Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟭𝟱 punisher

𝙓𝙑.
PUNISHER

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Crap.

That wasn't ideal.

It had all been in slow motion, as if some sadistic filmmaker had played it back to me, sped down. 

Even as I'd attempted to sprint forwards, with an idea that maybe I'd make it up to three staircases before he made it through the glass, I'd seen everything slow down around me. 

The splintering glass, so innocent-looking, almost like snow as it came raining out of the sky. The sunlight beaming down at me as I came ever so near the entrance to the E.R. Alex and George had been frozen to their places, horrified at the scene in front of them.

My last thought before the crash was wondering whether he'd fall right on top of me. But, thankfully, no, he just landed with a tremendous bang on the car in a parking lot beside me.

My first instinct had been to flinch, my whole body manoeuvred away from the impact zone instantly, almost causing me to topple over to the ground. A slightly started sound had fallen past my lips and I had let out a choked cry. 

Before I knew it, Anthony was bloody and bruised, severely distorted and face down on someone's Honda.

"Fuck," I stammered out, not quite processing what had just happened. "Fuck—"

Fuck indeed.

I'd pressed a severely shaking hand to my lips, watching as Alex started barking orders to the interns and nurses who had come running outside in response to the sound of a man falling to his death. It'd been quite a distance, long enough for things to feel cinematic—but it wasn't quite to his death. 

As I swayed on my feet, waiting for the adrenalin to kick in, I was able to make out the low groans that left Anthony's lips, a sign that he hadn't quite accomplished his goal. That was enough to make me move.

I managed to tumble into the recovery team, swallowing the brutal sense of unease in my bones. Alex's orders had been loud; loud enough to attract the attention of half the ambulance team as they came racing out of a parked ambulance beside the car with a triage kit, ready for initial aid. 

Despite all of this commotion, George and Alex managed to manoeuvre Anthony onto a hospital bed and get him into the E.R without any hassle.

Suddenly, I was in my surgical internship again, blitzing my way through the ambulance bay doors, half soaked in New York. There was something about it, the stab of horror mixed with the sudden burst of adrenalin as I was tossed an IV bay and asked to hang it. I could feel it ignite something visceral in me, something that I hadn't felt nor seen in a very long time. 

My movements were instinctive, a pause here, a gentle hand on Anthony's arm as I helped lift him onto a gurney with the rest of the staff. A nurse expectantly looked towards me for medication guidance, but I was swiftly knocked back as people who were legally allowed to handle surgery things swept the room.

"Get me some gauze, stat—"

That's how I found myself standing on the outside. 

I was cleared out of the room like a fly being swatted aside. Outside the room, everything felt so distanced. The trauma room door swung shut and that was it: my window of horror and transfixed adrenalin was finished with. From here, everything was muted; there was something so eerie about it, the thought of such chaos just having the volume turned down as if it was all playing out across a screen.