C1 The Doctor

For ten years I worked for the asylum, only one patient troubles me. He always says that he is the doctor, and tries to force pills down my throat.

His name is Patient 47, or at least that’s what the charts still call him. Everyone else just calls him “the Doctor” behind his back, half-joking, half-afraid. I’ve been a night-shift orderly at Blackthorn Psychiatric Hospital since 2015. The pay is decent, the hours are quiet, and most patients are either sedated or too lost in their own heads to cause real trouble. But not him.

Every single night, without fail, he waits for me.

I first noticed him during my third week on the job. I was doing the 2 a.m. med round on Ward C when I reached his room. The observation window was fogged from the inside. Through the mist I saw him sitting perfectly upright on the edge of his bed, wearing the standard gray patient gown, hands folded politely in his lap. His eyes were wide open, calm, and far too clear for someone who was supposed to be heavily medicated.

When I slid the small plastic cup of pills through the slot, he smiled gently and said in a warm, professional voice:

“Thank you, nurse. But those are for the patients. I’m the doctor here.”

I laughed it off at the time. Delusions of grandeur are common in places like Blackthorn. I told him to take his medication and moved on. He didn’t argue. He simply watched me walk away, that same polite smile never leaving his face.

By the sixth month, the jokes stopped being funny.

He began timing his outbursts exactly when I was on duty. The moment I stepped onto the ward, I would hear his voice echoing down the corridor, calm and authoritative:

“Nurse, we need to review the charts. Several patients are showing signs of over-sedation.”

Security would find him standing at the reinforced glass, pressing his palms against it, repeating the same phrases with terrifying patience. When they finally opened the slot to give him his pills, he would refuse them politely and instead try to push the cup back toward whoever was on the other side.

“For you,” he would say softly. “You look exhausted. These will help you sleep.”

Most staff learned to avoid him. They’d trade shifts or call in sick rather than deal with Ward C on nights when I was rostered. But I couldn’t avoid him. I needed the overtime.

Then the dreams started.

In the dreams, I was the one wearing the gray gown. I was strapped to a cold metal bed while Patient 47 stood over me in a crisp white coat, clipboard in hand. His face was kind, concerned, exactly like a real doctor’s should be.

“You’ve been very ill,” he would say, voice soothing. “But don’t worry. I’m here to help.”

He would produce a small white pill between gloved fingers and lean close. No matter how hard I thrashed or screamed, the pill always found its way between my lips. The taste was bitter, metallic, like swallowing rust and regret. I would wake up choking, heart pounding, convinced I could still feel it dissolving on my tongue.

I started checking the medication logs obsessively. Every pill I gave him was accounted for. Every dose was signed off by the actual doctors during daytime rounds. Yet every night he somehow had a fresh supply of identical white tablets hidden somewhere in his room. The nurses swore they never gave him extras. The cameras showed nothing unusual — just him sitting calmly, waiting.

One night in late October, the power flickered during a storm. For eleven minutes, the entire east wing went dark. Backup generators should have kicked in immediately, but they didn’t. When the lights finally returned, I found Patient 47 standing outside his room in the corridor. The electronic lock on his door was somehow disengaged. He was wearing my spare uniform jacket over his gown.

He looked at me with genuine pity.

“You’ve been working too hard, my friend. Let me take over for a while. You need rest.”

I radioed for backup, voice shaking. By the time two security guards arrived, he was back inside his room, sitting politely on the bed as if nothing had happened. The jacket was gone. The door was locked again. The guards thought I was losing it.

That was the night the pills started appearing in my pockets.

I would reach in for my keys and feel the smooth plastic of a medication cup. Inside were always two small white tablets. No note. No explanation. Just the pills, still warm, as if freshly dispensed.

I threw them away the first few times. Then I started finding them in my locker, inside my lunchbox, even tucked under the visor of my car. Once, I woke up in the staff break room with one already dissolving under my tongue. I spat it out, gagging, but the bitter taste lingered for hours.

I began avoiding Ward C altogether. I begged the supervisor for a transfer to the geriatric wing. She looked at me strangely and said Patient 47 had specifically requested me by name during the last review meeting. When I asked how a patient could attend a review meeting, she just shrugged and said the daytime doctors found him “remarkably cooperative and insightful.”

Last week, things got worse.

I arrived for my shift to find my name crossed out on the roster and replaced with a handwritten note in neat, medical handwriting:

“Nurse on duty tonight: Dr. Patient 47. Orderly required for assistance.”

I laughed nervously until I reached Ward C. Every other patient on the floor was unusually quiet. Some were standing at their doors, staring out with wide, vacant eyes. When I looked closer, I realized they were all trying to speak, but no sound came out. Their mouths opened and closed like fish, silently forming the same words over and over:

“I’m the doctor.”

I turned to run, but the corridor lights began to dim one by one, as if someone was walking toward me and turning them off deliberately. At the far end, Patient 47 stood waiting in the darkness, wearing a pristine white coat that definitely wasn’t hospital issue. It fit him perfectly.

He extended his hand. In his palm rested a small white pill.

“Come now,” he said gently, voice full of professional kindness. “You’ve been very ill for a long time. Ten years of denial is quite enough. It’s time to take your medicine.”

I backed away until I hit the wall. My legs gave out and I slid to the floor. He approached slowly, never breaking eye contact.

“You’ve been an excellent orderly,” he continued. “Very dedicated. But you’re not well. You think you work here. You think I’m the patient. That’s a classic symptom.”

He knelt beside me, one hand gently tilting my chin up. His fingers were ice-cold.

“I’ve been trying to help you for ten years. Every night. Every shift. But you keep refusing treatment.”

With his other hand he brought the pill closer. I could smell it now — that same metallic bitterness from my dreams.

“Open wide,” he whispered, almost lovingly. “This will make everything clear.”

I tried to scream, but my throat had closed. I tried to fight, but my arms felt heavy, as though I’d already taken a dozen doses. As the pill touched my lips, I heard footsteps echoing down the corridor — other orderlies, other nurses, all coming to assist.

They were all wearing gray gowns now.

Patient 47 smiled as he finally forced the pill between my teeth.

“Welcome back to the ward,” he said softly. “I’m the doctor here. And you… you’ve always been my favorite patient.”

The last thing I remember before the darkness took me was the taste of rust and regret flooding my mouth, and the gentle, professional voice repeating the same sentence I had heard every night for ten years:

“For ten years I worked for the asylum, only one patient troubles me…”