Red Star

After the Fire Part 1

One nurse loosens her grip on her left arm for a millisecond (they've left her right arm alone seeing as she wouldn't be able to move it anyway under all of the bandaging and sling), which is enough for her to pry is away from the nurse's chubby fingers and secure it to her left ear. The screams don't stop, they just get louder and she feels like she's on fire. Flames which she can feel but cannot see are crawling up her legs, scrambling to pass her knees.

Who are the people screaming in her head? Are they even in her head? Or is she just hearing herself scream? She stops screaming to calm her burning throat, and yet the screaming is still loud and clear. Screaming again, because there's another voice in her head that's the loudest and closest that's giving her instructions that seem too rational not to follow, she looks around and another five or so people have run into the room, trying to help with the futile efforts.

The medical staff are frantic. They're on phones or talking to each other, saying things like "Dr. Madsen, she's having an attack of sorts", "Her blood pressure is the highest I've ever seen anyone's", "I'm worried all this writhing will open her stitches", "Dr. Madsen is two minutes away", "Susan, can you help me hold this leg down while Alan runs to get a sedative?", "Oh, shit! The bullet wound is open again! We need to get her back into theatre!", "Susan are you all right? Is your nose broken?", "Who is Ralph? Why does she keep shouting for him? Is he waiting outside to see her?", "Get that sedative in her IV now, Alan!", "Keep the bandages on her burns the best you can, people!", "She slapped me!", "Everyone get out of my way now", "Oh thank God you're here, Frank", "Let go of her and she'll resist less," , "But she'll just try to escape", "She won't get very far, will she? She's been out for two weeks, her nerves won't be strong enough, now just let go!"

A million hands release off of her body. Automatically, she scrunches up, her legs folding up towards her chest, left hand on her left ear, head tilted onto her profusely bleeding shoulder, disregarding her pain in the effort to stop the screaming. She's shuddering now, and her breathing is erratic beyond belief as the invisible flames creep around her. She's ready to let the flames take her away now.

The voices are louder than ever as the important doctor, Doctor Frank Madsen, that parted the sea of nurses and doctors as he entered, gently turns her head towards him, wiping tear tracks away from her cheeks (when did they get there?).

Frank looks like a tired man. His hands hold her face with a high degree of urgency. His gaze is extremely intense and she assumes he's trying to get her to focus on him rather than the screamers or the fire claiming her limbs. She's been in contact with so many doctors in the past that she knows all of those tips and tricks, however she had never thought they'd be used on her. She narrows her eyes at him, hoping to focus just as he wants her to, so that he may feel more inclined to answer her burning question if she plays along with him. He just stares intently back at her, which is infuriating.

Nurses, now that she seems to be pre-occupied, are trying to re-sew back up the bullet wound renting the space just under her right collarbone. She doesn't notice at all and cannot even tell that they haven't used any anaesthetic.

"Where is he?" She yells at Frank and he doesn't even seem to flinch.

She needs to know this. She needs to know.

She already knows the answer, but she needs to hear it said out loud.

Her left hand reaches up to cradle his cheek in return and she asks him again and again. He doesn't reply so she digs her fingernails into his rough, littered with stubble, cheek and draw them down hard enough to draw blood. She feels numb.

She's numb with the need to know about Ralph. For the first time in her life, she wants to be wrong. She wants to be wrong so much.

"Where is he? Where is Ralph? Where is he?" She doesn't think she's ever shouted at someone so loud, and yet Frank's deliberate, focused, intense gaze does not falter. Nurses are dabbing at his red cheeks with damp tissues, but he doesn't even wince.

He looks at her straight in her glassy periwinkle eyes and his voice is low and hard as he says, "He's dead."

The voices stop and she decides immediately that this silence is so much worse than the screaming.

She falls away from Doctor Frank, just as a snowflake would as if floats from the grey abyss that is the sky to the ground, her limbs limp and weak. He releases her head and begins to bark orders at the others, just as they all hear it, stopping them dead in their tracks.

Flatline.

The room explodes.

All that can be heard is shouts and worried speech and that high-pitched beep reminding everyone that she will not be alive much longer. People are running in and out of the room, others shouting outside the room for more help when she's pretty sure there is no way one more person could fit into this room.

Her head lands facing towards the broken vase and the cards. Frank blocks her view and slaps her face repeatedly, shouting into her ears that she cannot die on him.

"Come on. Don't die here. Don't let this be the end for you. I've been told all about you and how you came to be here and it sounds to me as if you're a fighter. Rosa Waters, please, fight one last time."

Everyone except Frank leave the room to make way for a bed that can wheel her away into where she assumes is emergency theatre. They haul her off of one uncomfortable bed and onto another.

And as she is wheeled out of the room and as she falls into gracefully into the black abyss of nothingness, all she is aware of is that continuous beep and that the plain white card had fallen on its side.

Inside, drawn in a faded red marker, was a red star.

~

The song of the chapter is 'White Foxes' by Susanne Sundfør.