Spellcaster series #3: The Adept

Emergency

HEIDI

We arrived outside a hospital as I clung onto Tristan with my good arm. The wound on my waist was still throbbing but at least the poison was out.

In the emergency room, Tristan found the nearest nurse in a pale blue uniform with a badge pinned above her breast and asked if anyone could attend to me. I showed her my wound and she shuffled off quickly and methodically.

"Sit her down here," the nurse said as she returned, leading us to an empty bed.

Tristan sat me down and waited by my side. He watched impatiently as the nurse bustled about to look for an available doctor. I had just noticed that his red coat was coated in white dust and scars on his face. His fingers, which were wrapped around mine, were heavily scratched and bruised.

"What happened to you?" I was able to gather enough energy to speak.

His ruby eyes flickered to me, slightly startled out of his thoughts. "We were attacked at Wynona's."

"Are you okay? What about the others? Your parents?"

A brief silence. Before he could answer, Wynona and a baby-faced doctor with a stethoscope around her neck interrupted. Wynona's violet eyes were round and wide.

"Heidi! Good grief—"

"I'm okay, I just need to patch this up."

She threw her hand to her mouth when she saw my wound.

"That does not look okay. What happened?"

"Let the doctor fix her," Tristan cut in and tugged at her hand.

Wynona's eyes shifted to the doctor who laid her medical instruments onto a metal tray and began her work. Tristan pulled her away.

"We'll be back, Heidi," he said and the two Sages disappeared down the hall, out of the emergency room. In a room full of white coats and pale blue uniforms, they stood out so conspicuously in red and purple.

"You're Heidi Danielson, right?" The doctor asked, sewing my skin back together.

"You know me?"

"I'm the on-call doctor for the Lucky Orphans. I know Mrs Tabitha and the girls very well. They talk about you a lot."

"Did she tell you what a failure I am? I haven't been able to protect anyone without injuring myself so badly." I tried to muse.

Her grey eyes bore on me, no trace of amusement on her face. "Mrs Tabitha and the girls think highly of you, Miss Heidi."

"Well, I would've been dead if it wasn't for the Sages saving my butt every time."

"If it's any consolation, Miss Heidi, you're a hero to some of us who believe in you."

I nodded. "Thank you, doctor."

After she finished, she handed me some prescription painkillers.

"Now, this isn't necessary but do you need a triangular bandage for your arm? If you lift it, it's going to hurt the wound—"

"No bandage, thanks," I interjected. She nodded and let me off afterwards. I was about to ask her where the two Sages went but she had already moved on to another patient with a broken leg.

I tried to recall the direction they headed off to. I scanned the emergency room with all the nurses and doctors bustling about, a child screaming from across the room, holding out a swollen wrist. His red-faced father shaking a fist at a calm nurse who was examining the injury. An old man in the bed next to them nagged at another nurse and a young doctor who stood by to talk him down from yelling. Standing at the corridor that led into an x-ray room, a lady in a long cotton frock stood, unmoving and eyeing me.