Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I shrug, leaning over and pulling up the man’s body. “Put them in the fucking bed.”
Marney grunts as he pulls the woman from the floor and tosses her onto the mattress. I step back and look at the two bodies piled on the bed. I grab the woman’s blood soaked hair, lifting her face and dropping it by the man’s limp dick. “Open her mouth,” I tell Marney, laughing.
“You’re fucking kidding, right?”
“See what he thinks about walking in on this shit.” I can’t help but smile. This right here is beyond fucked up.
Marney shrugs, parts the woman’s lips, and I push the flaccid cock into her mouth.
We make our way down the stairs and let ourselves out the back door, walking through the woods for a good two miles in silence. When we come to the edge of the tree line, Marney grips my shoulder. “You did your pops right just then. He would be proud.”
A run-down cab sputters up, the brakes squeaking as it comes to an abrupt stop. Richard hangs his hand out the window to signal that he’s alone. We climb in and Richard glances back at us in the rearview mirror. “Damn. You two look like you bathed in blood. What the fuck did you do?”
“What had to be done,” I mumble, and slump down in the seat.
I’m fucking wrong, and I know it.
It’s one in the morning, and I’ve been on shift for twelve hours. I’m reaching my physical and emotional limit. I’ve had a night full of heart attacks, drunken injuries, and drug overdoses.
I’m just about to call it a night when the doors to the ER crash open. The medics rush in a stretcher, and all I can see is blood, a lot of it.
Dr. Phillips, one of the ER doctors, is running behind the team, shouting at various staff. “Multiple gunshot wounds!”
“Devaux!” he yells at me. “Let’s go, keep his heart going until we can get to the operating room! Let’s move!” he barks frantically. I hop onto the gurney and place a knee on either side of his body. The gurney is rushed through the hospital corridors, doors flying open in our wake as a team of doctors and nurses work frantically to keep the man alive.
I pump his chest rhythmically, trying to keep his heart from stopping, from giving up.
We burst into the OR I hop off the gurney and check his pulse. Nothing.
“He’s got no pulse!” I shout while the nurses hook him up to the monitors.
People move like clockwork, everyone knowing their place and operating like a well-oiled machine. Clothing is cut from the man’s lifeless, bloodied body as a defibrillator is wheeled next to him.
“Clear!” Dr. Phillips shouts, and holds the paddles on the patient’s chest. His back bows off the bed, his body contorting in shock.
I stare at the flat green line on the monitor, marking his lifeless state.
“Clear!”
Again they shock him, and still nothing.
Come on, live. Just fight a little harder, I think to myself.
The doctor shocks him three more times to no avail.
“Time,” Dr. Phillips says.
I glance at the clock on the wall. “One twenty-two,” I call out.
He’s pronounced dead, and everything stops. The fight is over, and we lost. It never gets any easier. I’ve been a resident in the ER here for nine months now. I’ve seen death on a daily basis—it’s part of the job—and still, the fragility of human life always surprises me. One minute someone can be absolutely fine, living their life, working their job, having a family, and the next...it can all be over. Life itself can be so fleeting. You’re promised nothing. And that’s hard to swallow at times.
I became a doctor to save lives. And for every one that dies, there are ten more that are saved. It’s what makes this job so rewarding. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do in life. I decided to drop everything and leave my home in England to come here and study—to make a life for myself in America.
I am living my dream, but that doesn’t mean this is easy. I feel like every life lost takes a part of my soul with it. I worry that there will come a day when it no longer affects me, when it no longer hurts. I am terrified of not feeling this pain, of feeling nothing, because the day I can watch someone die and not feel a thing means I no longer have a soul. I’m terrified of becoming a monster.
I turn my back on the dead man. The frantic desperation that filled the room moments ago is now replaced by a resigned calm. Doctors and nurses remove equipment as a sheet is pulled over the man’s face. Pushing through the doors of the operating theatre, I head for the locker room. As my adrenalin drops, my legs start to feel like lead. I’m exhausted. When I reach the locker room, I take a minute to collect myself. That was a rough night.