I'm here again, in the same house, on a street I don't know the name of. I don't know where I am and yet for the tenth time, I find myself here again. I'm stuck in this house; I always try to leave out into the street. Yet, as if in a dream, I somehow end up back in the same place.

Drunken teenagers loll around, pissing in bushes and toasting to everything more impressive than taking a dump. A semi-sober guy dressed in a red-black sweater and an outrageous mask tries to DJ unsuccessfully. He grunts in frustration, glaring at his phone screen, and clutches his stomach as if constipated.

I approach him curiously. He was always present in this house, but I'd not cared to notice before now.

A song that I recognize as a favorite (Immigrant Song, by Led Zeppelin) blasts through the speakers.

Heads start to bounce as recognition of the song ripples through the group. In a faraway corner, a girl standing with her friends sets a grapefruit on fire while shoving Chinese takeout down her throat. They toast to the deceased grapefruit.

I start as a gloved hand lifts my wrist and blanch as I realize that the gloves have blades attached to them.

"Juhi Bahl, aged sixteen. Such a shame. What were you even doing at a party like that?" He states it casually in the past tense, as if I'm not still in 'that party'.

I spin around, yank my wrist away, and come face to face with the semi-sober, semi-constipated DJ who, as I can now clearly see, is dressed like Freddy Krueger. "Excuse me?" Two words, that's all I say. But my thoughts are racing. I know no one at this party, and every face I look at is immediately erased from my memory. No one should know my name or my age.

Freddy says nothing, ignoring me so skillfully I wonder if I only imagined him taking my wrist. Sliding my hand down my arm to tame goosebumps that had appeared, my hand runs over something unfamiliar.

Tied around my wrist is a broken shoelace with black lettering scrawled across the side. "Where are you?" it asks.

The question gnaws at me; it is a question that I've been trying to avoid. I want to know why I'm caught in this cycle of endless partying, I want to know where I am.

Ahead, I see Freddy exiting the house, and I follow. I've been outside this house so many times that I'm not afraid to get lost anymore. Even if I do get lost, I'll end up right back where I started in this party, in this house.

Freddy steps out of the porch and arches his back as he inhales the tang of fall air.

I slink out after him and don't even bother to breathe in the season. Because while my surroundings look picturesque with carved pumpkins beside the door and bright leaves adorning trees, I don't smell anything fresh or beautiful.

I smell the sterility of antiseptics with the stink of people woven through in faint wisps. It smells like sickness.

"You know," Freddy begins, "I was adopted."

I lift my eyes in surprise--I didn't think he'd noticed me. But the more I stare, the more it looks like Freddy is giving a monologue to the breeze strung with scents only he can smell. I raise my nose and give a tentative sniff.

I smell blood.

"They didn't like me. But they liked me enough to tell me that nursing is a woman's profession. They were humiliated when I fulfilled my dreams of being a nurse." He blows out a breath. I can't see his expression under the mask, but I picture a bitter frown. "I prove myself worthy each time I save a patient."

Inching forward, I tug the mask from his face; his expression is emotionless.

A chill steals my breath: who is this man?

"Respiratory arrest, hypoglycemia, internal bleeding, heart attack. Little Betty died of internal bleeding when I gave her too much heparin." he smirks, "Which one do you want to endure? I can't guarantee survival, but if you live I promise I'll be your hero--your mother's too."

My heart starts pounding as I piece together misplaced details.

The smell of disinfectant, the shoelace.

Where am I?

I feel a prick in my armpit--a sharp pinch.

When I wake up, I'm not in the house anymore.

"Hi." The hushed voice of my mother soothes me. She looks at me tenderly with tears in her eyes. "You're awake."

The second voice I hear reverses the effect. "Thank goodness you're okay! You stopped breathing--respiratory arrest."

I recognize that voice. It's Freddy from the party without his mask.

"If this man hadn't been here, you might have died," Mom exclaims. "You were in an accident. You were walking home, drunk I might add, from a party! The doctors thought you'd been stabilized, but you stopped breathing! Thank goodness Nurse Crowne was there when it happened--he saved you. He's your Angel Nurse."

Crowne stands beaming in the background, basking in the praise.

I glance down at my wrist--it's a hospital band with my name and birthdate, itching just as much as the shoelace had done.

"Mom," I wince as the syllable scrapes through my throat, and before I can finish my sentence, she's up out of her seat to get some water. Get him away from me. The unfinished sentence echoes frantically in my ears.

Crowne smiles, "Let me flush out your line." He steps forward and squeezes the IV bag beside my bed, which is no doubt filled with something sinister.

My muscles relax, and terrifyingly, I find my chest won't expand to let air in.

Nurse Crowne leans over me, a crazed, remorseless look in his eyes; and in my blurring vision, half fogged in sheer panic, he looks like an Angel of Death.