Energized by Hope: The Road to Recovery

"I guess this is the place."

"Yeah, that's it. The place is called 'New Hope'. Pretty fitting."

John looked at the small wooden building. It was simple and small, with a sign that read "physioterapy". He wondered why it was even needed in a town like this. There were only 7 buildings in the whole town, and one of them was an old abandoned church.

The other buildings were occupied by a general store, a post office, a tavern and a blacksmith shop. The tavern was the busiest of all the buildings and John could see people passing by on the street staring at him as he stepped towards his destination.

He took a deep breath before opening the door. He saw a young woman behind the desk typing on a typewriter. She wasn't much older than himself and had bright red hair tied into a bun. She typed away as John approached her, deliberately ignoring him so he stood there awkwardly for a moment before clearing his throat to catch her attention. "Umm... hello?"

She turned to look at him with an annoyed expression on her face. "You better not be drunk again mister Lucas," she said in an exasperated tone. "We've talked about this before."

"No ma'am I'm not drunk! I swear!" John protested as he held up both hands in surrender. "I just want to talk to someone about physioterapy."

"Really? Well that's nice," she said sarcastically before looking down at her schedule book. "You're not due for another two weeks but if you'd like to fill out these forms we can get started now," she handed him several sheets of paper which he silently took and filled out while she continued typing away at her typewriter, apparently ignoring him again. After filling out all of the paperwork, which only took him ten minutes since they were surprisingly easy questions, he handed them back to her and waited patiently while she took them without even looking up at him this time.

"If you'd like to follow me sir I'll take you down to Dr. Wilson's office," she said with zero emotion as she got up from her chair and walked towards the door behind her. She opened it for John who followed her through it into what appeared to be an examination room with various tools along every wall including medical tools and gardening equipment.

"So who's Dr...." he started asking as they walked through the room but was interrupted when they entered another room with nothing but double doors in front of them and only one way out which led back into the examination room they had just left through those same double doors facing directly towards them again after turning around to look behind himself once inside the room with those doors facing away from him this time. His heart raced as he tried desperately to find some way out but there was no escape; they were trapped. The girl grabbed his arm tightly while laughing hysterically before vanishing into thin air leaving John alone in the room, lost and confused but also terrified beyond all belief because every possible door attempt resulted in failure as each one instantly vanished for no apparent reason when attempting to open it or enter through it except for one set of doors opposite him which when attempting to enter through resulted in being dragged backwards violently against his will into that room anytime he tried until eventually giving up entirely on trying because it seemed hopeless to ever leave here alive so instead he decided to wait for someone - anyone - to save him from this hellish nightmare that had seemingly lasted years already although how many years exactly couldn't be said for certain because time didn't feel right here anymore somehow... time felt wrong... time felt strange... time felt almost infinite somehow... "No..." John thought fearfully as he collapsed onto his knees in despair...