Chapter 2: The forgotten message
The sound of John's alarm clock was sharp and tedious like always but with the alcohol from the last night it was more difficult to get up. The next lecture was waiting. John got up, stripped from his wrinkled clothes and threw them on the floor. His room was already a mess anyway and one or two items more would make no difference. He would tidy up later or the next day.
The shower did the usual miracle when he drank too much. The hot water on his skin washed away all the smell and sweat, relaxed his muscles and the short cold stream cleared his head. John Watson was ready for a new day. Still drying himself he got a little shock as he saw the time. Dressed and ready in less than a minute John was out of the door with an open shirt and coat in his hand. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he was suitably dressed for the day.
John walked down the road; his flat was a ten minutes footway away from the science building. He wouldn't have needed to hurry with his dressing, he wouldn't be late. He was never late. As John put his hands into his pockets to warm them up a bit he felt a piece of paper. He never put pieces of paper in his coat, why should he and why had he done it this time? Then he remembered the party of the previous night. Maybe he had gotten lucky and the paper slip contained the number of a girl. But what he read on the paper confused him. It was only an address and the words 'SAVE HIM' in capital letters. He turned the paper to look on the other side but there was nothing. Only the address of a building in one of the not quite so good parts of the city. The parts his parents had said he should avoid.
Slowing down his pace John tried to remember who had given him this address. It wasn't at the party, he was certain about that. But that meant it must have been given to him somewhere and sometime on his way home. Probably somewhere between Mike's and his flat. There was a flash of a picture of a woman in his head but it disappeared quickly and left a strange feeling back that John couldn't describe. It was as if someone was calling his name and for the first time since he had started studying medicine he would miss a class. He turned at the next corner to go to the nearest subway station to catch the next train which would bring him closer to the address on the paper.
As John left the station it was as if he were entering another city. The buildings where old, dirty and most of them need a serious renovation. His parents were right that this part of the city should be avoided but this station was the closest one to the address. He walked down the street staying away from dark corners or alleys ("you don't have to take more risks than necessary" he told himself). The streets were empty. No one was on their way to a station to get to work; no old ladies were on their way to do the shopping. John was alone on this not so early morning. The address was the one of an old, empty looking house with a sign on the door that said 'keep out'.
John didn't know much about the lower classes of London or the drug scene in general but this 'house' just about shouted DRUG DEN. John stood in front of the house not sure if he should go inside. He didn't really know why but he kept hearing the same two words in his head that had lead him so far again and again: SAVE HIM!
"Fine, I will have a look." Mumbling to himself he climbed over the broken gate and rounded the house to find a way in. A way many had used before him. One of the windows was broken and all bits of broken glass had been removed. John pulled himself up and climbed through it without any witnesses. Not that the neighborhood really told a story about there being alert neighbors.
To John's surprise and a bit to his joy the ground floor was empty (no one jumped at him). He looked in every room, even opened a cupboard to make sure. He eyed the suspicious looking stairs but after testing the first two he steps he climbed the rest without hesitation, searching the upper floor.
In the last room at the end of the hall he found something and honestly John's first thought was that he had found a body. Not that it would be his first one as a medicine student. You got your fair share of dead bodies before they let you treat a living person. In the corner of the room on an old mattress laid something small covered with a dirty blanked and not moving. After the first shock was somewhat over John walked into the room leaving the door open as an escape route should he need one. The floor made creaky noises but whatever lived in that room (if it was still alive) was not moving. The same words came again to his mind demanding attention. "Save him." Maybe it was already too late.
John kneeled next to the dirty and smelly mattress reaching with his hand for the blanket and lifting it up slowly. What he found surprised him. It was not same old homeless man or a drugged adult. It was just a child. Not really a child but a teenager. Maybe fifteen or sixteen but not older. The boy lay there totally still, like dead, not moving. John laid his fingers on the boy's neck to feel for a pulse. He never got the chance as a boney hand grabbed his wrist and held it with amazing strength. Not moving but with wild eyes looking around the room until they focused on him.
"Did David send you or my brother?" Not even waiting for the surprised John to catch his breath or think about an answer, the boy started to shout. "Answer me. Who sent you? What did they tell you?" John could see how the boy's eyes started to lose their focus. Eyes like the stormy sea. At that point his medical training kicked in.
"No one sent me." Not really true but you didn't tell that to someone who was obviously paranoiac and was having a panic attack. "I was just in the neighborhood and found you. You look like you need help." His pupils were bigger than they should be in the bright room, it looked like the boy was sweating heavily and John could manage to feel his pulse with a bit of twist of his arm. It was too fast; not good. The kid probably had overdosed on some kind of drug, he needed to bring him to a hospital before something happened.
"Don't believe you. You work for my brother, he has sent a doctor to make sure I won't die on the way back to my 'nice little cell' in the rehab center. Tell him he can have my room, he is the addict with all his cake eating but no one judges him. It's always only me." The last words came out a bit more self-pitying than the boy had intended them to be. John could see that.
Smiling a soft smile he answered the boy with all the patience he could muster. "I won't call your brother, because I don't know him or any David. I am trying to help you. You are right about the medical education but I'm still only a student and no one would send me here to get someone with a drug overdose out of here. Believe me. But we should think about your staying here. You can't stay forever and you know that." The boy was very still and listened to John's words. He was probable searching for a lie in John's words. "How about I bring you to the next hospital and we tell no one who you are. They have to help you and I can't tell them your name because I don't know it." John really hoped that was enough, he couldn't do much here.
"Fine. But you have to help me, my legs won't work in the state I'm in." Surprised by the fast change John stood up and pulled the boy with him. He was light, a bit smaller than himself and dangerously thin. But this was something for later. John pulled one of the boy's arms over his shoulder to support him as they walked to the stairs with surprisingly few problems but the stairs would be a different story. Looking down at the shaky legs of the boy John realized there was only one way to do this.
"I will carry you down the steps, it's safer and easier for both of us." The boy looked as if he wanted to protest but he kept his mouth shut. John bent down a bit, put one of his arms under the knees of the boy and lifted him up. Instinctively the boy held himself in place by laying his other arm around John's neck, his head finding a place on John's shoulder.
Watching him the boy closed his eyes nearly giving John a panic attack but the boy kept breathing even if a bit too fast. Wondering about the window and how to climb through it John saw that the door was not locked from the inside. He could have used it to get in as well.
The sleeping/unconscious boy safe in his arms John made his way down the road. The next hospital wasn't far away. No one stopped him as he entered the clinic building and saw people again. No one questioned his story that he had found the boy around the corner and hadn't been able to wake him up.
After they had taken the boy away for treatment John could feel some weight being lifted from him. Not the physical weight, more the buzzing in his head which had stopped. First he thought about waiting for the boy but after the nurse told him he could go (probably used to drug cases) he left. The boy wouldn't want him there and maybe he wouldn't even really remember him.
Outside the building he turned around and looked over the roof to see the sky. For a short second he thought there was someone standing on the edge but after he looked again there was nothing. Just his imagination. Now he needed an excuse for missing his class.