Diane gasped awake, the image of the little girl's eyes still haunting her. Completely drenched in her own sweat, she could feel her skin cling to her silk pink flowered nightgown. She sighs wearily and hazily walked towards her work table and swipes her laptop open, still thinking about that same nightmare that has made sleep an illusion. The memory of that fateful morning, the blood splatters on her face and body, the muddled voices at the background shouting her name, the beep of the machines all around and finally that one sentence pronouncing her patient dead on the table would forever hunt her.
The ten-year old patient wasn't even hers in the first place, Dr. Gat had transferred her to Diane as usual with excuses, and Diane had no choice but to take her in. Ciara, blue hazy eyes, skin so pale and hair the colour of almond. She had suffered a congenital heart disease and was on the transplant waiting list for two years and was to finally receive one, Diane was to perform the transplant procedure.
She had prepared as she would normally do, and though it wasn't her first time performing a heart transplant surgery, there was something about it that kept her on edge all week. Was it the age of the patient, or her imposter syndrome rearing its head as usual. She asked for more tests to be done, just to ensure she was not overlooking a thing. Still, the events that unfolded two hours into the surgery were the most horrific thing ever. Pulmonary hypertension. Once all vessels were connected, and the bypass machine slowly weaned off, the heart started beating on its own which erupted a sigh of relief from everyone. Suddenly the new heart beat once, twice, slowed down and came to an abrupt stop, the OR fell silent for a second.
The pacing began, epinephrine, manual massage, nothing worked. And then a tear and there it was, blood everywhere.
The 5am alarm rang and brought Diane back to the present, she must have drifted into space for too long because now she has less than fifteen minutes to prepare for work. As a second-year resident doctor at Yale university teaching hospital, there is never a quite day for Diane. She rushed in and out of the bathroom with her hair unwashed and slid into the closest long pants she saw and a sea green shirt she had come to love so much, the first shirt her mum bought her on her medical school graduation.
"Diane, remember who you are outside these walls, strong and capable"
A mantra her mother would keep saying to her, and as Diane said them out loudly, she wondered if she still believed she is capable. She snatched her bag from the stand and the next minute rushed out onto the street. The good side of living close to the hospital was for days like this, as it was just a five minutes walk. Yet, she ran more than walked, dealing with professor Gat today wasn't on her to-do list.
Diane was steps away from the flower shop she'd stop at everyday for seconds to catch her breath while looking at the beautiful displays of white and yellow daffodils, but today there was a commotion instead and something hazy coming from the upper floor of the building, maybe smoke? A fire?
She stopped mid-step.
Her lungs froze before her brain processed what she was seeing. The shop was burning. Her bag was on the floor before she realized it.
A woman standing outside the shop hugged her child close, trembling, another covered her see-through nightgown with a huge towel.
"Is there anyone still inside?" Diane shouted, moving toward the crowd. A woman holding her phone to her chest shook her head rapidly.
"There was an explosion, maybe gas, I don't know! The old man, he lives upstairs!
Diane didn't wait for the rest. Her body moved before she could even think about what she was doing. Though the building was already about to crumble, fire service should be close by already, so what could go wrong. She forgot what fear was, reason even as she pushed past the few people standing in shock, hearing someone call after her.
"You can't go in there"!
"The fire department is coming!"
"Hey, stop"!
But Diane didn't stop. All she could think of was the face of the old flower man, the glances they'd share every morning on her way to work and evenings on her way back. They had understood each other without ever saying a word. She can't let him die, and she knows it wasn't about her selfless mantra of saving humanity as a doctor but because to Diane he was a family in this vast and unfamiliar city.
Her heart pounded as she crossed the threshold into the shop, smoke layered the air, thick enough to sting her throat immediately. Flowers wilted from heat and pots littered the floor. She covered her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt as she climbed the stairs connecting to a living space while trying to see through the fog.
'Hello, hello, can you hear me?!" she screamed with her roughening voice. For a moment she heard nothing and then a faint cough. She scanned quickly, her hands shaking so much she feared she would pass out from the fear. The smoke rose faster now, and it burned her eyes. She wants to think, but thinking is what get people killed sometimes, Diane could not afford to think. She rushed towards the direction of the faint voice. "Hello, are you there!" she called out again, only realizing now that she never knew his name. And there it was, the faint voice coughing with less strength than it did the first time, he must be trying to say something Diane couldn't place as she got closer to the figure crumpled under the weight of a shelf.
She hurried to him, crouched while checking his pulse automatically. Strong enough, she sighed with relief.
"I've got you, please stay with me"
"Child...no... go..."
"I'm not leaving here without you," Diane said, with a voice she doesn't recognize as hers, a voice so firm the old man trembled and made no more sign to argue. She used her full body weight to shift the fallen shelf just enough to drag him free and held him to his feet. Even as her vision blurred, and her lungs burned alongside the skin on her hands, Diane couldn't care.
She half dragged the frail old man as they slowly moved toward the stairs.
The flames were racing faster now and if they don't make it downstairs soon, Diane knew it would be all over. She tried to increase their pace but the old man winced, and so they began to descend step by step as the structure shook under their feeble weights. Behind them it all became rumbles, and suddenly a loud thud of fire flew past Diane and in the next tiny seconds she was flying across the dilapidated shop, head first on the wall before she could even react. She immediately felt blood rushing into her lungs, and a writhing pain firing her ribs. She struggled to peel her eyes open, and there Diane saw it, the body rumpled beside her. Then there were voices, and then silence. Total silence.