Rouge

Rouge - Chapter One

Author's note: Some of this story has been structurally edited, and certain comments may not apply to elements of the plot. The author welcomes constructive criticism and grammatical tips, but most of all, she sincerely hopes you enjoy the enticing, plot-twistingly epic story of a superhero they call ROUGE.

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As his heart beat its last beat and he collapsed on the operating table, Liz saw in his eyes an indescribable amount of pain before they went blank. It was not a physical pain, as you would expect of death, but pain of the mind.

The heart-rate monitor beeped a long, endless tone. Stepping back shakily, Dr. Elizabeth Phillips and the three nurses gazed down at the mess of sweat, grime and blood slashed across the patient’s pale chest.

He shouldn’t have died, she thought. He should have caught his breath.

Pink circles like slices of kabana marked the places where the stick-on electrode pads had seared his chest. Pearly, glazed eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling. Everything he wore, right down to the frayed fingerless gloves and tattered gray parka, reeked of pungent body odor and homelessness.

But it was a seizure.

Liz knew that seizures were rarely fatal for those without underlying complications, even for a person whose immune system would have been weakened by the cold of the streets. What had gone wrong? More importantly, what had she done wrong?

The mask caught onto her mahogany curls as she ripped it away from her mouth and told herself to breathe properly. The putrefying odor of the dead patient was beginning to choke her.

Halfway out the emergency doors with thoughts of finally going home after a very long day in the ER, Liz had already signed out when the paramedic team burst out of the ambulance and into the Downtown Hospital. On a stretcher they wheeled a man covered in blood, thrashing like a maniac and screaming for release. The symptoms were obviously epileptic, although his temperature was climbing and he had bloody gashes in his arms. Liz showed the paramedics into the operating room. She rang the bell for assistance and three nurses came running. They turned the patient on his side, attached a gas mask and waited for the fit to pass.

Only it didn’t.

His heart rate shot up so suddenly, the monitor sounded like a bomb about to detonate. Liz was good under stress, but this patient frightened her. His symptoms didn’t add up and no force of electricity could revive him. His heart simply stopped functioning.

“I’m calling it.” She turned to Olivia the intern, who lowered her mask. The other nurses moved back to their stations to tend to their regular patients. “Time of death?”

“1:29 am,” said Olivia.

“Cover him up. Can you put a copy of the readings in my office? I’ll look through them on Monday.”

Olivia did as she was asked, drawing the blue sheet over the man’s legs, waist, stomach-

“Wait!”

Olivia froze with the sheet clamped in her hands.

Something glinted in the white, fluorescent light dangling from the ceiling. Liz reached into the patient’s coat pocket and retrieved a rusty Swiss Army knife, slashed with blood.

“I guess being homeless wasn’t the most fulfilling life choice.” Olivia indicated to the wide slices in his arms and paint-strokes of blood across his face and neck. Liz gave her a stern look and she added, “I mean he mustn’t have an underlying disorder. Anyone with a predisposition would put the knife away, right?”