His Darkest Obsession

Blood

To say that the day was a long one would be an understatement. Siya, slumped against the closed door of the bathroom, looked at her sleep deprived form in the huge mirror in front of her. Finally, she was done with her shift. She sighed, tucking her hair behind her ears as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Honestly, doctors should get paid more than they do, she thought, aggressively splashing cold water onto her face in an attempt to wake herself up. She looked up, her eyebags more prominent than ever before, her bun falling out.

She stretched and, slapping her cheeks, forced a smile onto her face. She didn't want her patients to think of her as a creepy, dark, living corpse once she walked out of the washroom. She adjusted her scrubs and tied her hair into a high ponytail.
She walked out of the bathroom, a bit too eager to leave.
The fact that she had a day off was like icing on the cake. It meant she would be able to spend her time with her son, whom she saw quite little of as she worked her ass off in healthcare. Not that she didn't like being a doctor. No, she had literally worked her butt off to be where she was right now. One of the finest cardiologists of her batch, she was proud of her achievements. However, even after being this good, being constantly insulted and abused by her seniors rubbed her in the wrong way.

People love gossiping. The prime topic of their gossips often revolved around their personal favorite: Siya's scandalous love life.

After discovering that she was pregnant with Yuvan five years ago, she had seriously considered her life to be cursed. Her ex fiancée, that jerk, being a senior cardiothoracic surgeon, who also happened to be quite popular, had taken it as a personal offence. The nerve of him!
He had wasted no time in spreading the rumour of what a slut she was for sleeping around and getting pregnant when he was the one who cheated on her. Of course, she didn't let him off the hook quite so easily.

Siya smiled at one of her patients as she passed her. She was an elderly lady who she was quite fond of. She had been in the hospital for a long time, a victim of an incurable disease. But that didn't take her charm away. She was almost like the mother Siya never had.
She sighed. Hopefully no more cases would be thrown her way and she could easily sneak away-

"Dr. Arora!"

Siya stopped, pursing her lips. She turned to find her junior, first year resident doctor Smriti Singh running to her with a somewhat panicked look.
She came to her halt in front of Siya, panting heavily. Siya patted her on the back, her instincts getting the best of her.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

Catching her breath, Smriti looked up at Siya.

"I know you just got off duty and oh, I'm so sorry but really, something went wrong and none of us have the slightest clues as to what to do-again I'm really sorry, oh I should have asked someone else-"

"Dr. Smriti, relax!" cried Siya, somewhat alarmed.

Smriti took a deep breath.
"Sorry" she muttered. "It's just that the patient in ward number 256 is behaving weirdly and none of us is able to understand what's happening".

"Is he?"

"So we thought, the other senior doctors being on leave, you were the only one who could help" she finishes nervously.

"Yeah, I will" Siya says at once. Her sense of duty, no matter how tired she was, never left her. Her patients always came first.

"Lead the way".

Smriti visibly relaxed. The two of them hurried to the said ward.

.....

Siya sat slumped in her car seat, her eyes closed. She had been able to successfully provide relief to the patient in ward number 256. She tapped the steering wheel absentmindedly, her mind going through the events of the day.

The sky darkened, as the road in front of her became steadily empty and quiet, as night rolled in. She knew it was late. Her shift had been extended by two hours since it originally ended, which was, well, nothing new.

She had called Yuvan's nanny, a kind and helpful woman, who had assured her that she had put him to bed, albeit with a bit of a struggle. He really wanted to stay up and meet his mama.
Siya felt her heart clench, guilt consuming her as she thought of how lonely her child must be, even though she was working this hard for his sake as well as hers. Being a single mother, that too without being married, in this country was hard.

She grabbed the water bottle kept beside her on the empty passenger's seat and gulped half the bottle down. She noticed a few rain drops on her car windows. So it had started to rain. Hopefully she would be able to reach home before it came crashing down on her.
She started the engine.

The drive home was calm and peaceful, the only sound coming were from the engines of cars and the soft pattering of the rain. She swept her hair away from her face with one hand as she drove with the other, swiftly navigating through the road with a sort of practiced ease.
The atmosphere was quiet.

That is why, when she heard an all-mighty scream piercing through the silent night, she almost crashed her car against the nearby dumpster in shock. She paused, her heart racing, as she gazed around in panic. Where on earth had that dreadful noise come from? It was as if someone was dying. Was someone dying?

As much as she wanted to ignore it and drive away, her sense of duty-again-forbade her from leaving a could-be-dying person alone on this night, on this road, where no one could be seen for miles.

She gulped and, turning her engine off, got out of her car. It was raining quite heavily now. She did not even have an umbrella with her. Raising her hand over her head to shield herself from the heavy downpour-to not much help-she tried to determine where that sound had come from.
She walked cautiously towards a dark, thin alleyway, looking around for a source of human life.

She stopped suddenly. Her heartbeat increased as she heard another sound.
This one was softer, as if someone was breathing rather heavily near her. She ran around, trying to find the place it came from. The nearer she got to the alleyway, the louder the breathing noises got, accompanied by the loud pounding of the rain.
The alleyway was too dark. She squinted through it, the sound chillingly feeling to be coming from near her. Heart in her throat, and praying to God that she hadn't willing and unknowingly walked into a real-life horror movie, she tried to see something in the dark.

She felt something hit her foot on the floor. As she looked down, a lightning struck the dark sky, brightening up all the nooks and crooks, such that as she gazed down, her eyes were met with-a horrible, horrible sight.

A man was lying on the ground at her feet, in the pool of his own blood as it oozed relentlessly out of a wound from his chest. His eyes were half-closed, his mouth slightly agape, his chest heaving up and down.

Siya screamed and fell onto the floor beside the dying man, scrambling away from him on instinct.
Fuck, what was this? Was she at a murder scene?

Cursing herself, she gathered courage and hesitantly moved towards him. The man seemed to be unconscious now, his eyes fully closed and his chest still. Siya tried to gulp but found her mouth to have gone completely dry.

She held his bloody wrist in her shaking hands to feel his pulse. A minute passes.
Her heart nearly leaps out of her mouth as she feels a very small yet a definite pulsing movement. Her eyes become wide. This man was still alive.

She refused to look at his face. She couldn't bear to look at his face.

Yet, she knew that she would save him. It was her duty as a doctor and more importantly, as a human. She couldn't leave him to die here, in this lonely and dark alleyway, with rain crashing down on his dying body as he slowly and painfully succumbed to death.
No, if she had the opportunity, she would definitely not let someone die in front of her. Not again.

A/N: Do leave votes and comments loves! :)