Attack on Titan Short Stories

Just Want to Help People

TW: death, blood, car accidents, hospitals, depression, anxiety

Not my best story, but I kind of just wrote it on the fly.

Artist credit: https://twitter.com/eggtarantino?s=21&t=M4Isx7TeLjXAZo_FANBj-Q

2:45am
Thursday
March 24th 2022

Bertholdt looked at his watch as he entered the on-call room in the hospital. He was exhausted.  He was relieved that the room was empty.

"Almost 3" he muttered to himself, "the witching hour" or at least that's what his grandmother use to say.

He had changed into a clean pair of scrubs since the ones he started his shift in were covered in sweat, blood, and bodily fluids of various kinds.

Thursdays nights were hard in the Emergency Department at Libero Memorial Hospital. Being close to the local university usually resulted in a lot of "thirsty Thursday" self-inflected wounds coming into the ER needing stomachs pumped and IV fluids. But this Thursday was much worse.

He had only been on shift for about an hour when, a call came in on the emergency line from the highway patrol.

"Massive collision on I-95, headed your way"

Being the closest level 1 trauma center in Marely the hospital Bertholdt worked at was the go to for major accidents and such. But to Bertholdt's relief, for the 9 months he has been there, the worst he has had to deal with were some minor car accidents, and sports injuries.

His buddy Reiner always asked how many things he's had to remove from peoples body cavities.

He had laughed and had said too many to count.

Now he wished that is all he was doing tonight.

Bertholdt removed his white coat and collapsed on the lumpy mattress in the on-call room, putting his pager by his ear so he could hear when he was needed. He was hopping to catch at least 45 mins of sleep.

**** 8:00pm*****

The ER was now scrambling to get ready to receive the onslaught of ambulances, on top of the college drunks and worried parents of sick kids.

"Dr. Hoover, I'll need you in trauma room 1!"

He nodded towards his attending physician, and he put on a gown, and he and some of the ER nurses were getting ready.

"Sasha, do we know anything about any of the injuries?" He asked the brown-haired nurse next to her.

"There have already been at least 3 casualties at the scene, and a lot are coming in with blunt force trauma, and lacerations", she replied.

"F***k", he muttered under his breath. He really hoped kids weren't involved, and he took a glance at the faint white scars on his hands.

Suddenly he was 10 and back in the car with his family. Blinding head lights, screams, glass shattering, and bright lights. His dad crying, sirens, needles and then sleep.

"Dr. Hoover?....Dr. Hoover....Bert?!?"

Sasha's voice brought him back to reality.

"Sorry lost I zoned out"

"Well you better lock in now cause here they come". Sasha said and the ambulances began to pull up.

Bertholdt took a deep breath, pushing his memories down & headed towards the sirens.

****present time****

Bertholdt tossed and turned in the 45 mins he got in his sleep, he awoke to the pager beeping in his ear. He groaned and forced himself of the cot.