Waiting Room Shifting Novels & Stories

I understood it late, however, I was still regretting all the mess I caused. By four forty we hear Chelsea's name. We both smile in relief. We used to be patient, but a waiting room with women complaining that they couldn't sleep, talking about leaking fluids due to the pressure they felt in their bladders, was not something a first-time woman wanted to hear... nor me, if we are going to be honest.

All I could do was wait. Time continued to drag on and my thoughts turned to the worst-case scenario. What if Deangelo didn't make it? The thought was too much to bear. I tried to push it from my mind, to focus on the present moment, but it was difficult. Soon enough, the pack rushed in while I was anxiously waiting for news about Deangelo's condition and I couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed by the number of people who had arrived to see him. The waiting room was instantly filled with a buzz of wails and solemness as friends, family, and even staff from the house all trooped in.

"Everyone's the hero of their own story." She had a point. "So they think." Within minutes, everything was set up and ready to go. The only thing we had to do now was wait. I stared out the window, waiting for the first patients to arrive. In the compound, everyone behaved as if it were any typical day. Shifters walked back and forth, and the late morning practices were winding down. Bailey walked up beside me. "To me, this is the hardest part." "What?" "Waiting for the patients to come in." She let out a deep breath. "During WWII, we were often waiting for casualties as well as injuries to come in. But at least with shifters, casualties were far and few between."

She left me standing there alone, feeling like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The waiting room was cold and sterile, nothing like the private lounges I was used to at our company. Over here, the chairs were stiff and the world was painted with an indifferent shade of white. Time didn't move normally there, instead it crawled. I tried to see it but after two minutes I stood up again to my feet. Moving back and forth felt better to me even if my legs were shaking. I ran a hand over my face as I pressed my palms together so hard that my knuckles cracked.

Three weeks into his stay at Mercy General, Charles had a routine, though no one had taught it to him. He woke before the nurses' shift change, watched the gray dawn climb over the parking structure across the street, and waited. He didn't know what he was waiting for. He only knew the waiting felt like the only thing he was sure of.

Dante's Pov The waiting room had four plastic chairs and a vending machine that hummed too loudly. We had been there for thirty minutes. Valerie was beside me with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the middle distance. She was not pacing. She was not checking her phone. She was just sitting with the particular stillness that meant she was managing something significant and had decided this was not the place to do it publicly. "The asset transfers," I said. Not to start a conversation. Just to have something in the air.

DOWNTOWN MEDICAL CENTER – TWO HOURS LATER The hospital waiting room smelled like hand sanitizer and pure panic. White walls. Bright lights buzzing overhead. Hard plastic chairs that made your back ache after five minutes. Valentina sat squeezed in the corner, hands twisting in her lap like she was trying to wring out her own nerves. Her knees bounced up and down so fast they looked like they had their own heartbeat. Amelia sat on her left, calm but tight-lipped.

I said to them. “Uh, I think we should move to the waiting area. Our voices may be slipping into the theatre and it might be distracting for them.” Cynthia said softly, patting my back. I nodded in agreement. Together, all five of us left for the waiting area. There was a left and right wing of seats arranged in rows in the waiting area. The entire left wing got deserted the closer we got, and people who were in the waiting area suddenly broke out into side conversations. I could catch traces of my name popping up in their conversation.

She let that sit for a second, then reached over and squeezed his knee once before he pulled out of the space. The waiting room, when they got there, was nothing like the ones he was used to — brighter, louder, a scattering of couples in every stage of the same process, a toddler running determined laps around the chair legs while a woman clearly past her due date watched with the exhausted patience of someone counting down actual days on her fingers. Zachary sat with his hands in his pockets, looking faintly displaced, like a man who'd wandered into the wrong building and was too polite to leave.

"They adjusted to blueprint inclines, not environmental current." Other times the plan fails—because it wasn't taught to hear. In application, being able to tell the difference is where adaptation begins. --- 7:41 AM — Mobile Clinic Wing, Sector E Convergence Hub The tented hallway unfolded outward like a flower stem, its termini staggered to take sun and shade. Within, volunteers worked in pairs: one reading vitals, the other re-adjusting oxygen levels. A nurse gave Elira a nod of explanation. "We've gone to rotating waitlists—too many kept coming in unscheduled."