Forbidden Desire

[63] Endless Desolation

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐏𝐎𝐕

Flatline.

The sound was not loud or dramatic, just a long and merciless note that sliced through the operating theatre like a blade. It crawled into the bones of every person in the room and froze them where they stood.

For half a second, no one moved. Until, reality and instincts slammed back in.

"He is arresting!" The anesthesiologist shouted, his thick Russian accent cutting sharply through the shrill emergency alarms. His gloved hands flew over the monitors, eyes darting between the screen and the limp body sprawled beneath the surgical lights. "We are losing cardiac activity!"

The emergency operating room of the private hospital in Moscow was thick with tension and heavy with the metallic tang of blood and antiseptic. The cardiac monitor glowed with an accusing green, it's straight line reflecting faintly in the glass of stainless-steel instruments laid out under the dim moonlight of the stormy night.

Overhead, the surgical light burned down harsh and white, casting deep shadows across the room and illuminating the motionless body on the table beneath it, glowing over the skin slick with crimson and iodine.

Elliott lay deathly still on the operating table.

His broad chest was exposed and open, ribs retracted, flesh raw and unmoving beneath the surgical lights. His skin was pale beneath streaks of blood and antiseptic that mingled into a sickening crimson sheen.

There were tubes and wires webbed into his body, as well as an IV line pulsing weakly. A ventilator forced air into the lungs that could no longer fight on their own.

Blood shimmered across his skin in dark rivulets, pooling where even the relentless suction struggled to keep up, filling the canisters faster than they could be replaced. His black hair was damp and disordered, strands plastered to his forehead, his face stripped of every trace of it's usual cold authority.

He looked younger like this.

Vulnerable.

Pale to the point of gray.

Beyond the reinforced thick glass windows, rain lashed violently against the hospital's windows, the storm howling through the Moscow night like something feral. Thunder cracked overhead, rattling the building as though the world itself were protesting his dying.

"What is the time of cardiac arrest?" The lead trauma surgeon demanded sharply, her voice composed despite the fatal chaos, her eyes never leaving the exposed cavity of Elliott's chest. "The exact time."

"4:06 AM, ma'am." Another doctor replied immediately, glancing at the wall clock. "Asystole is confirmed."

"Defibrillator, now!" The surgeon ordered. "Charge to two hundred."

A nurse rushed forward, hands shaking despite years of training, wheeling the defibrillator closer. His blood pooled faster than the suction could handle it. The canister was already half-full, dark and arterial, relentless in it's flow.

"Charging." She informed, her voice low but urgent.

"Clear!" The surgeon commanded.