The night was cold and rainy but there was something strangely
comforting about this kind of weather to Peter Brooks as he purposely
stepped in ever puddle that coalesced on the cold hard pavement. He liked
the city, something about the constant activity and the bright lights
always made it seem like time had no meaning. Whether you did your thing in
the day or night didn't matter, something was there for you. Which was good
since pursuing a science degree took up a majority of his day and, the more
he thought about it, his sanity as well.
Still, it was all better than the bullshit he had come from. He deeply hated life before college but now that he was on his own, making his own decisions things came easier. Not only that, but the sheer number of people that he passed every day made it easier to simply be himself. The city was like the poor man's utopia.
At the moment, though, he had nothing on his mind. It was a Saturday night and all he felt like doing was kicking back and relaxing. And after he made a quick stop he'd head home and kill some time with The World.
He stepped into the brightly lit game store and shook the water off his hair. The clerk looked up and waved him over. He had this creepy grin on his face that instantly put Peter on edge, despite the fact that he and Brian were attending the same classes and were pretty good friends.
Brooks returned the smile and leaned against the glass counter which highlighted completely overpriced "rare" game products. Everything from some eight year old RPG that for one reason or another was suddenly gaining massive popularity to imports of about six dozen Japanese novelty controllers, one of which was a giant pointing finger. He decided it best to not imagine what game that supposed to belong to.
Brian watched him eye the "finger-controller" and laughed. "You really don't want to know."
"No?"
"No."
There were a few moments of silence before Brian sighed, looking at him and shaking his head. "You didn't ask her did you?"
Eyebrows raised, Brian mouthed, "Who?"
"Oh for God sake, man." His friend placed his hand on his forehead and smiled sadly, "Danielle?"
"Ah." Peter shifted uncomfortably. He tapped the glass and started eyeing the finger-toy again. "No, didn't get the chance to."
The clerk folded his arms authoritatively in front of his classmate, "You wuss. It's simple, you walk up, say 'Hey wanna go to, insert movie here?'"
Peter shook his head and leaned against the wall. He'd heard this before. A lot. Dee was one of those people that you instantly fell in love with. Short black hair, bright sea-blue eyes, and a way of smiling that made you think that if no one ever approved of you again, it wouldn't matter.
Brian coughed loudly, poking fun at the current spaced-out state his friend was in. "Seriously, man, you're really pathetic. Just freaking ask her, dammit."
Peter's annoyance level began to rise, "What I do on my own time is none of your business, if I wanted it to be I'd tell you. Now can I have what I came to pick up?"
The clerk raised his hands defensively, "Ok, ok, don't stab me with anything. Just trying to help. You wanted the those crazy 3D goggle things, right?"
Brooks nodded. The Neuro Goggles were the latest invention to cash in on The World. Essentially a headset that offered total immersion into the game world. Although there had been reports of players experiences dizziness and loss of awareness while using them it was still the most anticipated peripheral of the year.
Brian walked into the storage room and fumbled around for a few minutes. "Y'know Pete, you're lucky you pre-ordered, I sold my entire stock of the things within two hours of opening the store."
Peter grinned and peered into the room. Brian was never one for being organized and the dishevelled way the boxes were thrown around and piled on top of one another proved it. Eventually, though, the shop owner found what he was looking for and manoeuvred his way out of the storage space.
Money exchanged hands and Brian handed him the box with a grin, "Do I even have to say it?"
Brooks just shook his head, "I'll ask her already, just piss off."
His friend laughed, "Good luck man, and tell me how well this thing plays. I might grab one myself." ____________________________________________________________________________ __
When he arrived home Peter unpacked the box and pulled out the headset. It was surprisingly heavy despite it's relatively small size and the silver finish accented how expensive the thing was. Of course the only thing he was worried about was it working. He sat down in front of his computer and connected it to the front of the tower. He hit the power button and waited a minute or two as the box hummed to life and bathed his apartment in a blue glow. With a couple of clicks he was navigating The Worlds interface and after double-checking a couple of options he loaded his character and let the game surround him.
The Worlds play field was divided into multiple servers. At each server was a central town. A place where players could relax, chat, meet up others, form parties, plan strategies and do a lot of general maintenance on their characters. At the moment he was in the Delta server exploring the town of Mac Anu. There were lots of old fashioned buildings lining the roadways and one large stream that sectioned off areas of the town. Very neatly organised but also pretty boring. Players darted back and forth, buying weapons, armour, and trading with one another. Some were gathered in large groups talking about things outside The World. Friends, family, other games. Roleplaying was not a requirement among The World's players.
Among the players there stood the Crimson Knights. Essentially CyberConnect employess that were sent to keep an eye on how everything was functioning. Nothing more than low level admins but dressed up in order to keep the game's world consistent. They also functioned as helpers to anyone new to the game although they developed a reputation for being arrogant and discordant toward pretty much everybody. Peter always thought it was funny simply because here they were being paid to play a videogame and they talked and acted like they had some sort of spiked pole residing up their asses.
Peter quickly glanced around and recognized Dee's character running across the bridge toward him. She was what was called a Wavemaster. Your standard wizard style player character that were physically weak but unbelievable strong when it came to shooting the magic fireballs and the like. Peter was a TwinBlade. Very balanced and had a decent assortment of physical and magical attacks. Generally considered a newbie class he still used it because they looked damn cool.
He waved a greeting and ran up to her. He smiled to himself. Even her character was huggable.
"Ready to go?" She said glancing around.
Peter nodded. "I wanna check out that dungeon we found a while back. I think I'm powerful enough to take the baddies out now."
Dee nodded, "Sure thing."
The two of them headed toward the Chaos Gate. Basically a giant floating portal in the town that allowed access to other servers and dungeons. The dungeons were accessed by using a three word phrase that when combined set things like setting, difficulty, monster size, et cetera.
The two of them popped in the keyword and stepped into the portal. A quick animation later they found themselves in a vast grassy field. Mountains stood in the distance and off to the horizon they saw the entrance to the dungeon. One that they had tackled previously and, for lack of a better term, got their asses handed to them. A few days of preparation though and they were ready to give it another shot.
They walked for a few moments, not bothering to engage the floating symbols that marked where an enemy would appear. They were much to eager to head into the dungeon.
Peter looked over at her and his heart leaped into his chest. This was stupid. They were just friends, she wasn't going to want to take it any farther. Hell, the only time they actually hung around was in The World and occasional meets in the hallways of the University he was attending and one study date at her house when they were working together on a research project. He shook his head, the silence was beginning to become uncomfortable and he struggled, trying to think of a way to start a conversation.
"Screw it," he thought to himself, "I'm just gonna do it."
He opened his mouth and Dee stopped in her tracks. "Darn, looks like we're going to have to take on one of these baddies. The baddy is blocking the entrance."
Well that figured. Looks like he was going to have to wait until later. His eyes gazed from her to where she was looking and he caught site of the spinning portal that signified an encounter. Only, something was different about this. Normally they were gold. This one was larger and a strange ruby color. Not only had he never seen something like that before he'd never heard of it either.
His eyes met Dee's. She nodded, "Yeah. I haven't seen anything like that either."
They drew their weapons and approached cautiously. As the stepped closer in proximity in began to spin faster and faster until eventually it poured light across the field, blinding the two players.
Peter covered his eyes. "My God, that's bright. The hell is the point of blinding the people who are shelling out cash for your game?"
Dee laughed and pumped her fist in the air, "Yeah! After we fry this thing I'm writing a letter!"
Peter grinned at her and returned his gaze to the monster now standing before them. It was huge. He'd seen nothing even close to the size of this thing in any of the other areas he had been in. It looked dragon- like although in place of the mythical lizards normally large muscular legs where spindly spider like limbs that did not at all look like they would be able to support it's weight. Of course, in this world, the laws of physics rarely applied.
Adding to the odd look of the creature was it's shiny, translucent, diamond like skin. In the center of it's body stood a larger red crystal that slowly began to beat.
For a moment it just stood there, then the crystal heart began to beat faster and the whole body suddenly began to glow that strange ruby- like red. It raised it's head and roared sending a flock of polygon birds fleeing from the action.
Peter raised his eyebrows. "Well, this is different."
With quick snap of one monsters limbs Brooks was sent into the dirt, and instinctively Dee backed up. Her head whipped back to her friend, "Damage?"
Peter flipped backwards, landing on his feet and bent his knees getting ready to pounce. "A hell of a lot more than I thought it would've done." He whipped the two blades in his hands back and forth in a show of bravado and took a step forward. "Let's kick some ass."
Dee chanted a moment and flames converged on her target. They burned brightly licking the creature from all sides. It simply turned to her and casually stepped out of them. She nodded to herself, "Ok, this fellers immune to fire." Their opponent stepped slowly toward Dee and then broke out into a quick charge, it's head bent and two of it's blade-like spider legs pointing forward. She pulled back and tried to dodge sliding under the first but getting pierced by the second as she stood up. She leaped backwards, pulled out her staff and midair froze.
Peter blinked a few times. His friend floating in mid-air not moving and the spider/dragon slashing like crazy at the character. Only this time none of the blows were hitting. They passed harmlessly through her and for a moment Brooks thought that the creature looked frustrated. It took him a few moments to realize Dee's terminal must have locked.
"Perfect," he said to himself, "I'm fried"
He stepped back a couple of feet and considered simply logging out but just as quickly decided to see what he could do to this thing. After all, if it was a rare as he thought it must be holding something good.
He leaped up into the air, the sun glinting off his blades and came down hard on the monsters neck. He landed on it's back and got a few quick hits in before the creature reared up and threw him to the ground. He slid a few feet came to a stop, he was now getting seriously low on hit points and the consequence of that was delayed movement. He tried to sit up but his avatar would only lie their breathing hard.
"Come on dammit," he whispered to himself, "Get up, get up!"
The spider/dragon raised it's legs and ran full speed at the area Brooks was laying. The two legs supporting the creature carried it at unbelievable speeds and when it was about three feet away from the player it stopped in its tracks and reared up.
A figure hit the dirt between Brooks and his opponent and looked back at him. "Need a little help?"
Finally he rose to his feet and grinned, "You could say that. Nice timing. Name's Peter."
The older player nodded, "My nick's Bear." And without another word he unsheathed his massive blade and engaged the monster, charging straight for it and changing his direction at the last possible minute, swiftly dodging underneath it's legs and nailing it hard in the belly.
The monster squealed and danced trying to either squash Bear and get away from his, but the player kept up with his movements and hacked and slashed at it's underside.
Peter charged, not wanting the new guy to get all the experience points from the fight and leaped onto it's neck driving the two blades into the red diamond. That seemed to be enough as the creature let out one last yell and literally shattered sending pieces of itself across the field.
Brooks grinned, "Y'know if that was flesh that would've been really, really gross." Bear was already running full speed at where Dee was still floating. He was surprised that the game hadn't logged her character off yet.
Bear spun on his heels and glared seriously at Peter, "Did that thing hit her?"
Brooks nodded, "Yeah only managed one hit before she locked."
Bear spit, "Fuck. Do you know where she lives?"
Peter suddenly stood at attention, his skin crawled. "Yes, why?"
"Log off now and get to her house. Call 911 when you get there."
Before Brooks could say anything else the player stepped backed and logged off. ____________________________________________________________________________ __
Peter's feet never hit the pavement as he tore down the street in the pouring rain toward Danielle's home. He slammed into the door, fumbled with the knob, grabbed it, fumbled again, and finally forced it open. He screamed up the stairs into the hallway and blew into her room not bothering to knock. She was sitting at her desk, hunched over her computer. His back hit the wall and he let out a long sigh. He felt so stupid. "Sorry, I just--" His mind raced to find an explanation for breaking into her friends house and he silently thanked God she wasn't in the middle of getting dressed when he walked in.
He stopped for a moment and continued to watch her. She had yet to even turn around. His heart started beating faster, he felt sick. He crept up towards her and put his hand on her small shoulder. "Dee?" he could barely whisper it.
No reply.
He repeated her name and when she didn't respond the second time he pulled the headset off of her and yelled it. She continued to stare at the monitor which was now showing a screensaver.
He grab the cord and unplugged the computer hoping to get some reaction. Her eyes didn't move, they just looked straight ahead.
He felt tears stinging his eyes as he leaped around in front of her. He grabbed her arms and shook her hard. "Dee! Wake up for fucks sake!" Her head bobbed lifelessly from the motion and Brooks burst into tears wrapping his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair softly begging her to wake up.
His head cleared when his eyes came into contact with the phone. He leaped up and darted for it, almost tripping over the cord and pulling the entire computer setup down to the floor. He picked up the receiver and punched the numbers, failing three times due to his shaking hands.
He finally managed the task and waited for the sickeningly calm voice of the dispatcher.
His voice cracked hard and he could barely whisper the words, "I need an ambulance."
Still, it was all better than the bullshit he had come from. He deeply hated life before college but now that he was on his own, making his own decisions things came easier. Not only that, but the sheer number of people that he passed every day made it easier to simply be himself. The city was like the poor man's utopia.
At the moment, though, he had nothing on his mind. It was a Saturday night and all he felt like doing was kicking back and relaxing. And after he made a quick stop he'd head home and kill some time with The World.
He stepped into the brightly lit game store and shook the water off his hair. The clerk looked up and waved him over. He had this creepy grin on his face that instantly put Peter on edge, despite the fact that he and Brian were attending the same classes and were pretty good friends.
Brooks returned the smile and leaned against the glass counter which highlighted completely overpriced "rare" game products. Everything from some eight year old RPG that for one reason or another was suddenly gaining massive popularity to imports of about six dozen Japanese novelty controllers, one of which was a giant pointing finger. He decided it best to not imagine what game that supposed to belong to.
Brian watched him eye the "finger-controller" and laughed. "You really don't want to know."
"No?"
"No."
There were a few moments of silence before Brian sighed, looking at him and shaking his head. "You didn't ask her did you?"
Eyebrows raised, Brian mouthed, "Who?"
"Oh for God sake, man." His friend placed his hand on his forehead and smiled sadly, "Danielle?"
"Ah." Peter shifted uncomfortably. He tapped the glass and started eyeing the finger-toy again. "No, didn't get the chance to."
The clerk folded his arms authoritatively in front of his classmate, "You wuss. It's simple, you walk up, say 'Hey wanna go to, insert movie here?'"
Peter shook his head and leaned against the wall. He'd heard this before. A lot. Dee was one of those people that you instantly fell in love with. Short black hair, bright sea-blue eyes, and a way of smiling that made you think that if no one ever approved of you again, it wouldn't matter.
Brian coughed loudly, poking fun at the current spaced-out state his friend was in. "Seriously, man, you're really pathetic. Just freaking ask her, dammit."
Peter's annoyance level began to rise, "What I do on my own time is none of your business, if I wanted it to be I'd tell you. Now can I have what I came to pick up?"
The clerk raised his hands defensively, "Ok, ok, don't stab me with anything. Just trying to help. You wanted the those crazy 3D goggle things, right?"
Brooks nodded. The Neuro Goggles were the latest invention to cash in on The World. Essentially a headset that offered total immersion into the game world. Although there had been reports of players experiences dizziness and loss of awareness while using them it was still the most anticipated peripheral of the year.
Brian walked into the storage room and fumbled around for a few minutes. "Y'know Pete, you're lucky you pre-ordered, I sold my entire stock of the things within two hours of opening the store."
Peter grinned and peered into the room. Brian was never one for being organized and the dishevelled way the boxes were thrown around and piled on top of one another proved it. Eventually, though, the shop owner found what he was looking for and manoeuvred his way out of the storage space.
Money exchanged hands and Brian handed him the box with a grin, "Do I even have to say it?"
Brooks just shook his head, "I'll ask her already, just piss off."
His friend laughed, "Good luck man, and tell me how well this thing plays. I might grab one myself." ____________________________________________________________________________ __
When he arrived home Peter unpacked the box and pulled out the headset. It was surprisingly heavy despite it's relatively small size and the silver finish accented how expensive the thing was. Of course the only thing he was worried about was it working. He sat down in front of his computer and connected it to the front of the tower. He hit the power button and waited a minute or two as the box hummed to life and bathed his apartment in a blue glow. With a couple of clicks he was navigating The Worlds interface and after double-checking a couple of options he loaded his character and let the game surround him.
The Worlds play field was divided into multiple servers. At each server was a central town. A place where players could relax, chat, meet up others, form parties, plan strategies and do a lot of general maintenance on their characters. At the moment he was in the Delta server exploring the town of Mac Anu. There were lots of old fashioned buildings lining the roadways and one large stream that sectioned off areas of the town. Very neatly organised but also pretty boring. Players darted back and forth, buying weapons, armour, and trading with one another. Some were gathered in large groups talking about things outside The World. Friends, family, other games. Roleplaying was not a requirement among The World's players.
Among the players there stood the Crimson Knights. Essentially CyberConnect employess that were sent to keep an eye on how everything was functioning. Nothing more than low level admins but dressed up in order to keep the game's world consistent. They also functioned as helpers to anyone new to the game although they developed a reputation for being arrogant and discordant toward pretty much everybody. Peter always thought it was funny simply because here they were being paid to play a videogame and they talked and acted like they had some sort of spiked pole residing up their asses.
Peter quickly glanced around and recognized Dee's character running across the bridge toward him. She was what was called a Wavemaster. Your standard wizard style player character that were physically weak but unbelievable strong when it came to shooting the magic fireballs and the like. Peter was a TwinBlade. Very balanced and had a decent assortment of physical and magical attacks. Generally considered a newbie class he still used it because they looked damn cool.
He waved a greeting and ran up to her. He smiled to himself. Even her character was huggable.
"Ready to go?" She said glancing around.
Peter nodded. "I wanna check out that dungeon we found a while back. I think I'm powerful enough to take the baddies out now."
Dee nodded, "Sure thing."
The two of them headed toward the Chaos Gate. Basically a giant floating portal in the town that allowed access to other servers and dungeons. The dungeons were accessed by using a three word phrase that when combined set things like setting, difficulty, monster size, et cetera.
The two of them popped in the keyword and stepped into the portal. A quick animation later they found themselves in a vast grassy field. Mountains stood in the distance and off to the horizon they saw the entrance to the dungeon. One that they had tackled previously and, for lack of a better term, got their asses handed to them. A few days of preparation though and they were ready to give it another shot.
They walked for a few moments, not bothering to engage the floating symbols that marked where an enemy would appear. They were much to eager to head into the dungeon.
Peter looked over at her and his heart leaped into his chest. This was stupid. They were just friends, she wasn't going to want to take it any farther. Hell, the only time they actually hung around was in The World and occasional meets in the hallways of the University he was attending and one study date at her house when they were working together on a research project. He shook his head, the silence was beginning to become uncomfortable and he struggled, trying to think of a way to start a conversation.
"Screw it," he thought to himself, "I'm just gonna do it."
He opened his mouth and Dee stopped in her tracks. "Darn, looks like we're going to have to take on one of these baddies. The baddy is blocking the entrance."
Well that figured. Looks like he was going to have to wait until later. His eyes gazed from her to where she was looking and he caught site of the spinning portal that signified an encounter. Only, something was different about this. Normally they were gold. This one was larger and a strange ruby color. Not only had he never seen something like that before he'd never heard of it either.
His eyes met Dee's. She nodded, "Yeah. I haven't seen anything like that either."
They drew their weapons and approached cautiously. As the stepped closer in proximity in began to spin faster and faster until eventually it poured light across the field, blinding the two players.
Peter covered his eyes. "My God, that's bright. The hell is the point of blinding the people who are shelling out cash for your game?"
Dee laughed and pumped her fist in the air, "Yeah! After we fry this thing I'm writing a letter!"
Peter grinned at her and returned his gaze to the monster now standing before them. It was huge. He'd seen nothing even close to the size of this thing in any of the other areas he had been in. It looked dragon- like although in place of the mythical lizards normally large muscular legs where spindly spider like limbs that did not at all look like they would be able to support it's weight. Of course, in this world, the laws of physics rarely applied.
Adding to the odd look of the creature was it's shiny, translucent, diamond like skin. In the center of it's body stood a larger red crystal that slowly began to beat.
For a moment it just stood there, then the crystal heart began to beat faster and the whole body suddenly began to glow that strange ruby- like red. It raised it's head and roared sending a flock of polygon birds fleeing from the action.
Peter raised his eyebrows. "Well, this is different."
With quick snap of one monsters limbs Brooks was sent into the dirt, and instinctively Dee backed up. Her head whipped back to her friend, "Damage?"
Peter flipped backwards, landing on his feet and bent his knees getting ready to pounce. "A hell of a lot more than I thought it would've done." He whipped the two blades in his hands back and forth in a show of bravado and took a step forward. "Let's kick some ass."
Dee chanted a moment and flames converged on her target. They burned brightly licking the creature from all sides. It simply turned to her and casually stepped out of them. She nodded to herself, "Ok, this fellers immune to fire." Their opponent stepped slowly toward Dee and then broke out into a quick charge, it's head bent and two of it's blade-like spider legs pointing forward. She pulled back and tried to dodge sliding under the first but getting pierced by the second as she stood up. She leaped backwards, pulled out her staff and midair froze.
Peter blinked a few times. His friend floating in mid-air not moving and the spider/dragon slashing like crazy at the character. Only this time none of the blows were hitting. They passed harmlessly through her and for a moment Brooks thought that the creature looked frustrated. It took him a few moments to realize Dee's terminal must have locked.
"Perfect," he said to himself, "I'm fried"
He stepped back a couple of feet and considered simply logging out but just as quickly decided to see what he could do to this thing. After all, if it was a rare as he thought it must be holding something good.
He leaped up into the air, the sun glinting off his blades and came down hard on the monsters neck. He landed on it's back and got a few quick hits in before the creature reared up and threw him to the ground. He slid a few feet came to a stop, he was now getting seriously low on hit points and the consequence of that was delayed movement. He tried to sit up but his avatar would only lie their breathing hard.
"Come on dammit," he whispered to himself, "Get up, get up!"
The spider/dragon raised it's legs and ran full speed at the area Brooks was laying. The two legs supporting the creature carried it at unbelievable speeds and when it was about three feet away from the player it stopped in its tracks and reared up.
A figure hit the dirt between Brooks and his opponent and looked back at him. "Need a little help?"
Finally he rose to his feet and grinned, "You could say that. Nice timing. Name's Peter."
The older player nodded, "My nick's Bear." And without another word he unsheathed his massive blade and engaged the monster, charging straight for it and changing his direction at the last possible minute, swiftly dodging underneath it's legs and nailing it hard in the belly.
The monster squealed and danced trying to either squash Bear and get away from his, but the player kept up with his movements and hacked and slashed at it's underside.
Peter charged, not wanting the new guy to get all the experience points from the fight and leaped onto it's neck driving the two blades into the red diamond. That seemed to be enough as the creature let out one last yell and literally shattered sending pieces of itself across the field.
Brooks grinned, "Y'know if that was flesh that would've been really, really gross." Bear was already running full speed at where Dee was still floating. He was surprised that the game hadn't logged her character off yet.
Bear spun on his heels and glared seriously at Peter, "Did that thing hit her?"
Brooks nodded, "Yeah only managed one hit before she locked."
Bear spit, "Fuck. Do you know where she lives?"
Peter suddenly stood at attention, his skin crawled. "Yes, why?"
"Log off now and get to her house. Call 911 when you get there."
Before Brooks could say anything else the player stepped backed and logged off. ____________________________________________________________________________ __
Peter's feet never hit the pavement as he tore down the street in the pouring rain toward Danielle's home. He slammed into the door, fumbled with the knob, grabbed it, fumbled again, and finally forced it open. He screamed up the stairs into the hallway and blew into her room not bothering to knock. She was sitting at her desk, hunched over her computer. His back hit the wall and he let out a long sigh. He felt so stupid. "Sorry, I just--" His mind raced to find an explanation for breaking into her friends house and he silently thanked God she wasn't in the middle of getting dressed when he walked in.
He stopped for a moment and continued to watch her. She had yet to even turn around. His heart started beating faster, he felt sick. He crept up towards her and put his hand on her small shoulder. "Dee?" he could barely whisper it.
No reply.
He repeated her name and when she didn't respond the second time he pulled the headset off of her and yelled it. She continued to stare at the monitor which was now showing a screensaver.
He grab the cord and unplugged the computer hoping to get some reaction. Her eyes didn't move, they just looked straight ahead.
He felt tears stinging his eyes as he leaped around in front of her. He grabbed her arms and shook her hard. "Dee! Wake up for fucks sake!" Her head bobbed lifelessly from the motion and Brooks burst into tears wrapping his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair softly begging her to wake up.
His head cleared when his eyes came into contact with the phone. He leaped up and darted for it, almost tripping over the cord and pulling the entire computer setup down to the floor. He picked up the receiver and punched the numbers, failing three times due to his shaking hands.
He finally managed the task and waited for the sickeningly calm voice of the dispatcher.
His voice cracked hard and he could barely whisper the words, "I need an ambulance."