Strange Nightmares

Strange Nightmares 1

The Incident: May 4, 2012

Dr. Strange couldn't even make his way through the tangle of traffic trying to escape the carnage downtown. He abandoned his Lamborghini in the middle of the street and ran as fast as he could towards the hospital. Every ambulance that would have gone somewhere further south was redirected north, and Metro-General, where he worked, was the closest stop that hadn't been blown up. His pager hadn't stopped beeping the entire time. He would have been running just as fast even if it hadn't beeped at all. His mind kept going to Christine: was she all right? Would she be at the hospital as a doctor, or--God, please no--as a patient? A loud boom came from the distance, followed by a roar that sounded like Godzilla tearing up the city.

Past the streets clogged with screaming people and wailing ambulances, Stephen made his way into the lobby of the hospital, not bothering to talk to any of the completely frazzled nurses at the front desk. The floor of the ER was washed with blood. He saw patients bleeding out in the hallways, heard their screams like souls tortured in Hell. An orderly rolled a man past him on a gurney without a blanket to cover him, moaning in pain with his head bashed open by falling debris. He'd never seen anything like it, and there had once been a gang fight directly in front of Metro-General that killed a dozen people.

No one had any idea what was happening yet, only that terrorists had descended on Manhattan and were making their way north. No one ever could have imagined the entire, terrifying truth, not then.

Georgia Jenkins, normally the night shift lead nurse, power walked towards him in her signature hot pink scrubs. If it was any other day, he'd have been dreading her approach, expecting something snarky and sadistic out of her mouth, but today she had a look of determination on her face that he'd never seen before. It was as if she'd been created to withstand this moment. Her neon scrubs were painted with dark, dried blood, like a painter's apron.

"Dr. Strange," she called out to him above the din of crying and moaning. Before she could get another word in, though, he was swarmed by a dozen other doctors and nurses, all with patients that needed him right that second. They crowded around, talking over each other, making him delirious.

"Dr. Strange, there's a woman prepped on the third floor, she's got a head fracture, brain bleeding--"

"--we've got a kid with a severed arm--"

"--a lot of arteries cut, severe neck trauma--"

"--Dr. Strange, we need you in room 450 now--"

"Enough!" he shouted, throwing up his hands. "Will someone please get me some scrubs! One thing at a time!"

"Dr. Strange?" Nurse Jenkins repeated. He gave her his full attention. "There's a woman in operating room 14 with a crushed spine, pregnant with twins at 30 weeks. If you go now, you might be able to save the babies."

He sucked in a breath. "Thank you Georgia."

She only nodded, handing him the woman's file. There was some kind of understanding between everyone working there at that moment, that they were soldiers on the front line who had never volunteered. Georgia had made herself a corporal, it seemed, and if the situation wasn't so dire, it would have earned his respect.