UNKNOWN LOCATION, VALE – 27 JULY 2021: SUBJECT SANDRA

Sandra Fomina woke in a white room. A blurry substance dripped into the vein of her right arm through an IV line. She yanked the needle free, pressed her thumb firmly against the puncture site, and eased herself upright, flexing her elbow to stem the bleeding. Her head spun; nausea churned in her gut. The sharp, chemical reek of disinfectant stung her nostrils.

The last clear memory was her walk from home to the vaccination centre. Everything between that sunlit pavement and this sterile white room had vanished.

Gradually her dry eyes adjusted to the glare. The whiteness softened into detail. The room was spacious and flooded with sunlight, though neglected. Cracks veined the walls and ceiling like the nervous system of some vast, dying organism. The marble floor was burst in places, dirt griming the fissures.

Her hospital uniform was grubby, too: old brownish stains marred the right sleeve. Blood, she assumed — her own. The Gaul nurses were infamous for their clumsiness; they must have botched the cannula insertion. That meant she had been admitted to hospital.

She tried to recall what had happened. Through the large windows stretched an endless grassland — no trees, no flowers, no buildings, no roads. Only grass rolling to the horizon under a cloudless sky. No blinds or shutters shielded the glass; only faded grey curtains hung limp against the piercing sun.

Sandra scanned the room. Three more stretchers occupied the ward: one beside hers held a young Persian-looking man; opposite lay a middle-aged bald man and an older one with curly grey hair. Strangers, all of them.

Yet this hardly resembled a proper ward. No wristbands, no call buttons, no monitors, or drip stands beyond the basic infusions beside each bed. Nothing suggested active medical care. Patients. She repeated the word silently. Why assume they were patients? Superficially nothing appeared wrong with them.

She threw off the sheet and stepped onto the cold floor. Beneath the bed lay oversized white hospital slippers, thin as paper and useless against the chill.

Two doors led from the room. One was the exit, the other opened onto a small bathroom. Inside, she studied her reflection for scars or signs of surgery. Nothing. Her right shoulder ached, though — a small red puncture circled by purple bruising marked the spot above her triceps where the first vaccine had gone in months earlier. The second jab, then — the ByWell dose at the centre — must have triggered a reaction severe enough for hospitalisation.

She looked exhausted: hair greasy and tangled, as though she had been unconscious for days. She splashed cold water on her face, combed her fingers through the strands, and braided them, securing the plait with a plastic band from the cupboard under the sink.

On her way out she knocked over a mop in the corner. The clatter echoed but did not rouse the others. Part of her wished it had; shared confusion might feel less suffocating.

She left the ward to find staff. The long hallway beyond was dim, lit only by faint daylight spilling from open doorways of other rooms. No beeps, no footsteps, no voices — only silence. The place felt abandoned.

She wandered, searching for answers. On one wall hung an old floor plan behind cracked glass. Sun-faded and yellowed, it still showed a single-storey U-shaped building with two exits. Their ward lay in the right wing; the main entrance sat at the centre of the connecting corridor.

She followed the plan’s directions unhurriedly, peering into every room she passed. Each was identical to theirs — empty, derelict, expectant.

At the corridor’s end she turned left and reached the main exit: a heavy steel double door. She pushed; a chain rattled on the far side. Locked.

The secondary exit lay at the far end of the left wing. A rack of cleaning equipment blocked it. She cleared the obstruction piece by piece, only to find that door chained, too.

A tightness gripped her chest. She was not the panicking sort, yet the realisation settled coldly: they were confined.

We could escape through the windows, she thought.

Escape.

She was no prisoner, no criminal. She had every right to leave. Yet someone had judged it necessary to lock them in.

Her search had yielded nothing useful. The situation was more tangled than she had first supposed.

She drifted through the hallways, in and out of vacant rooms, half-hoping to spot something overlooked. Then distant voices jolted her — low, urgent, growing louder.

She followed the sound back toward the ward. The words sharpened as she approached.

“What is this place?”

“What am I doing here?”

“What happened to me? Why am I in hospital?”

“Who are you?”

“Where’s my bag?”

Inside, all three men were awake and arguing. They fell silent at the sight of her — the only woman among them — and turned their questions on her: When had she woken? What had she found?

She had little to offer. They, too, remembered nothing after their appointments at the vaccination centre. Like her, each had blacked out following a jab.

A heavy silence descended. Though the how and why of their arrival remained blank, they all recalled the world before: the virus, the rules, the relentless push for vaccination. They suspected the same grim explanation of their quarantine — yes, quarantine it surely was. None dared voice it aloud.

Sandra’s strength ebbed. She climbed back into bed and sat propped against the headboard. Normally she would probe, demand answers, take charge. Now she felt drained, too weak for agitation. Better to watch.

The three men were worth observing.