This story definitely made good use of its prompt and item. It takes both of them—the hospital setting, and the old woman—and makes it into something unique, interesting to follow, and really character driven. I feel like the horror element could have been stronger, but there was definitely a lot of creepy and gorey imagery; the man with a huge head, for some reason, is really sticking with me. All the surreal aspects were well-fitted and tied into the ending reveal. All in all, a well structured story…

But I found chapters 1&2 harder to follow and not as enjoyable, sometimes contradictory (protagonist doesn’t know who he is at the start of chapter 1 but randomly has a pretty good grasp on himself later) or ham-fisted (protagonist soliloquizing in chapter 2). While all chapters move towards a clear aim and continually flesh out the plot, and none of them are BAD, I think Chapter 3 did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of writing quality and leaving a good impression. Also, this is my personal preference, but I would have liked if the ending was even more dark and unsettling.

Again, though, quite a good story that did a great job with what it was given.