Bach Mai Hospital February 16, 2021 Hanoi, Vietnam
Bach Mai Hospital is the largest hospital in Vietnam. It is situated in Hanoi, a few miles from the war museum. It was one of the few buildings that survived the Operation Rolling Thunder attacks during the Vietnam War.
The hospital was usually quiet this time of day, save the occasional emergency situation. But in this area of the hospital, it was always quiet. This was where they kept the comatose and the near-death patients. Most of them were on ventilators and didn't speak much, save the occasional grunt of pain or the rare visitor.
Room 602 was always quiet. Nurse Mui was usually one to visit the room and sit with the perpetually young woman that laid in the bed. She was completely comatose and nothing could draw her out. They had tried to revive her with a new and controversial medication last year. The ebony haired, small woman opened her brown eyes, but would never process anything.
The woman that the staff called "Thiên thần" had been at the hospital as far as Mui could remember. No one knows the details of the mysterious woman or what had caused such a deep laceration to her head, leaving her mental capabilities questionable, at best. What frightened everyone away from her room was the fact that the girl did not age.
What's more, the woman mysteriously became pregnant after she had awakened. She was only conscious for a few days, in which she never spoke or even turned her head. The girl just stared at the ceiling and then, one day, simply closed her eyes.
Thiên thần looked like an ordinary Vietnamese girl, dark hair, dark eyes, medium complexion, but she was indeed quite different.
Mui found solace with her. It was nearly 16 years ago that she herself was considered terrifyingly different. She did not know the vitamins that were given to her through the years were actually a drug called Delta 67. The side-effect had almost completely turned her into a monster. She recalled her wonderful friends Riku and Kai trying to save her, but she was caged. Kept like an animal because if she were to be released, she'd kill.
Thankfully, in 2010, a new drug was invented by an organization called the Red Shield. This drug was able to reverse the effects of Delta 67, but only in those that had not completely transformed. Mui was saving all her excess funds as a nurse so she could return to school and study bio-chemistry and join the Red Shield. It was her dream to help them find a cure for the horrible drug created by Cinq Fleches.
Today, the normally quiet room was a beehive of activity. People were shouting as Thiên thần's body was in labor. The doctors were scratching their heads, trying to figure out how the woman's body was laboring with her mind completely gone. It seemed the infant was the one bringing on the labor.
Mui watched from the sidelines as nurses and doctors scrambled around, trying to aid the labor progression. The resident OBGyn, Doctor Minh Tranh, was shouting orders as she examined the progression of the patient's labor.
Dr. Minh, as she preferred to be called, was a divorcee with two children. She was quite plain; wearing glasses and her brown hair had flecks of silver, even at the tender age of 32. The woman was smart as a whip and quite commanding. Once, Mui had shared her secret past with the doctor who simply replied, "I have seen things that I can't explain, Mui. What you tell me is no different than that. I went to a private school here in Vietnam. A young lady was my roommate for a short time- she was from Japan. She vanished as mysteriously as she came, but when she left, she was splattered in blood and carrying a huge Japanese sword."
Mui wondered if it was merely a coincidence that Riku and Kai had a sister there around the same time. The night she became a monster, all she could remember was Riku crying out to her and a beautiful, sad voice singing a very depressing aria. In her mind, she recalled a blurry image of two young, dark haired girls facing off. They looked alike save for their eyes. The one that sang had brilliant blue eyes and the other had glowing eyes the color of blood.
Mui was shaken from her thoughts as she heard shouting all around her.
"Cô ấy không còn sống được! Chúng ta phải cứu em bé!" one of the doctors shouted.
"Thiên thần is dying?" Mui asked in shock.
Doctor Minh nodded through the mask on her face as she readied her hand holding a scalpel.
"Cắt mở của cô!" another doctor shouted as he watched the heart monitor emitting erratic beeps. The woman's breathing was as erratic as her heart rate. He shouted in English, "If we do not remove the baby, it will die, too!"
Dr. Minh nodded and sliced through the woman's abdomen, knowing the woman would not feel the pain.
A squall came from the newborn as it was pulled from her mother's womb. A surgical nurse took over stitching up the patient as the baby howled and shivered in this new world. "It's a girl," Minh announced, but the doctors were busy saving the mother.
Mui held Thiên thần's hand as tears spilled from her eyes. For the first time in almost a year, the woman's eyes were open and she was staring straight at Mui. Her eyes were as dead as the rest of her body. She could feel it inside herself, deep within, that the only reason Thiên thần was kept alive this long was so she could bring this baby into the world.
The baby was referred to as phép lạ bé- meaning "miracle baby." By the next day, the infant's image was plastered in the local news.
"A patient that has been comatose for years gives her life during childbirth to a healthy baby girl," Dr. Minh read, shaking her head.
"This needs to be controlled better," a voice told her. His back was turned to her, but she knew what he looked like. His name was Richards, an American doctor that had taken over Bach Mai hospital 4 years ago. He was very strict about protocol and keeping any news from the papers, but somehow this story leaked and he was not happy at all. "I do not want these reporters to get too curious about this. The baby will suffer if it is discovered how she came into the world. No one will adopt a child like her."
"Sir," Minh responded, "I think she'd have a better chance of adoption in the US than here. It has been 2 weeks and her eyes are still blue. Her skin is still as white as snow. She looks more like an American child than any Vietnamese person."
"No," he responded coldly, "I will not put any undue expense on this child just because she is different. If her origins remain a mystery, someone will think she is just a child that came from the union of an American soldier and an ordinary Vietnamese woman.
"Sir," Minh argued, "We don't even know what her origins are. Her mother was a complete mystery to us all."
"That makes it an even better reason to sweep this under the rug, Dr. Tranh," he responded. "We don't want to upset her for any reason. We don't really know what her origins are and if she was to find out that she was any more different than what is obvious, it may cause her more damage than good. No." He turned his gaze to the window, causing Minh to get a glimpse of his strawberry blonde hair and olive green eyes. Dr. Richards stood about six feet tall and had a square jawline. He wore thin-framed glasses and always seemed completely cool about his surroundings. "It would hurt her more than we can imagine if she found out that she is not normal."
A persistent knock alerted the two doctors and suddenly the brown haired freight train known as Mao Okamura barged into the office. She was a tenacious reporter for the Tokyo Times newspaper. Her husband would arrive in a minute with his calm demeanor and the two would play good cop-bad cop to squeeze out the story.
"Alright, spill the beans, Richards!" Mao commanded forcefully as her husband casually made his way into the office.
"Dr. Richards, as the head of this hospital, you have the responsibilities of everything that goes on within these walls," the scruffy looking reporter reasoned. "We understand that it can be a tough job, but surely you know at least who the father of that baby is."
"Mr. and Mrs. Okamura," Dr. Richards addressed them as he steepled his hands in front of him, "I have no information to give that the newspapers hasn't already published."
"You can't seriously think that we're going to believe that that is all you know about her? That she's been here a decade?" Mao snorted.
"That is what was in the papers as well as the hospital files," Dr. Richards answered.
"Look," Okamura said as he took a seat, "we know that what you have is a Jane Doe in your morgue and an orphaned little girl in your nursery. We just want to know everything you know."
Dr. Richards fixed a steely gaze on the man before his wife interrupted, "Don't you think it's weird that she just suddenly comes up pregnant in the middle of a hospital. Someone had to have seen something… maybe a male visitor?"
"Mrs. Okamura," Dr. Richards responded, "that part of the hospital is not highly watched over. People are placed there to die, so they don't require a lot of care and they seldom get visitors. Our budget allows us to staff the areas where doctors and nurses are needed most."
"Yeah, but didn't this mysterious patient have one visitor? She must have in order to get pregnant," Okamura wondered out loud.
"I know that according to the visitor's log, no one ever visited that room," Dr. Richards answered plainly.
Mao scrunched her nose as she asked, "What kind of man would want to…"
"It's called necrophilia," Dr. Richards informed. "Ideally the subject would prefer a corpse, a comatose patient may also have the same effect." The phone on his desk buzzed and Dr. Richards said, "Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Okamura, but I have a hospital to run. I trust you know the way out."
"Richards," Mao growled as she came to the front of his desk and leaned to look into his face, "I know you can be a slippery snake, but I also know that the Japanese Government has been very generous toward the rebuilding of this hospital. I think you should be more forthcoming with us."
Unfazed, Richards picked up his phone and spoke to the person on the other end. Mao was seething as her husband pulled her out of the office grumbling, "We don't need you getting arrested again, Mao."
When the two were boarding the elevator, Dr. Minh looked at Dr. Richards and waited for his phone call to end. "Yes, I don't want any more intrusions from the press," he informed. After a pause he continued. "Indeed, we've had too much attention placed on this case… Thank you. That would be beneficial to all of us."
He placed the phone down and informed Dr. Minh, "The infant will be placed in an orphanage on the outskirts of a small village. This must stay between you and me only."
"But don't you think we should be trying to figure this out?"
"No, Dr. Tranh, I do not," he responded flatly. " No one before us ever cared to and neither do I."
"Dr. Richards, I have seen the woman's file…" Dr. Minh began.
"Dr. Minh Tranh," Dr. Richards emphasized each syllable with a grim expression, "I do not wish to delve further into this woman. Her child will be released to the orphanage tomorrow and the Jane Doe will be laid to rest. This will no longer be up for discussion. Until that time, I want to see no hint of anything about this case, end. of. discussion."
Dr. Minh glared and left the man to his work. She made her way down the hall to the nursery where Nurse Mui was holding the pretty little infant. As Dr. Minh came to her side, Nurse Mui looked up at her.
"She's so beautiful," Nurse Minh commented as she rocked the baby in her arms, "and her skin is so light. I've never seen a child like her born here."
Minh regarded the infant that would soon be in an orphanage. The baby was an enigma like her mother. It was obvious that it was either a European or an American that fathered this child. The baby already had a thin amount of black hair growing on her head. It would be a while before the baby would look anything like either parent, but Dr. Minh recalled seeing those same blue eyes years ago.
"Is she really going to an orphanage?" Nurse Mui asked.
Dr. Minh sighed sadly and answered, "I'm afraid so. It looks like Richards is not backing down or showing compassion."
Mui looked at the infant sadly and kissed her forehead. Tears fell as she spoke, "What a sad thing you'll have to endure, Phép lạ. You will be taken to a new home where you will meet new friends. You may even find people that want to take you home and raise you as their own child. They will love and care for you." The infant opened her ocean blue eyes and gave a soft coo. Another set of tears streamed down Nurse Mui's cheeks as she added, "I wish I could take you with me and raise you as my own, but that's not possible."
Dr. Minh placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and reassured, "We all do, Mui."
Thiên thần- angel
Cô ấy không còn sống được! Chúng ta phải cứu em bé! - She's not going to live! We have to save the baby!
Cắt mở của cô- cut her open
phép lạ bé – miracle baby