Unassailable: The professor.

Chapter 24

"Still, idiots. Unlucky idiots." I knew he was only kidding. I loved that about him. He always put fun into learning. He knew everything about pretty much every scientist that has ever stepped foot on this planet. It was like a personal encyclopedia. "Do you need help?" He asked, handing me back the book. A dry cough left his body.

"Not for now." I said, handing him the glass of water placed on the food table. I quite liked genetics. Biology was my forte, hence me wanting to be a doctor. Anyways, it was expected coming from someone like me: Elizabeth Knox's promising daughter. But what no one really knew is that I would never want to be like her. I wanted to be like my father. "Thanks, though."

I kept on going with my assignment with the Tv as a background. My father didn't say a word and I didn't expect him to. He didn't speak much anymore. He was too tired, and his mouth was too dry and faded to talk more than necessary. I hated seeing him like this.

He, of course, had good and bad days. Today was a good one. He was in a great mood and acted as energetic as his body would allow him to. It was in the bad days where it was hard for me to remember he was the same man who a year ago was playing basketball with me on our house's backyard, or the one who would cook for me every single morning and come pick me up after school, the one who told me everything was going to be alright when my mother left for months without notice. The days in which he couldn't move, those when his pain was so strong, you couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. Those were the days I realized my dad was slowly leaving me.

"Hey dad," I said, biting the pencil I was holding. "I don't really get this." I continued with a frown plastered on my forehead. I heard no response. "Dad?" I asked once again, looking towards my left.

My body froze. "Dad?" His face was as pale as I have ever seen. He looked so lifeless my eyes started watering. His monitor kept beeping, which was comforting, but the state of alarm wouldn't leave my body. I stood up to touch his shoulder. "Dad, what's wrong?" He opened his mouth to speak but the monitor started beeping like crazy. "Dad!" He opened his mouth once again, this time lifting a hand to his throat. He couldn't breathe. I placed an oxygen mask on his mouth.

Tears started rolling down my face, blurring my vision, as I looked for the emergency button on the right side of his bed. Nurses weren't coming. His breath stabilized and for a few seconds I felt relieved. Then out of nowhere, the terrifying shrill of the machine started chiming erratically once again. He was in cardiac arrest. "Help!" I cried out, getting close to him and starting to pump his chest, just like he had once taught me.

«Where were the fucking doctors and nurses?! Where the hell was my mother?!»

"Come on, dad. Don't do this." At this point I couldn't see anything because of the tears. I wanted to wipe them, so I could see his face, but I couldn't stop compressing, I needed to save him. "Don't leave me."

I heard footsteps running down the hall into the room. What happened after, how the nurses got me away from my father's side I couldn't quite remember. I just watched the lady direct a nurse into charging the defibrillator to shock him.

"Clear!"

"Stop!" Just the sound of her voice made my blood freeze. "Leave him, Beck."

The chime wouldn't stop, it was like I couldn't hear anything but the deafening beeps. The ones that were ripping my dad away from me.

I am not ready!

"But-"

"I'm his wife, and your superior, so stop. Now." Everyone placed the implements back to where they used to be.