OVERCOMING NOSOCOMEPHOBIA
Alex, a minority among nosocomephobics, actually found hospital air invigorating. It scrubbed the inside her lungs, ground away the smog and dirt of the outside world. It was the pressing, alien brightness that played tug-of-war with Alex's bowels. Purple-tinted lights bounced from tiled floors to white walls without ever dimming. Even nearing midnight, Alex wore her Ray Bans as she walked the hospital hall. She shuddered, feeling every photon needle her skin.
Reception directed her to the second floor—room 2213. She sprinted up the stairwell only to find an Escher hallway, doors and doors and doors but never 2213. The snowfield whiteness only compounded her discombobulation. It felt like she walked through an Arthur C. Clarke spaceship, flying toward doom.
