Luther High: Overtime

Prologue

    The game was almost over and they were leading by 10. Only five more minutes were left before the end of the game, but anything could happen within that moment. Markell, the team's hero, scans through the court with his eyes, frantically searching for the girl whom he admires. As he dribbles the ball in front of one of their opponents, he begins to lose interest in the match. The world seems to stop for a moment, and Markell doesn't care at the moment, because the girl he wants to be here isn't.

   Slowly, he stops bouncing the ball and scans around the whole gym once more. She ought to be here. Why wasn't she? It was so atypical.

  Arguably, Markell had been the game's most talked about player, having scored over 20 points. His dunks, layups, 3-pointers and passes had been so perfect, and were enough to get recruiters on his tail after the game."MARKELL! MARKELL! MARKELL!" The crowd keeps on cheering to keep his head in the game, after perceiving that he had gotten distracted.

   "Markell." Richie signals his coach to call their final timeout, so as to get a hold of the point guard's attention. "Markell." He walks up to him as the other men walk to their side of the court to hydrate themselves and question Markell as to why he isn't being himself at the final moment of their high school game. "What's up? The game is almost over. We're in the lead."

"She's not here," Markell responds while looking around the court once again to find everyone from his parents to college recruiters on the bleachers. "Where is she?" He looks at Richie with worry clearly etched in his brows.

   "They'll be here." Richie answers. Quite frankly, he was also a bit worried, because the game is practically over and his girl had never showed up. He knew the situation, but his mind just didn't want to process what might be happening at the moment.

   "She would've been here al... -" Markell's head quickly shifts towards the double doors of the gym once he heard it open. A smile breaks out on his face as he sees Raquel walk through the doors, but it quickly fades away when he sees that Nathalia isn't right behind her.

   Raquel looks around the gym, searching for Markell and when her eyes finally meets his, she slowly nods her head. Markell immediately understood what she was trying to pass across, as almost reflexively, he drops the ball on the ground and runs towards the double doors with Raquel leading the way to the parking lot. "We don't know what happened." He notices her bloodshot eyes, and his mind begins to imagine the worst. "One minute she was fine to me while getting ready for the game and the next thing I knew was that she had collapsed." Raquel tries catching her breath while explaining the situation. "I'm scared."

   Markell curses under his breath in frustration while he searches for his car, not caring that he was leaving a lot of people in the gym with confused expressions, wondering why he would take off like that, and during the last few minutes of the game which he had been ecstatic about since the first day of school!

__

   Markell barges through the entrance of the hospital, allowing Raquel to lead the way to Nathalia's room. "Can you let us in?" Raquel points to her guest pass.

   "Sure but he needs a pass," She looks at Markell. "Just stand on the blue dot on the floor to take a picture. I'll also need your government issued id." She clicks on the camera app on the computer.

   "We don't have time. Let us in." He tries to say in a calm tone.

   "Please," Raquel cries. The receptionist notices her bloodshot eyes, which caused empathy to flow through her body. She presses the button to buzz them in. They start jogging until they reach the hallway where her room is located. Markell's heart suddenly drops once he finds Vanessa crying in Jeremiah's arms outside of her room. No, he didn't want to believe it. It couldn't be...it couldn't...

   "Fuck!" Markell walks towards the wall and punches it, resulting in pain shooting through his being, but Nathalia not being next to him replaces his aching muscles, a broken heart resulted in much greater pain than a broken fist! Markell was afraid to even look inside of her room because in there, was an image which he didn't want planted in his mind, but he knew that he just had to face reality. Vanessa's outburst made him conclude that the girl whom he loved was gone. Tears start falling from his eyes as he thought about not getting to say goodbye.

   Raquel glides against the wall, crying her heart out, while praying for a miracle that could somewhat make her friend healthy again once she wakes up.

   Richie barges in at this point, and his mind also jumps straight to the conclusion that Nathalia was gone. He had managed to finish the game with the rest of the team before rushing down to the hospital.

   Richie walks over to Raquel, picks her off the ground, and embraces her.

   "Kell," Richie speaks.

   "I don't want to hear it," Markell speaks with anger mixed with sorrow. "I don't fucking want to hear it."