for the cops to sit in while they interview the victim.

I expected reporters and wackos to be everywhere. But by the time the girls were brought into the exam rooms, it was all just whispers and gossip. Those poor girls, pulled out of some pervert's garage. Those poor girls, they can't even talk. Who knows if they're even from here. Maybe they're international sex slaves, one of the other nurses suggested to me, as I passed by her on my way to do my first exam.

After examining them each, one by one, I have made the following observations:

None of them seem capable of speech or of making any noise. They can communicate with simple gestures, but I don't even know if any of them are literate.

They all have the same eyes. I don't mean the same eye color. I mean that, looking them in the eyes, you get the feeling that you're looking at the same person you just saw in the last room. They're blue with flecks of grey, and I swear that all of them have the same exact patterns of fleck.

They all have an identical bump on their back, between their shoulder blades that, in my professional medical opinion, is weird as fuck. It could be some kind of congenital condition or birth defect, or a repetitive strain injury (for example, if they've been forced to balance something on their shoulders or to hold a certain position for long periods of time).

They are all losing hair at an alarming rate. Merely laying back to allow me to do a pelvic exam (more on that later) made each of them lose handfuls of hair on the bed. Could be from malnutrition, Vitamin D deficiencies, or other... or so I thought, until their blood work came back.

They are in perfect health, have not been drugged, are not dehydrated or malnourished. Even though they have the paleness and pallor of women who've been kept hidden for years, none of them have the corresponding vitamin deficiencies or health problems. It seems impossible to me that any of these women were held hostage for any length of time. They're probably healthier than I am, and I've had access to health care and the ability to go outside a dank little garage.

This is where it gets weird. They have no visible genitalia. That's right, that's what I said. Each time I went to perform a pelvic exam, I saw the same thing: nothing. No vaginas, no labias, nothing. And, might I add, no anus. They look like Barbie dolls, except Barbie dolls might be a little more detailed.

Laura and I met up in the middle of the rooms and took a little break in a supply closet to frantically whisper about these women and what we're supposed to do.

"What are they?" and "why do they look like that?" and "but what about their digestive systems" were all perfectly valid things that the young, inexperienced nurse asked me that I, the old pro, was supposed to be able to answer. But I was even more lost than she was.

"What I want to know is what that pervert was keeping them for," I couldn't help but voice the thing that'd been bothering me. Had he done this to them? Some kind of sick experiments in cosmetic surgery? Was it some kind of Human Centipede attempt that we thankfully interrupted in time?

"Should we get someone from gastroenterology up here?" Laura asked. "What if he sewed up their digestive systems?"

It wasn't right, though. There was no scar tissue, no sign of a recent operation, and if they'd been like that any longer than a day or two there would be plenty of evidence in their blood of the toxins building up in their bodies.

Nothing made sense. "No," I told her. "I'm going to try to communicate with them one more time before we decide on a course of action."

I left Laura amid the blankets and towels, folded and stacked helpfully on shelves, and went back toward the assault suite. I passed at least five police officers on the way. Did they know? I couldn't help but wonder. Did they know that these weren't normal victims?

I knocked quietly before letting myself into one of the rooms, and I heard someone stop talking just as I entered. The girl was still sitting on the bed - black hair, longer than I remembered it being, with vaguely Asian features. Her eyes were bluer than I remembered.

"My name is Claire," I told her. "I'm the nurse who examined you. Do you understand English?" I asked, and my only response was a solemn nod of her head.

"Can you speak?" I asked.

She neither shook her head nor nodded; she just stared at me with those blue eyes swirling with flecks of grey.

"Where are you from?" I asked her again, but only got that same response. "How old are you?" Again, nothing.

"You have some physical abnormalities. Have you ever been seen by a doctor before?" I asked her. No response, but the way she looked at me seemed to change somehow. I sensed a flicker of hostility. Anger, maybe. Or resentment.

It was not a professional question to ask, but my mouth formed the words before I could stop myself.

"Are you a human being?"

The girl's mouth dropped open, almost too far open, and no sound came from her but from all around us there was screaming, erupting from all sides. There was a commotion in the hall as the police officers ran to the other victims, the ones screaming now for no reason other than the question I'd asked the only one of them that was still silent.

The next twenty minutes or so after that was a blur, but I know that I got up and I left the hospital immediately. I don't even think I clocked out. I didn't even grab my bag, didn't give a shit about my post-shift cigarette. I'm probably fired right now but I can't go back.

They're still not on the news. I don't know if they ever will be. I don't know if the cops know what they're dealing with, but I'm sure not going to be the one who tells them.

I can't stop thinking about it, though. What are they? And what if they weren't the victims?