From Hate Flourishes Love

Without You

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in medical field. I did a bit of research and did my best to make it work for the storyline.

🅩🅐🅝🅓🅔🅡

Doctors take my life from my hands, promising they'll do everything to save him.

I stagger forward, still reaching for Kai as the trauma room doors slam shut in my face. "Please— please save him," I beg the doctors from outside the room.

"Sir, you can't stay here," a nurse approaches me.

"But I . . . need to be with him," I stammer.

"He's in good hands," she assures me. "Let us look at your injuries."

She and another nurse try to make me sit. A doctor joins them as they cut the blood-soaked shirt from my chest. "He's been shot," the doctor looks at the hole the bullet had made in my arm.

I swat his hands away, standing to look helplessly at the double doors that swallowed Kai. My arm spits blood to the ground, but I don't care about bleeding out.

"Sir," the doctor insists. "You're bleeding out. You've got to let us help you."

"Leave me alone," I push the man aside. "I don't care about myself."

Colt enters the ER, turning to me quickly, his eyes catching my sunken reflection. "Zander," he urges me. "Please, listen to the doctors."

"You," I snap, jerking him by his collar. "I trusted you. You made big promises about helping save Kai and ended being completely useless. You're worthless to me as a friend. I should j-just-t ..." I raise my fist at him. "I should just ..."

The punch doesn't land. The world tilts violently, and I miss my footing. My legs give up on me. I feel my chest closing in on itself. Breathing suddenly feels like shards of glass scraping my lungs, and a cold numbness spreads through my body.

"Sir."

"Sir."

"Zander."

Someone(s) shouted at me—far away, distorted—but I couldn't respond. My vision blurred, and the bright lights and looming faces above me faded into hazy streaks.

"Kai," I reach out blindly, trying to find a way to him.

A coldness bites my skin, and then there's nothing, but
the darkness.

I snap my eyes open, and for a moment, I don't know where I am. White halls. A pervasive antiseptic smell.  There's an annoying, unwelcome hammering against my chest, the residue of a nightmare on my mind.

"Kai !" I shout, my cracking voice echoing in the room.

I bolt upright, ignoring the sharp pull of my chest. The IV tugged at my arm, and the monitor beside me beeped wildly in protest. I panic, frantically looking around the room, searching for him.

"Where is Kai?" I whisper through the sharp, stabbing jolts of pain moving through my arm, and chest. "Kai?"

"Sir, please lie back down," the nurse rushes in. "You've been through a lot—"