**UPDATES**
Hello again! My apologies for the long period of inactivity– school got in the way when I posted back in April and I went through a writing slump during these past few months. With that being said, I started working on this story again and I intend to update it more frequently.
I revisited what I had previously written and made some changes/restructured things so that the story flows better and is less wordy.
If you had previously followed this story, just give these first few chapters a reread so that the rest of the story makes sense.
Alright, that's it! Enjoy :)
A strained cough broke the silence. "Mother!" I looked down to see her eyes opening slightly. "Edward?" Her voice was no louder than a whisper. "You're back," she smiled weakly.
"Yes," I tried to grin, but my expression came out the wrong way. "What happened?"
"Nothing. I'm fine," she deflected. "No, you most certainly are not," I mentally chastised myself for not acting when I first found her. "I must have fainted, that's all."
I sighed. She could have died if no one was home to find her! There was no need to pretend everything was all right when it clearly was not. The amount of responsibility she had been shouldering since my father's passing truly worried me. Though I may never be able to fill his shoes, I knew I was more than capable of carrying some of the weight.
"You're not fine. Please let me get a doctor," I insisted. As soon as I got up, however, I staggered back onto the floor.
"Edward, please," she murmured. "You're the one who is not well…" The headache was worsening, but my problems were the least of my concern when my mother was still lying on the parlor floor. Whatever had happened to her, I needed a physician to see her as soon as possible.
I steadied myself, grabbed a cushion from a nearby chair and placed it underneath her head before making my way to the telephone.
The minutes seemed to drag on as I waited for an operator to pick up my call. I hung up and tried again. Nothing. Even after several attempts, the line remained unnaturally silent. I slammed the receiver into the phone. What was the point of having a telephone in the first place if you could not call anyone?
With the pandemic picking up in the city, there was a chance there weren't any vacancies in nearby hospitals or available ambulances to pick up new patients. It was a risk making my way there without knowing if anyone could help her, but what other option did I have?
I returned to the parlor. If it weren't for the shallow breaths making her chest rise and fall, I would have thought my mother was dead. She was still in the same spot I had found her. I thought about bringing her to the sofa in our family room so she could rest more comfortably, but the nausea on my end stopped me from pursuing the idea.
"I couldn't telephone the city hospital, but there is a chance I could find someone to help if I go there instead," I said. She murmured a faint "No," in protest, but I had already made up my mind.
I tried not to get ahead of myself, but her pallid face immediately brought an image of my father to my head. What we all thought was a regular fever quickly turned into something else entirely within a matter of days. His face had an ashen complexion quite similar to my mother's.
What if she also—? No! I cringed at the half-completed thought. I shouldn't dwell on that possibility. She was going to be fine. She had to be. "I'll be back soon," I said. The idea of leaving her alone worried me, but I reminded myself the sooner I left, the faster she could get treated. I tried to envision a near future where matters of health were no longer a constant topic of concern within our home. Clinging to that possibility, I made my last plea on way out. "I promise."
I raced down the stairs and made my way across the street to unlock my bicycle. The sky was still shrouded in a veil of dark clouds that were nowhere near ready to leave. Even with a rain coat on, I was already dripping wet by the time I got out of the neighborhood.
Unable to see more than a few feet in front of me, I sped up cautiously. The backroads I was taking would get me to the hospital faster than usual. No more than fifteen minutes, I was certain of that. But the timing still concerned me— what if fifteen minutes were to be fifteen minutes too late?
I turned into a narrow cobblestone street, pedalling harder than I had before. If I continued riding at this speed, I knew I could cut down the trip by a couple more minutes. I managed to press on for a few seconds, but quickly found myself out of breath. While the path I was taking was not terribly difficult, every stroke I took somehow felt more painful than the last.
That's when the coughing began.
It crushed my throat before possessing my lungs. Soon enough, I was choking. Unable to push past the struggle, I skidded uncontrollably as my hands lost their grip on the bike.
Something cold kept hitting the back of my scalp. It contrasted the sweltering heat growing inside my chest. I turned on my side, noticing the rain wash away a stream of red on the stone road beneath me. Deep, bruised scrapes scored both of my palms; blood was freely gushing out of them now. The corners of my vision blurred and I contemplated shutting my eyes then and there. It would be so easy to do so. Allow myself to rest for a few moments before the coughing returned. But I couldn't. Staying put would mean everything I'd gone through would have been done in vain. Every second mattered. Someone was depending on me.
I weakly pushed myself off the floor and located my bike— it laid flat next to a pothole a few meters away from me. Feeling the throbbing pain pulsing from my bloodied hands all the way to my head didn't make walking any easier. I limped toward the accident scene and rode away as fast as I could. The minute I began to pedal, however, my disorientation worsened. I could hardly remember how long I'd been riding in the direction I was headed. Was I even going the right way anymore? I knew I had take a left turn eventually…
Time unfavorably stretched before me like the long road I rode on. It felt like every breathless second I pedalled only got me further from my destination. The journey was disheartening, but I forced myself to continue regardless. Unaware of how I even managed to arrive, I found myself trudging up the steps leading to the city hospital.
I tried to open the main doors of the infirmary, but they were locked. Drained, I rested my weight on one of the doors and began to knock. "Please open…" I whispered as my eyes closed. Every breath I took felt like someone had punched the air right out of my lungs. I resolved to continue banging instead, hoping I had the strength to make a loud enough knock for someone to hear. My hands repeatedly hit the door, leaving fresh traces of blood with every hit.
After knocking for what felt like hours, a deadbolt finally unlocked and pushed away the steady surface I'd been resting on. Behind the doors, a dark void opened before me, pulling me in.
Unable to step back, I collapsed forward.
