Sirens and smoke remind us
Maybe the world won't find us
Fall to the Earth in red light 'til it's gone
It had been five days since Charlotte Quartermain had woken up in the hospital and as she was finding out, the fifth day was a hell of a lot more painful than the four prior. Her head spun, her ribs ached and every burn and laceration on her body that she had attained from the blast seared her skin.
She looked bad, too. Though she had only started getting up to go to the washroom on her own the day before – a feat she was quite thankful for – she had caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and nearly died on the spot. Her long, blonde hair was matted and wild due to her constant horizontal state on the bed and the gashes that lined her cheekbones and chin were ghastly. One of them in particular, a deep cut that stretched from the base of her ear up to the apple of her cheek was undoubtedly going to scar, but besides that and a rather large burn on her forearm – all of the rips would eventually heal. Her sprained ankle, the mild concussion, and the bruised ribs – they would all heal.
Yet despite all that, something still felt different. Off.
She wanted to be happy that she survived an explosion, and she was but something in her bones told her that something wasn't right. Something had changed within her, but just what that was, she had no idea.
"You're looking a little more chipper today, Charlie."
Upon hearing the familiar voice, Charlotte's sore head slowly lulled towards the doorway only to notice Dr. Steinbeck standing there with a timid but content smile on his aged face. He was a kind man, Dr. Steinbeck, and from the time Charlotte had woken up completely dazed and confused in the hospital bed, he had been there to assure and assist her every step of the way.
"Is that code for not looking half as shitty as I feel?" She teased, smiling only slightly to avoid ripping the deep cut on her upper lip. A small groan escaped her lips as she attempted to sit up a little straighter but as an overwhelming pain reverberated across her ribs, she settled back down with a quiet thud. "Shit."
"Your ribs are still tender, I assume?" The doctor asked, stepping towards her bed with her chart in hand. He gently reached forward and placed his cold, gloved hand on top of her ribs and felt around for any discrepancy from his last check. When Charlotte let out an audible hiss, the doctor removed his hand and shot her a sympathetic smile. "Ah, yes. Still tender."
Glancing up at the older doctor, Charlotte allowed a small frown to mar her face. "Remind me again why morphine wasn't an option?"
Dr. Steinbeck's furry eyebrows rose in question. "It was. But it was taken off the table when you're body refused it. Just like it did with the blood transfusion." He was quiet for a moment before he dropped his brown eyes to the floor. "Which is precisely why I came to talk to you."
A sudden bout of nerves erupted in Charlotte's stomach as she watched the doctor's shoulders fall ever so slightly. She had always been taught by her father to pay attention to body language because no matter where you went that was the universal language. You could tell a lot about a person – about a situation – by their body language.
"What is it?" She urged, ignoring the pain of her ribs as she immediately stretched forward. Her eyes were panicked as she thought back to all that could possibly go wrong. Hell, she'd somehow survived a bomb going off – just what could the universe be throwing at her now? "Was it my bloodwork? Did something come up?"
Dr. Steinbeck looked back up at the blonde and gently shook his head. "No. That's just it. Your bloodwork is gone."
Relief hit the blonde first as she settled back into the stiff bed but it was soon followed by extreme confusion. "It's gone?" She repeated. "How? Like, they've been misplaced?"
The doctor sighed quietly beneath his breath and shook his head. "Misplaced would be a good term for it. They're just…they're gone. We've called transfer hospitals in case they were sent with another file by accident and we've searched every square inch of this one but we can't find them." He pulled up a seat and pushed it towards her bed. "Strange as it is, they've quite literally vanished."
Charlotte blinked slowly as she stared across at the man. "Well, I mean that's not ideal, obviously, but is it that serious? I mean, I don't necessarily need it do I?"
The man slowly allowed his eyes to fall to her file and once again Charlie felt herself grow nervous. Something was clearly wrong – what was he not telling her?
"Charlotte," he began before looking back up at her. "There's no easy way of saying this so I'm just going to come right out with it but you died for one minute and thirty-nine seconds the night you came in." He seemed to rethink his next few words but it wouldn't have mattered to Charlotte. She couldn't hear anything beyond the high pitch ringing in her ears.
She died? She had seen things like that happen on TV but this was real life – it was her life – and to hear that she had technically died at some point in time shook her to her core.
"I-I-" Words failed her as she fully took in his words. "What do you mean that I died?"
Dr. Steinbeck offered the woman a small smile. "It does happen more than you think, Charlotte. I—"
"I don't care how often it happens, why did it happen? What happened to me?" She demanded, pushing herself further up the mattress. For the first time in days she felt no pain as she struggled against her I.V's. She felt a sudden pressure release on her outer palm as the IV popped out, but she paid no mind. Dr. Steinbeck instantly stood up to his full height and moved to fix the tube but Charlotte only pulled her hand back and narrowed her eyes. "You can fix that when you tell me what happened to me."
With a sigh, the doctor let his hand fall back down to his side as he stared down at the obviously shell-shocked blonde. "When you got here, you had lost a lot of blood. Twenty-two percent of it, if you want exact numbers. We had to treat that before we could treat anything else and we did. We found your EHIC in your wallet and luckily enough, we were able to see that your blood type was—"
"A-Positive."
"Precisely. Which means you can get a transfusion from either another A or an O. Well, we tried another A but for whatever reason your body didn't take to it. Usually a transfusion from one A to another A is simple but your body went into what we call an Acute Immune Hemolytic Reaction. To put it simply, your body went into defense mode the second that blood came into your veins. Your immune system attacked the red blood cells because, to it, it looked foreign – but it shouldn't have been." He sounded almost frustrated with himself, Charlotte noticed, but she kept her mouth shut sensing he had more to say. "When your body fought off the blood, the attacked cells released a substance into your bloodstream that is extremely harmful – and within minutes your kidneys and your lungs were shutting down. Five minutes later, you died."
An overwhelming silence filled the room the moment Dr. Steinbeck stopped talking. How had she not been told about any of this until now? Her kidneys and lungs had both failed and ultimately killed her. She felt dizzy with all this new information. Dizzy and utterly sick.
"Why did my body refuse the blood?" Her voice came out as a whisper and she had hardly noticed the doctor had begun to patch up her hand that had been released of its IV. "If it's such an easy transfusion in any other situation, why did my situation go south?"
The doctor was silent for a moment but as he slowly looked up into the woman's greyish stare, he seemed at a loss. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "Never in my thirty years of practice has anything like this ever happened. Not to this extent, at least. Your body refused the blood, it refused the morphine and, believe it or not, despite all of that you're healing at an alarmingly accelerated rate. I can't explain it."
Charlotte eyed him for several minutes before lowering her eyes to the white sheet splayed across her lap. Her heart was beating erratically in her chest and if she hadn't been hooked up to the heart monitor she was sure this was what a heart attack felt like. She was horrified.
Her palms began to shake as what she could only assume was a small panic attack began to settle in the pit of her stomach. What was wrong with her? Was this the source of the strange feeling? Was it because she had technically died that she suddenly felt so different?
Just as her nerves were about to boil over, the lights above her quivered and temporarily left both she and the doctor in a darkened room before the lights flickered back to life. With furled brows, she looked up at the fluorescent lights. "What was that?"
Dr. Steinbeck didn't look all that worried as he subtly shrugged his shoulders. "Must be a surge, it's probably nothing." He looked back down at his patient before offering her a comforting hand on her forearm. "I can't apologize more to you for not being able to answer any of your questions. Which is exactly why having your bloodwork go missing is just bizarre. We pride ourselves on being a thorough and professional hospital. Having your file go missing from under our nose shouldn't have happened and I truly apologize for that." He gently pat her arm and stood up to his full height. "That being said we can take more if you'd like –"
"No." She cut in. "It's stupid, I know it's stupid, but I'm too scared now. If my body reacted so strangely before what's stopping it from doing it again?"
Dr. Steinbeck wanted to sway her on the idea but sensing it was not the time, he simply just nodded his head and shot her a small smile. "Well, believe it or not, I do have some good news."
No trace of a smile graced her lips. "And what would that be?"
"You can go home tomorrow."
Her eyebrows immediately furrowed together. "How? You just told me that I died and now I can go home? Is that safe?"
The doctor offered her what she could only assume was an attempt at being a comforting smile. "As I've said, you're healing at an alarmingly rapid rate. Most bomb victims come in here with missing limbs or have died before they've even got to the hospital; you were a rare case. That being said, of course we'll run some more tests and CT's and an Ultrasound before shooing you off but I strongly suspect that by this time tomorrow you'll be in the comfort of your own bed."
Despite the good news, Charlotte was dizzy.
This was all just too much to be dealing with in such a short span of time. Twenty minutes ago she was worried about the pain in her ribs but now she was riddled with the knowledge that at some point in time, she had died and somehow managed to fight her way back to the life.
She wished so desperately to remember something from that night but she couldn't. Not the blast, not the ambulance ride – not even arriving at the hospital.
Without thinking, Charlotte raised her newly-bandaged hand and held it to the bruise that had gathered at the base of her neck. She had noticed the bruise right off the bat. It was an ugly thing; big and freshly yellowed with a tiny almost invisible puncture wound directly in the middle of it. It was just one of many wounds she had attained from the night of the explosion and yet something in her gut told her that this one was different.
What the hell happened to me? She found herself wondering just as the doctor finally left her room.
An uncomfortable feeling settled in her stomach as she fought so desperately to remember the events of that night. She could remember someone carrying her out of the burning building but just who would risk their life rushing into a dilapidated bar to carry out the one staff member on shift at the time was beyond her. How could they know anyone was even in there let alone find her beneath a pile of burnt rubble?
With a sigh, Charlotte allowed herself to fall back into the stiff mattress as a vicious migraine prodded inside of her temples.
Yes, something was definitely wrong, that much she knew, but she'd be damned if she didn't get to the bottom of it.
