Friendly Dating - Kira

Chapter 43 - Code Slightly Blue

A low growling sound brings me back to the present, and I gradually become aware of vibrations stirring through my entire body. I can hear voices muttering around me, and when a sudden jolt shudders through me, I try to drag my eyelids from each other to see what is going on now. Are we under attack from prehistoric beasts?

Perhaps the bleachers are collapsing! I've caused an avalanche... or an earthquake because there are a lot of clattering sounds going on around me. If a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazonian rainforest can change the weather half a world away (according to Chaos Theory), a girl rolling down bleachers could probably cause some stuff too.

There are warm fingers wrapped around my hand, it's comforting, and when I finally get my eyes open, I see Ethan seated next to me, talking to a man, his brow furrowed with what seems a lot like worry.

The faint roaring sound and the tremors suddenly take shape, and I'm relieved to realise that we are probably not being stalked by a T Rex, shaking the earth at its approach. I watched one of the Jurassic Park movies on my laptop before bed last night and can therefore be forgiven for jumping to conclusions. 

The roaring sounds are definitely not organic; they belong to an engine. I'm in a vehicle, and judging by the clothing of the man assuring Ethan that I'm going to be just fine and that they're driving as fast as they can, and also by the other puzzling sound, which I'd ascribed to screaming people, but is actually a siren I am definitely in...

"An ambulance? Why?"

Ethan's head whips around at the sound of my whisper, and now he is holding my hand with both of his while he re-enacts the tragic scene from Bambi when his mother dies... Well, just minus the dying part, but based on Ethan's reaction, I feel like I probably did die at some point.

Am I dead now too?

"We shouldn't play in the ambulance; it's for injured people," I tell him wisely, and when I try to raise my other hand, to do something comforting like pat his hand or stroke his cheek, I wince at a sharp needle prick in my arm. "What? Why do I have an IV?"

Now I'm really getting nervous. I now recognise the man in the EMT uniform. It's Robert Lancaster, an actual EMT. Why am I in an ambulance, apparently on my way to the hospital?

"Ethan?"

"It's okay, Kicks," he soothes, running a gentle hand over my forehead.

"Just lie still and relax, Kira; it's all good," Robert assures me. "You got knocked out for a bit, and we're just taking you to the hospital for a check-up."

"With the sirens blaring?" I might be concussed and on the brink of death, but I don't think sirens are required for a simple check-up.

"Yeah, it's boring if the sirens don't blare," Robert grins at me. "Ethan insisted, and he's got more muscles than I do, so..." He chuckles, checking my eyes with a medical flashlight, blinding me. "Everything looks pretty good as far as I can tell, but better safe than sorry, right?"

I'm already more than just a little bit sorry. My head hurts, my body aches, and this needle in my arm is just freaky and horrible. Every time I move, it pricks me. I don't like this.

I turn my eyes to look at Ethan again, and there is something very off about him. He is not grinning; he is not making siren sounds with the ambulance or enjoying this high-speed chase to the hospital. He seems tense, and his eyes are a little red as though he got sand in them again. He is always getting sand in them when he's playing on the beach.

When the ambulance stops at Silverview General Hospital, I suddenly feel like a guest star in an episode of one of my favourite Japanese dramas, Code Blue, with the ambulance doors opening and the gurney I'm lying on being wheeled to the doors.