The Void Between Hearts ~~ongoing~~

ⓀⓃⓄⒸⓀ! ⓀⓃⓄⒸⓀ!

JESUS! 

Christina goes on in the background. "118. We have an emergency. Splendid Venice Star Hotels . . . a guest . . . yes tourist . . . young female . . . she's totally unresponsive . . . Thank you!"

My fingers find Boma's wrist; there's blood sputtered on her palm. I feel faint drumming against my thumb. 

Pulse! PULSE! Thank God. 

I look back at Christina, telling her to check Boma's backpack for her travel documents and medical records, then to help me grab my phone and wallet from my room. She runs across the room, picking up the items, then out to get those from my room while I try to do what little CPR I can.

"The ambulance is here!" Christina returns, handing me the documents and the backpack. I shove everything in the backpack and fling it over my shoulder. Then lift her and rush out of the room.

We take the elevator to the archway. It doesn't seem fast enough.

Once out of the elevator, there are blue siren lights flashing around the dock with a big boat, almost the size of a small ferry. It looks made of metal, painted in bright yellow with red and black stripes around the edge.

Three men approach me with a stretcher: one of them is a thin man wearing blue scrubs, there are greying black hairs on his beards, with small round glasses resting on his sharp nose. The other two are tall muscular men, dressed in white short sleeved shirts and black trousers. They assist me in laying Boma on the stretcher, her tee-shirt is too short so I take off my pyjama shirt and wrap her with it.

"You will die of the cold," the man in scrubs hands me back my shirt. "We have electric blankets to warm her up." he smiles. His accent is less Italian and somehow, that comforts me more than it should.

In the boat, they waste no time in attaching things: wires, tags, an oxygen mask over her face. I watch as they take readings: temperature, heart rate, blood pressure. I hear one of the guys say it's too low and they have to elevate her legs. 

God. Bo. Please. Don't do this. Not now. I'm not ready. Please. 

"What's the situation here?" The man in scrubs asks me.

"She has sickle cell disease, and uhmm, her heart is weak and she had a cough after our tour yesterday." I rummage through the back pack and hand him her medical records.

He looks through it and instructs the other guys to administer something into the drip. "Sickle cell disease is quite common here, especially among people with mixed african heritage. She must have reacted to the cold and maybe the stress, however, I'm more than a little worried about her lungs and heart. We will be at the hospital, San Marco Memorial, shortly and we'll run elaborate tests. Get her out of danger if we can."

I just keep nodding, trying to keep my eyes dry, watching as the little electronic line on the heart monitor barely makes peaks; usually they spike. I remember the last time, after prom, when I had to go through this. It doesn't get easier.

°°°°°

The boat docks behind the huge marbled building that looks like something out of the early 1600s. Nurses rush towards us, rolling a gurney. The men lift the stretcher out of the boat and transfer it to the gurney, after which the nurses roll her away. At this point, I realise that the man in scrubs is most likely a doctor while the other two are paramedics. The doctor asks me to follow them and I do. Passing glass doors, bright white lights, white tiled floors, wafts of antiseptic and beeping noises everywhere. 

A nurse tells me I can't proceed any further and they disappear with Boma into a white door with a neon sign blinking AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.

I wait. Standing and pacing because I can't sit and cry. I've even given up on tears, I'm in shock. This can't be it, she still has one or two months. She's fine. She'll wake up. I'll give her the ring we still have a little more time.