不可思議傳說｜第十篇 – 從未出院的病人 | The Patient Who Never Left: A Haunted Hospital Story of Bed 17 and the Unseen Presence
在某個陰雨綿綿的夜晚，醫院的燈光依舊明亮，走廊裡微弱的燈光將地板映照得泛著冷冷的光澤。這是一家歷史悠久的醫院，建築略顯陳舊，牆上的油漆斑駁，彷彿記錄著無數病患來來去去的痕跡。
我在這家醫院工作已經有幾年了，對這裡的環境和氛圍早已習以為常。然而，那一晚，我的值班卻讓我經歷了無法解釋的事情。
午夜剛過，我巡查病房時，發現走廊出奇的靜。平日裡，即使是深夜，也能聽到病人低聲的咳嗽聲或機器運作的嗡嗡聲，但那一晚，卻異常安靜，彷彿連空氣都凝結了。
當我經過護理站時，無意間瞥見了白板上的病床狀態。大多數病床都顯示空床，只有17號床是個例外。旁邊用紅色筆寫著：「病人休息中，請勿打擾。」
17號床？我心中一震。那張床應該是空床才對，因為上一位病人幾天前就已經出院了。我仔細回想了一下，確定自己沒有記錯。
帶著疑問，我朝17號床的方向走去。那張床被一道厚重的簾子遮住，看不見裡面。我停下腳步，猶豫了一下，但最終還是伸手掀開了簾子。
眼前的景象讓我愣住了。床鋪整齊得像是從未有人使用過，被子平整無皺，沒有任何個人物品。但讓我感到不安的是，旁邊的心電圖監測儀卻亮著，螢幕上顯示著穩定的心跳線條。
「怎麼可能？」我喃喃自語。
正在這時，一位同事走了過來。「你在看什麼？」她問道。
我指著心電圖監測儀，向她解釋了我的疑惑。她皺起眉頭，看了一眼螢幕，又看向空無一人的床鋪。「這不可能啊，17號床的病人早就出院了。」
為了確認，我們一起查看了醫療記錄夾。然而，在記錄上清楚地寫著：「17號床，病人休息中，請勿打擾。」
「這不對勁。」同事低聲說，她的語氣中帶著一絲顫抖。
我們決定關掉心電圖監測儀。當她伸手按下電源按鈕時，我感覺到周圍的空氣突然變得冰冷，彷彿有什麼東西正在注視著我們。
螢幕上的線條消失了，但那股陰冷的感覺卻揮之不去。我們迅速離開了病房，回到護理站。
然而，就在我們準備繼續工作時，我無意間瞥見白板上的狀態更新。17號床再次顯示：「病人休息中，請勿打擾。」
我的心跳開始加速。同事也注意到了這一點，她臉色蒼白，不發一語。我們對視了一眼，都能看出對方眼中的恐懼。
「或許……是系統出錯了。」她試圖安慰自己，但語氣中完全沒有說服力。
那一晚，我再也無法平靜下來。每次經過17號床時，我都感覺到一股無形的壓力，彷彿有什麼東西正躲在簾子後面注視著我。
第二天早上，我忍不住查詢了醫院的住院紀錄系統。然而，那層樓的住院記錄中並沒有17號床的資料。但奇怪的是，系統顯示有一位病人在那裡住院，但沒有名字，也沒有出院日期。
這件事成為我心中的一個謎團。我試圖向其他同事提起，但沒有人願意多談。有些人甚至告訴我，他們也曾經在深夜聽到過17號床傳來奇怪的聲音，但當他們過去查看時，卻什麼也沒發現。
自那以後，我每次值班經過17號床時，都會感到一股莫名的不安。那道簾子總是緊閉著，裡面靜悄悄的，但我總覺得，有什麼東西正躲在裡面注視著我。
或許，那是一個永遠無法解釋的謎團。或者，是某些靈魂不願離去，在那張床上等待著什麼。
English Version
On a rain-laden night when the steady glow of hospital lights seemed to push back against an overwhelming darkness, I found myself once again walking the familiar corridors of the old medical building where I had worked for several years, a place whose aging walls and peeling paint quietly bore witness to countless lives passing through, yet on that particular shift something felt different, as though the air itself had thickened into an uneasy stillness that I could neither explain nor ignore just after midnight, as I began my routine rounds, I noticed an unusual silence settling over the ward, a silence so complete that it seemed unnatural, because even at the quietest hours there were always subtle sounds—the faint coughing of patients, the rhythmic hum of machines, the distant footsteps of staff—but that night, those familiar noises were absent, replaced by a heavy, almost suffocating quiet that made each of my own footsteps echo louder than they should have; as I passed the nursing station, my attention was drawn to the whiteboard displaying the status of each bed, where most entries indicated vacancies, yet one stood out immediately—Bed 17, marked in red with the words “Patient resting, do not disturb,” and the sight of it sent a sharp jolt of confusion through me, because I distinctly remembered that the patient assigned to that bed had been discharged several days earlier, leaving it empty ever since, and as I stood there staring at the board, trying to reconcile what I knew with what I was seeing, a growing unease began to take hold; unable to dismiss the discrepancy, I made my way down the corridor toward Bed 17, each step feeling heavier than the last as if I were moving against an invisible resistance, and when I arrived, I found the bed concealed behind a thick curtain, its interior hidden from view, which only intensified my hesitation, yet after a brief pause I reached out and pulled the curtain aside; what I saw should have reassured me, yet instead it deepened my discomfort—the bed was perfectly made, the sheets smooth and undisturbed, showing no sign that anyone had occupied it, no personal belongings, no indication of recent use, and yet beside it, the heart monitor was switched on, its screen displaying a steady, unmistakable heartbeat rhythm that pulsed with quiet persistence, as though recording the presence of someone who was not there; I muttered in disbelief, struggling to process the contradiction, when a colleague approached and asked what I was doing, and after I explained, she frowned and examined the monitor and the empty bed, confirming what I already knew—that Bed 17 should have been unoccupied, and yet the machine suggested otherwise; together, we checked the medical records, expecting to find an error that would resolve the mystery, but instead we found the same message recorded there as well: “Patient resting, do not disturb,” with no additional details, no name, no admission time, nothing that could anchor the entry in reality, and as my colleague whispered that something was wrong, I could hear a faint tremor in her voice that mirrored my own growing fear; we decided to turn off the monitor, hoping that shutting down the device would put an end to whatever malfunction we were witnessing, and as she reached out to press the power button, I felt the temperature around us drop suddenly, a chilling cold that seemed to emanate not from the room but from something unseen, something aware, as if we were no longer alone, and though the monitor’s screen went dark, the sense of being watched lingered, clinging to the air like an invisible presence; we left the room quickly, returning to the relative safety of the nursing station, but the moment we glanced back at the whiteboard, our brief relief vanished, because the entry for Bed 17 had reappeared exactly as before, unchanged, as if nothing we had done had mattered, and the realization that something was actively resisting our attempts to erase it sent a wave of dread through me, my heartbeat quickening as I exchanged a silent look with my colleague, both of us recognizing that this was no ordinary error; she suggested weakly that it might be a system glitch, but neither of us believed it, not truly, and for the remainder of the night I found myself unable to regain any sense of normalcy, every pass by Bed 17 accompanied by a suffocating pressure, a feeling that something lingered just beyond the curtain, watching, waiting, existing in a space that overlapped with ours yet remained unseen; the following morning, driven by a need for answers, I accessed the hospital’s admission records, searching for any trace of a patient assigned to that bed, but the system offered only further contradictions—there was no official record of Bed 17 being occupied, and yet there was an entry indicating that a patient was indeed present, though it lacked a name, an identification number, even a discharge date, as if the individual existed within the system but nowhere else; when I tried to discuss the incident with other staff members, most were reluctant to engage, offering vague responses or quickly changing the subject, though a few admitted in hushed tones that they too had experienced strange occurrences related to that bed, hearing faint noises late at night or sensing movement behind the curtain only to find nothing when they looked, and their reluctance to elaborate suggested that whatever they had encountered was something they preferred not to confront; from that point onward, every shift I worked was marked by a persistent unease, especially whenever I approached Bed 17, whose curtain remained perpetually drawn, concealing whatever might—or might not—be there, and though the space behind it appeared empty whenever I gathered the courage to check, I could never shake the overwhelming impression that I was not alone, that something lingered just out of sight, observing me with a quiet patience that felt far more disturbing than any overt manifestation; over time, I stopped questioning whether the phenomenon was real or imagined, because the distinction seemed to matter less than the experience itself, the way it altered the atmosphere of the ward and seeped into my thoughts even after I left the hospital, following me into moments of quiet where I would suddenly recall the steady pulse of that unseen heartbeat, the reappearing message, the inexplicable cold, and the silent certainty that something had never truly left that bed; perhaps it was the remnant of a patient whose departure had never been properly completed, or perhaps it was something else entirely, something that had attached itself to that place and refused to be acknowledged or understood, and though I have tried to rationalize it, to fit it into some framework of logic, I have come to accept that there are elements of this world that exist beyond explanation, lingering in the spaces we assume to be empty, waiting quietly for someone to notice, and sometimes, I still wonder, when I close my eyes and recall that night, whether Bed 17 is truly vacant, or whether somewhere, just beyond what we can perceive, a patient is still lying there, resting, undisturbed, exactly as the message insists.
