I watch the leaves, a neon green with yellow spots, dance with the wind as the breeze blows in my face. I feel the chill as I sit here in the forest, watching.

Watching nothing.

My hair shakes to the rhythm of the wind, soaking up the rain like a black sponge. I don't care that I'm getting super wet, so I stay seated and continue to

observe the forest's colours, beautiful and natural. I'm here because it's lunch-time, but I'm not hungry. I come here a lot on my free time.

This forest is located right behind Resurgam, so it makes for a great hangout spot. I'm usually alone here, but occasionally Gabe comes with sandwiches and

we chat together here.

A leaf, wet with dew, falls on my head, making me shake violently until drops of rain fly from my body. But the leaf continues to stay on my head,

untouched.

I decide to pluck the leaf off myself, so I raise my hand to my hair and flick it off.

I hear a foolish bird, a robin, fly in the wind, only to be carried off the opposite direction he is flying in. Why fly in this weather if you know it's all pointless?

Everyone else is inside Resurgam, drinking some coffee or chatting with the nurses and doctors in the hospital. They say this is bad weather, but I don't mind

it. I actually enjoy the frigid air of a stormy day rushing over you like someone just dumped a bucket of ice on your head.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps. Why would someone be here with me? Especially when it's all rainy and like this? I realise it's only Gabe, running here to tell me

lunch-time's over.

"Hey, kid-" He starts to say, but I interrupt him.

"I know, it's over." I attempt to grin, but I'm too cold to smile in this weather.

Gabe gives me a grin, and teases me with a joke about mind-reading and my 'creepy' red eyes.

"Oh, shut up." I shove him playfully, making him chuckle.

"Kid, I believe you are insane. This rain is...Damn it, you're not even cold, are you?!"

This time, I smile.

"Hey, look who's talking." I tease.

"I only came out here to get you!" He yells mockingly.

"Right." I smirk, and we both head to the hospital.

The distance between the hospital and the forest is small, only a 2 minute walk if you time yourself. I don't understand why other people don't join me.

It's a very convenient spot if you want to sit alone for a while in your break.

When we enter, a comforting rush of warm air from the hospital's air conditioners hits me.

"What are you smiling about, kid?" Gabe asks.

"I like the air conditioning. It's warm." I reply.

"Oh? I thought you couldn't feel temperature."

"Shut up."

I noogie Gabe, which makes him loudly, which makes all the nurses turn and stare at us.

We're good friends, or at least I think we are. There's a special bond between us that lets us both tease each other any way we want as long as it doesn't

damage too much. Not many people have that….or do they?

"I crave a coffee. Hey, Chief, can you go get some for me?" Gabe shouts to the Chief.

"Wha-I'm not your little freaking house keeper!" Chief shouts back.

"Come on, Chief! You only have to walk, like, 5 seconds to get me a coffee!"

"Fine!"

I make a long, appropriate pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft sound to Gabe.

"What? I feel too lazy to get it myself. Shut up." Gabe sputters.

I make a sound that was supposed to be a laugh but sounded like a butchered pig squawking.

"What was that?!"

"Something that was supposed to be a laugh. Oops." I apologized.

When the Chief returns with a dark coffee for Gabe, she tells me there's a girl waiting for surgery in the OR room 301.

"I'll be right over, Chief." I tell her, assuring her.

I run to OR room 301, not sparing a single second to help this girl. I wondered what was wrong with her as I ran to my destination.

When I got there, Maria and Tomoe were setting up the supplies. I'm pretty sure they were to assist me, I think.

"What happened?" I asked them.

"A girl swallowed something she wasn't supposed to. We're getting it out of her." Maria says.

"Name? Age? Object?" I ask.

"Susan Princeton, 16, Marble." Tomoe says, rapidly.

"A marble?" I ask, impressed that a 16 year old would eat a marble.

"I know, right?" Maria says.

"Unbelievable." I sighed, making Maria chuckle.

Emma came in, wheeling a teenage girl with blonde hair and glasses into the room.

"Here's Susan." Emma says, sweating. She must have ran here, too.

We set the patient onto the operating table and get the anesthesia ready.

I ready a vein in her left hand and inject it into her. I watch her close her eyes, falling asleep.

I get a tube and put it in her throat, making her throat a tiny bit larger and more accessible so we can get the marble out of her stomach.

"Tomoe, get the endoscopic camera, please." I tell her.

She passes it to me, and I roll it into her stomach. I find the marble easily.

"Scalpel." I say. Maria hands it to me.

I cut an incision on her chest, and I cut an incision into the stomach. I carefully take the camera and the marble out.

I get some stitches and stitch the area up.

Suddenly, the patient gets cardiac arrest.

"What the-?!" Maria yells.

"Get the paddles!" Emma screams.

Emma hands me the paddles, fully charged, and I use them on the patient. No effect.

"Clear!" I yell.

No effect.

"Clear!"

She's not starting up.

"This isn't working! Starting chest compression!" I yell, passing the paddles back to Emma.

I start to compress Susan's chest, but it isn't working either.

And then….She dies.

"What the….How did she suddenly get cardiac arrest when all that happened was that she swallowed a marble?!" Maria yelled at me.

"This is indeed strange…" Tomoe whispers to herself.

"Should we report it to WHO?" Maria asks.

"No. This is only a symptom, and we don't know what happened to her. But…" I trail off.

"But...what?" Maria asks.

"Nothing…"

I'm not exactly that worried about this. It's not like she coughed up blood all over the floor as her heart slowly stopped beating. This may just have been a

symptom of something old.

There's a heck of a lot of illnesses out there were cardiac arrest is a symptom.

But, nevertheless, this was strange. Nobody told us she had an illness, they just said that she swallowed a marble. Maybe there was another marble that

went in her intestine and killed her? No...They said there was only one marble.

"Time of death?" Tomoe asked me.

"4:02 P.M., April 2." I replied, covering the lifeless body of Susan Princeton with a blanket.

Tomoe scribbled that onto a chart and left the room, probably to report what happened to the Chief, I guess.

"There's always some weird shit going on around here, huh?" Maria scoffed.

"...Yeah." I agreed.

Maria has some strong opinions, and usually she says stuff in an angry manner that forces people to argue with her, but I have to agree with her this time.

This hospital is like a haven for mischief and strange happenings. We were the first hospital to have experienced patients with the Rosalia virus. But, I have

to say, Caduceus has more experience with sudden epidemics.

Like, for example, Stigma, or G.U.I.L.T.

Resurgam has no experience with this kind of thing, although we are trained to know what to do when something like that happens.

"So...What do we do now?" I ask Maria.

"We leave." She says.

Maria walks out, shutting the door behind her…Actually, more like slamming the door.

When she walks out, I grab the door and walk out. I close the door, being careful not to slam it, and walk. Just walk. I don't know where to.

I hear Gabe humming and he approaches me, an empty mug of dark coffee in his hand.

"Oh, hi, kid. I'm getting a refill in this coffee mug." Gabe smiles.

"The coffee room is in the west wing." I tell him.

"Is it? Oh, then maybe it was just an excuse of mine to hang out with you, Joe Cool."

"You don't need an excuse. And you're one to talk, Joe Coolest."

Gabe shoves me playfully, and we begin our 5 minute walk to the west wing coffee room.

"So, what happened in there?"

"A female we were operating on unexpectedly went into cardiac arrest and died."

"Weird. And nobody told you she was sick?"

"Nope."

"Did you report it?"

"Tomoe reported it to the Chief."

"Huh…" Gabe sighed.

"Tough day?" I ask.

"Oh, you have no idea. Some old coot came in with the Flu and said he had Ebola." Gabe laughed.

"Ugh, too bad." I rolled my eyes. Some elderly people are so frustrating these days.

"Yeah, I know. I had to take a test from his blood to prove that determined fool he didn't have it."

I sighed mockingly, like I was the one who was frustrated, and we both started laughing.

"Did you get one too? An Ebola-lover, I mean?" Gabe said.

"Nah. I got a weirdo saying he needed painkillers and a testicular operation. Ugh."

More laughter. Then a sigh from Gabe.

"Kid, after our shifts, wanna go get some lunch? I know a good bar."

"Sure. I got nothing else to do, I guess."

We finally got to the coffee room as we promised to meet each other at the Rainbow bar at 7:00 tonight. Sharp.

I walked away and was suddenly confronted by the Chief.

"Hey, Erhard, can you take a night shift? I'm unable to work at night for some reason."

Ugh. Just when I said I would go to the bar with Gabe.

"No, sorry, I promised a friend I would meet with him tonight."

"Oh. Too bad. Maybe another time?" She sighed.

"Sure."

It sucks how now that I can smile and act like a normal human being, people take advantage of me and want me to do everything for them. I just want to

live my life.

No, I'm not saying I want to quit doing all this! Surgery is my life. I just want to be able to have some fun when I want to. Don't you understand?

Time flies fast when you're operating on people. Soon enough, it was the end of my shift.

"Hey, everyone! People on the day shift are to leave the premises right now!" Chief announced.

Gabe and I walked together as we exit Resurgam.

"Do you need a ride? We could go together at the same time to the bar." Gabe asked.

"Sure. Yeah. Let's go."

We walked to Gabe's black car, a small car that (luckily) only fits two people.

I entered the car as Gabe pretended to be a butler, holding the car door open for me as I got in.

Gabe started to drive, and I started to hum to a song on the radio.

As soon as Gabe noticed I was humming, he started to mock me by singing the song horribly. He sang and sang until I stopped humming and started

laughing very hard.

It's a 15 minute drive to the bar, so I tried to keep singing and passing the time, but I couldn't stop laughing. I don't think anyone can when Gabe tries to

make you laugh.

To be continued in 'Red'…