[ WP ] You 're in hospital and a stranger comes into your room and strikes up a conversation . As you are talking you realize the stranger is actually death himself .

I grew to like the hospital at night, at least like it as much as I could. At night the halls were quiet, nurses and doctors talked in hushed voices as to not wake the patients and the slow beeping of my heart monitor was like a metronome trying to lull me off to sleep. I had n't slept much recently. Not since the accident, although accident might not be the right word. Accident implies that it was something that could have been prevented. Brain aneurysms are hard to prevent. 
 
 The doctor in the ER told me I was lucky the aneurysm did n't kill me, but goddamn was it trying. I did n't realize I had had an aneurysm when it happened. It was a flash of white hot pain and then a dull but pounding headache that never seemed to completely go away, no matter how much morphine the nurses gave me. So I have n't slept much recently. 
 
 The other reason I liked the hospital at night was that no one could come to visit me. Immediate family was allowed in the ICU at night but after two weeks they had settled down enough to let me be. It was better this way, at least it was for me. I did n't have to see my family suffer over my suffering. I was always more of a suffer in silence type of girl anyway. 
 
 `` Hello Carmen.'' A voice came from the doorway. An man, young and well built, wearing white scrubs was shutting the sliding glass door of my room behind him. 
 
 `` How are you feeling today?'' 
 
 `` A bit better I suppose.'' I told him, the pain in my head was finally starting to subside. He smiled at me, a soft smile that made me feel safer than I had in the last two weeks. `` Are you one of the nurses?'' 
 
 `` I'm here to go with you.'' 
 
 `` Are they finally moving me from the ICU? Does that mean I get to go home soon?'' 
 
 The man crossed the room and sat on the edge of my bed, taking my hand in both of his and rubbing smooth circles into my palm with his thumbs. `` Yes you're leaving the ICU tonight. You do n't have to stay here anymore.'' 
 
 He spoke very professionally and rehearsed, like he had this conversation many times before. It did n't feel right. `` Where am I going?'' 
 
 `` A few places. Your journey here is over but you're not completely through.'' He brushed the hair out of my face with his thumb. The pain was gone completely. It was all very clear now. `` I'm sorry it ended so soon.'' 
 
 My lower lip began to quiver. My voice was only a whisper, `` But what about my family? What will they do without me?'' 
 
 `` They will miss you. But their time will come one day too and they'll understand. And when their time comes they will be missed just as you were.'' 
 
 `` And wo n't I miss them?'' 
 
 `` Yes, of course.'' Death spoke to me the way a father does to a sleepy child. `` But it wo n't feel the same as it does in this world. It wo n't be as bad.'' 
 
 I took a deep breath, and then another. Part of me wanted to yell, to shout out that you are n't supposed to die at twenty-three, to fight in some way. The other part of me knew that there was nothing I could do, it was to late, and that it was better to go in peace, guided by a friend. And in this comforting act Death had become my friend. 
 
 There was no hospital outside of the glass wall of my room anymore. There was n't nothing either, just something I could n't see yet, a bigger picture that needed me to complete. 
 
 Death took my hand once more, guiding me out of bed and to the door. With a gentle squeeze I signal that I am ready. He slides open the door and warm light gently falls over my shoulders, radiating through my whole body. It is beautiful and terrifying and I am so glad I did not have to go alone.
