Survivin' - [B.C.]

Chapter 13: The Lucky Ones

"Nah," he shook his head. "Britain doesn't need another stuck-up prick roaming about it."

========== SURVIVIN' ==========

I woke up again back in the A/ED department. I was insanely tired and dry-mouthed. And shaking for some reason... I tried sitting up to look around for anyone near me, but no one was there. Not until I started having another coughing fit. Then a nurse came rushing around the corner and over to me with a metal bedpan. She held it under my face as I hacked up a huge puddle of greenish-yellowish mucus.

And a pool of blood.

Oh, yeah, great - that's totally fine. I thought to myself.

The nurse, though - she looked at the puddle of fluids with an expression of growing horror. You'd think nurses would be used to seeing stuff like that, right? I don't know. But this lady was acting like I'd thrown up a baby alien.

Not gonna lie, the visual of seeing my own blood choked up into a pile of mucus was slightly unsettling. But I wasn't gonna freak out about it.

Not yet, anyway.

The nurse shoved the bedpan into my hands and ran to the desk where other nurses would normally be standing. She did something or another whilst I was busy coughing and coughing some more until I thought I was gonna hack up a lung. It slowly started to become more and more painful, too. I was wondering why no one was doing anything. Why the nurse ran away. It was becoming harder for me to breathe and I thought that was gonna be the end of it for me.

A flash of colors fills every corner of my ever-blurring vision and I start to feel hands grabbing me on my arms and shoulders. There's noises but I can't hear them over my choking. Chaos is really the only thing I could think of to get close to describing it. I mean, one minute I was completely fine, just really tired. The next I was fighting for my life. Literally.

The heavy force of the oxygen in my nasal cannula picked up and pushed itself even harder into my lungs. I gasped for it. A painfully high-pitched ringing commenced in my ears. Every inch of my body tingled. My chest felt like rocks were being tumbled in it. My head started to squeeze with every cough. This went on and on before my lungs finally started to fill with oxygen. They burned, but the air felt nice. I heaved for awhile to try and get it under control. Then when my coughing fit was over and I was laid back onto the bed like normal, some of the people (nurses) filtered away. Now it was just me, lying down, breathing very rapidly and still feeling like almost nothing was happening.

Someone was holding my hand and stroking my hair. I couldn't see them through the tears that were gathering in my eyes.

"Ben...?" My voice came out flimsy and weak. I only heard a muffled and distorted hum as a reply before I passed out once more.

====================

White light. Pain everywhere. Vibrating bed.

Vibrating bed?

Ceiling tiles and concrete walls flew past me. Someone was standing over me, pushing my bed, but a ring of light around their head obstructed their face from my view.

Is that Jesus?

A door opened and I was pushed into a relatively dark room. The bed was parked on a wall next to the door. Some lady I'd never seen before helped me up and out of it. Several times I almost fell. My legs were very weak and wobbly. I felt a furry sensation on my feet and looked down.