Savin' Me
By Inuyoshie
Chapter One: New Arrival
"What do we have?"
"Hit and run on 14th and Moscow. Flight for Life is coming. There's some head trauma at least,"
Several trauma surgeons nodded and ran up to the roof. Selena Tanners sighed and leaned against a wall by the phone. The reports said that a flash of light came from the sky… and then a minivan ran over something. Someone, sorry. Since the EMTs weren't babbling about aliens it must be some unfortunate person… Selena straightened and scrubbed her arms down, donning gloves and watched the stretcher come in, with the trauma team swarming around the poor soul on the bed madly.
"We need ultrasound!"
"Get the CT scanner ready!"
"W-w-where am I…" the figure on the stretcher groaned.
"Ah… she's conscious!"
"Hon, that's a boy,"
Selena peered over, and only saw a bloodied mess of a man with a neck brace on. He had a pair of thick white glasses that were amazingly intact. The man whined when Selena ran over and took them off, holding the man still as the surgeons began to insert a chest tube.
"Hey there, can you tell me your name?" Selena asked the man gently, trying to calm him down.
"S-Szayel…" the man coughed weakly and then squirmed against his bonds. "MAKE IT STOP!"
"We're trying, we're trying," Selena told the man gently, glancing at the people with the ultrasound. "Internal bleeding?"
"Amazingly no. I could have sworn there was some but now… it's like something's healing him from the inside…"
"Nanobots you foolish imbeciles," Szayel muttered under his breath. The doctors assumed he was delirious.
"Still, he has a collapsed lung and head trauma," the head surgeon, Dr. Sans told Selena. She took her cue and stepped away as the unfortunate man was wheeled off to the operating room. Selena glanced down at the bloody pair of white glasses in her hands and sighed, offering a weary prayer for the mysterious man to be alright as she usually did. Force of habit… sometimes in medicine, divine intervention is required. Sometimes? More like daily.
Selena rushed off to her other duties around the hospital. Unfortunately, St. Luke's General Hospital was lacking in funds due to their generous tendencies to the poor of Coral City. The hospital was getting smaller, in order to buy more medical equipment. In fact, Selena had been assigned to go to City Hall to petition for more money, which annoyed the nurse greatly. Why couldn't a lawyer or something do that? It was her job to save lives, not talk to politicians. Such people only cared about money anyways.
Cold-heartedness aside, money talks. Especially when Selena had to gauge how much room they had in the hospital. She'd have to find one of the less ill patients and arrange for the patient to be moved elsewhere. Like a caring relative? Fat chance. Most of the people who came in here were off of the inner city streets, either very poor or homeless. Or, from broken families who didn't care. Yes, it was crass and politically incorrect to assume as much, but when little kids come in with exit wounds the size of navel oranges, you start to generalize at least a little bit. It takes a special kind of asshole to shoot a kid, and Selena personally wanted to strangle such people. Unfortunately, these kinds of people were the kinds that she had to deal with every bloody day.
Selena grumbled as she went to check the vitals of Thomas Gorwin, a seven year old boy who had endured three gunshot wounds to the stomach. How a seven year old had gunshot wounds Selena didn't want to know. As she went to look over the boy's vitals, his aunt and a minister cried and prayed over his body loudly. Selena felt a headache coming on as she resisted the urge to yell at the family members. They were in a time of extreme pain, best not to make it worse, right? Even if they were mad.
But something about the din wasn't right. Something was missing. Selena's brow furrowed as she tried to look at the boy's monitors. Unfortunately his aunt's enormous purse was blocking them, and Selena removed it.
The heart monitor showed a straight line, and Selena realized what sound she was missing. The aunt and minister were suddenly silent. Selena swallowed hard, her throat suddenly parched.
"Is he…" the aunt broke the silence.
"I-I'll have to get a doctor-"
"You should be able to tell right now! Is my nephew dead or not?" the woman snapped. Selena placed two fingers on his neck and found that it was cold.
"He's been dead for a bit now," she spoke softly, resisting the urge to add 'you would have noticed if you weren't so busy praying'
"You idiot doctors can't do anything anymore!" the woman screamed angrily at Selena. "Why should my taxpayer dollars go to something that doesn't work!" she ran out of the room sobbing. The minister gave Selena a stern look, as if the boy's death was her fault. Selena clenched and unclenched her fist slowly, trying to remain calm. Just a few more hours and you'll be off… just a few more hours. Then you can do whatever. Anything. Anything at all.
Selena sucked in some air and went to inform a doctor not busy performing brain surgery on the newest arrival that Thomas Gorwin was dead. To any other person, he would just be another dead body… but Selena remembered. Every one, every empty skull that haunted her sleep at night. All those who could not have been saved.
People think burnout in the medical field is from the long hours and unpleasant pay… no… people don't become nurses for the pay, or the hours. They come in wanting to save people… and some come out broken. Some can handle it, and they become the strong ones. As for Selena… she didn't know anymore.
It was as if she was surrounded by madness.
Chapter One End.
Inuyoshie's After the chapter special
Okay, remember what I said about funny stuff? Yeah, funnies come after the exposition. *sighs* oh well. I hope I portrayed this well. This is probably the field I'm going to end up going into after all. Yay… look what I have to look forward to… hehe. Right.
Some notes about this chapter: Sorry about the lack of Szayel-ness in it… these first five chapters help to set up some exposition about the OCs. Pay attention to their names… the names sound a lot like the Espada they shall be with. Szayel, Selena… okay, it's not as close as it could be, but still. Also Selena is a little split on the whole religion thing… I try to show this with Selena's inner mind contradicting her. Just to clarify that, so you're not all 'Hey! Wasn't she all 'we need miracles' earlier? Your eyes do not deceive you mah friend, it's just Selena is slightly messed up. But technically speaking, she's the normal one.
Anyways. I hope this was mildly enjoyable for you all. Review?
