Hesetation

Putting out the Fire.

Chris' practical exam had dragged on and on. The sun had set before the class had been let out for the day and all Chris could think of as she drove the van home was a warm, wind free house, a sandwich and her bed. She drove the thing in the direction of home, her eyes drooping even as she fought to focus on the empty suburban roads and the chilly air seeped into the space under the dash. She shivered against the cold and adjusted the geriatric heating system. Her phone began to buzz on its magnetic dash holder. She pressed the green button and then out it on speaker.
"Hey!" she said.
"Heya, it's Blake, I'm using Sams phone. I'm crashing at his tonight so don't worry about waiting around for me" said his crackling voice.
"Honestly, I'm already on the road home. I was going to stay up for you but ehh" she muttered, rounding a corner into Tivondale Drive.
"Ohh, well that's sweet of you. Don't worry though" he said.
"I'm so tired, man. I just wanna get home. If you're good for the night, I'm going home" Chris said, hoping to bring the rather pointless conversation to a close.
"Night then" Blake said.
"See ya", there was a beep and Blake hung up. Chris turned into, Smith Street and then quickly into their drive. She was desperate for a shower. She rolled out of the van dragging her backpack with her and waddled with it up to the front door, fumbling with her keys. Once she got in and closed the door, she promptly swore.
The air inside was stiflingly hot. She quickly doffed her coat and backpack unceremoniously on the hallway floor and switched on the lights as she advanced into the seemingly empty house.
The living room was almost pitch dark, save for the glow of Auroras laptop screen. It illuminated the hunched over form of what she assumed was Aurora herself, likely asleep at the coffee table. She strode over to the radiator and switched it off before advancing on on her at the table.
"Aro, come on, you can't sleep here. You'll get a sore back and I've got no time for that. Get up" she ordered, switching on the lamp beside the sofa. Auroras face was thrown into sharper relief, and it was shining with sweat, pale as the paper it rested on. A high flush was rising up her cheeks and her lips were chapped.
"Aro?" Chris repeated, brushing a hand over her forehead, worry falling like a cannonball into the pit of her stomach. Aurora gave a barely perceptible grunt in response. She didn't bother trying to get a response again, instead she began to strip off the blankets she wore. This did get her attention, Aurora became resistant to this, moaning and wriggling feebly.
"Aro, you are so warm, it isn't funny. Now let's get these off and get you to bed!" said Chris, throwing one of the throw blankets over the sofa and removing another. Aurora shivered violently as each layer was removed and Chris began to feel the heat radiating in waves off of her body like she were a hot water bottle.
"Sssstooop" Aurora hissed, her breathing becoming rapid and her eyes fluttering but not fully opening.
"No. Gotta get these off. You'll cook. You've got a fever, Aro" Chris observed, worry once again prickling at her as she remembered the last time something similar had happened to her room mate. She continued to remove layers until she came to her hoodie and then she tried to wake her again.
"Aro, come on. Time for an aspirin" she urged.
No response.
Instead, Auroras eyes fluttered violently and she slid like a falling plank onto the carpet and began fitting.
Even though Chris had watched this happen before, it was still visceral and for a second or two, Chris froze, taken by surprise.
"Aro! Hey, sssshhhh! It's alright" she said without thinking shoving the coffee table aside with a grunt. Aurora flailed, hitting the floor repeatedly with her upper body. She was already lying on her side and drool was already dripping out her mouth onto the carpet. Air was being punched from her lungs with each convulsion. Chris grabbed a sofa cushion and shoved it in to the space between Auroras body and the sofa just for good measure and put a hand on her shaking shoulder to help steady her while she fitted. Chris glanced at her watch and noted that it had been a minute since it began and even as she watched, it seemed to be slowing. She pressed a hand to Auroras forehead as the convulsions began to fade and swore again.
"Shit! Right, Aro. Come on. If you can help, stand up and lets get you to bed. I'm gonna go get you some aspirin and a cool rag and all that. Come on" Chris urged more strongly as Auroras body relaxed and she began to come round. She stirred and began to try to lift herself off the floor.
Chris hooked an arm under her armpit and began to help Aurora into a sitting position. She was groggy at best, humming, her head lulling like it weighed a tonne.
"G't school" she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, trying and failing to focus her drooping eyes on Chris.
"No. I'll sort out your extensions. Right now, you need to sleep, and cool down" Chris repeated, guiding Aurora to stand up, which was easier than it should have been.
"I'm g'nah fail" Aurora moaned, slurring her words worryingly succumbing to a coughing fit.
The sound it made was like a fog horn and it only served to alarm Chris further. So much so, she was rethinking her choice to bring Aurora to her own bed and began to consider the need to take her to Mercy General instead. Again.
"That doesn't sound too good. How long have you been feeling crap, Aro?" Chris asked, feeling a bite of dejavu.
"S'nc today, w's fine morning" Aurora huffed, staggering slightly and paling considerably. Sweat glistened in the blanching light of the lounge room.
"I think Mercy General, Aro. You don't look good" Chris said, thinking of the last time Aurora had been this ill and letting the chill run up her spine. But Aurora shook her head violently, tight lipped and wobbled on her feet, like an overtired toddler who refused to take their medicine.
"MMMnnno" she hummed, closing her eyes and letting a tear roll down her face. Chris sighed in exasperation and thinly veiled bewilderment. Here stood beside her, leaning most of her weight on her actually, her roommate who had gone in the space of a day from having a headache to what sounded like the whole Gladstone River in her lungs;  radiating enough heat to power a steam train, and having just come too from a seizure and she still, she found enough energy to not only stand, but protest?
"End of! Aro. You're going. I'll take you" she assured, rather forcefully, not giving her any choice in the matter and ushering her back toward the front door. Auroras weak attempts at protest went unheeded. Chris slid  back into her shoes, picked up her keys and wallet from the table and, Auroras arm still slung over her shoulder, walked her out to the van. She sat her in the passenger seat and then stopped forward to swing her legs in. Aurora suddenly leaned to the side out the door and vomited onto the ground. Chris sidestepped it and kept a hand on Auroras shoulder to prevent her from falling face-first into it.
"Alright, get it up. You'll feel better" she muttered as Aurora coughed and sputtered onto the concrete. Once Chris was sure it was over, she closed the door and scrambled into the drivers side. She revved the engine to life and plunged out of the drive and back toward town.

"Stay awake, Aro. Come on!" Chris pleaded with her feeling the muscles under her hand relaxing as she white-knuckled the wheel with the other.
When she finally pulled up at the hospital doors, flung the seatbelt off herself and scrambled out, making a beeline for the desk labeled 'triage'. The ER had a few people waiting around but it wasn't packed which Chris would later be very grateful.
"Hi, someone come help. Out in the car, my roommates really sick" she babbled the words stumbling out of her mouth in some massive pileup. The triage nurse raised an eyebrow but didn't move, so Chris plunged on. "She's had a seizure, been sick once, high temp. I don't know what else to do!"
The triage nurse motioned to a person who looked like an orderly who pulled a wheelchair from an alcove and together they followed Chris back out the front doors to the other side of the van.
Chris opened the door to find Aurora sitting upright in the seat, pale, sweaty and shivering violently. She coughed with a honking sound tend into an eternity, sapping her breath, sending her upper half lunging forward in the seat. When it was over, Aurora was stung out and limp, chest heaving with an alarming rattling sound.
"Her name's Aurora" Chris said from a few feet behind as the triage nurse who crouched down and peered at her new patient. She pushed her gently back into the seat and pinched her shoulder, pulled back an eyelid and palpated her forehead and pulse with practiced detachment.
"Hhmmm, febrile, showing signs of hypoxia. Someone help me get her into the chair. What's the story?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Uhhhh, this morning we woke for school and she complained of a headache so she stayed home. I went to campus for my exams and left her at home. I came back just before and found her like this. She has had seizures before but only ever when she's sick" Chris explained, helping the orderly lift Aurora into the wheelchair. It was easy, too easy. Auroras body had lost its fight and was far too hot. As she was wheeled through the doors, another nurse saw and joined, wheeling an oxygen tank on its casters and swiftly covering Auroras face with a rebreather mask.
"History of seizures?" asked the triage nurse, flicking a glance to Chris.
"Yes, I've seen her have them before. She told me earlier that she has ..." trailed Chris.
"Female, low twenties. History of seizures, one times emesis. Temp's high. She's dyspneic and orthopneic. Someone page Summers please, let's get some data!"the triage nurse ordered of the others who promptly busied themselves as the group herded into a bay.
"What's going to happen?" Chris asked as she followed along. Aurora was lifted easily by two ordilies onto a waiting stretcher and the oxygen tank was nestled between her bony legs. One of the unnamed nurses advanced to the bedside with a dish and tied off Auroras arm. Aurora began to wriggle, and then to thrash, moaning. She batted away the other nurse and pulled off her mask, straining against the other staff.
One of the personnel had managed to take a temperature and read it out loud,. "Forty point one" he announced to the group, alarmed.
The triage nurse from the front sighed and gave one of the others a sidelong look, and she left the bay. Aurora opened her eyes and gasped as the mask was replaced on her face. The cannula had been inserted into a vein but Aurora has become too combative, she bent her elbow and curled in on herself. One of the nurses came back with several ice packs and a basin of water and Aurora tried to sit up, rather feebly. One of the other nurses tried to get her attention and hold her down.
Chris advanced toward the bed, "Hey! Let me! I can help" she urged, but someone held her back. "I can calm her!" She added, irritatedly.
Aurora groaned and fell back onto the bed under the steadying hand of a nurse, where her eyes rolled back and fluttered, her arms and legs seized up and she began to convulse again, her jerking movements sickeningly erratic. The cannula fell out and blood began to bead from the puncture there.
"Fitting! Where the hell is Summers!" Triage asked angrily, pulling up the side rails and shoving a pillow there to pad them. The person who'd been holding Chris back abandoned their post and went to assist. Chris followed and placed a hand on Auroras shoulder as the group of nurses rolled her shuddering body over to her side. A small stream of bile flowed from Auroras mouth, between her clenched jaws. Chris rubbed up and down Auroras shoulders in what she hoped was a soothing motion.
"Aro, it's Chris still here. It'll pass.I promise. They're gonna sort this out. Get you feeling a little better" she soothed, glancing around at the other personnel who all stood about waiting it to be over. One was staring at her watch. About a minute and a half went by before the seizure stopped and Auroras body fell limp again. She didn't come round, instead, falling into what looked  unconsciousness. The nurse with the ice packs and basin set to work, wrapping each one in a towel and shoving them haphazardly into her armpits and neck. Another turned up the oxygen until it hissed and replaced the rebreather mask over her mouth and nose.
"We're gonna stabilize her, get her temp down and get her on oxygen. We're then gonna likely need to an x ray and some cultures. We'll let you know. Could you go back to the waiting area please. We'll call you" triage said, pointing Chris back toward the waiting room from the head of the stretcher while another nurse spread a thin blanket over Aurora. Chris gave Auroras limp hand a small squeeze while someone tended to the bleeding bruise forming at her cannula site. She slouched back down the corridor and carried on out the door. She got back into the van, revving its geriatric engine to life and moving it to the parking bay before returning to the warm and somewhat dingy waiting roo and plonking herself into one of the hardened chairs.. She scrubbed her face with her hands, a strong eerie feeling of dejavu coming over her like a shroud. 'will this happen every time Aurora gets sick?' she asked herself, staring broodingly out the darkened window. Time fell away as it ticked by until she was tapped on the shoulder.