The Captive Game

Chapter 3

Pain explodes through my leg like fire eating it up. Thump-thump thump-thump thump-thump. My heart begins to pump twice as fast and I blink away spots forming in my vision. I collapse into a ball on the floor.

The next moments pass in a blur.

Four figures roll me onto a stretcher and haul me through countless corridors. I faintly hear scuffling feet and people shouting. Doors are slammed open and after what feels like forever, everything stops.

The running stops. The shouting stops. I see a face leaning over me, whispering something but before I can decipher it, I am enveloped in a sea of darkness and I drift away.

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I wake up on a cloud. No, not a cloud, a bed. There is a cool breeze and something... something poking my knee. My eyes snap open.

A young man with disheveled light brown hair, wearing a white lab coat, is leaning over me. He has a handful of needles which he is methodically poking my knee with.

My leg jerks up and he stumbles backwards.

My head jerks around every which way as I try to get my bearings. I'm in what looks to be a hospital with white walls, marble floors, and about thirty cots neatly arranged in rows. Against the far wall there are thousands of machines beeping and whirring. In the corner opposite of my cot I see an alarmed woman with a face as pale as death. She starts shouting. "Code red! Code red!"

Everyone in the room bursts into action and runs to the patient she is standing over. The brown-haired young man who I kicked immediately starts issuing orders to the hospital staff. "Avery! CPR! Fitz, get the defibrillator!" I prop my head up with my right arm and watch. In less than a minute he has a red plastic box with buttons on the side. The nurses circle around him, blocking my view.

A need to help surges through me and I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Adrenaline rushes through me and I start to walk towards the patient. But before I can move five steps, my knees buckle and I fall to the ground.

That's when I realize how much pain I'm in. I let out a whimper and try to crawl back to my bed but the throbbing and burning sensation stops me and I settle for leaning my back against the cot and watching the nurses' backs.

There is a low, mechanical beeping noise every three seconds or so. One of the nurses branches off from the group and begins pacing the room with a worried expression on her face. It is like that for five minutes straight. The nurse pacing, the machine beeping, and me, helplessly sitting here.

And then, applause breaks out and fills the room with its joyous rhythm. The nurses start hugging each other and laughing. Some of the staff clap the brown-haired young man on the back and murmur congratulations. They return to milling around the room and I am able to see the patient, wheezing, but fine.

The young man who seems to be in charge whispers something to the patient which makes him smile before turning back and walking towards me.

"I see you didn't like our sleeping arrangements," he says, chuckling.

"Ha-ha very funny," I reply sarcastically. "Now will you help me up?"

He bends down, cradling me my neck with one arm and the back of my knees with the other as he scoops me up with grace and places me back on the bed. He walks back to where he was standing when I kicked him and lightly touches my knee. "Can you feel this?"

"Yeah."

"This?" he rubs his hand against a tender spot on the side.

I wince.

He places his hand under my knee and gently pokes it. "How about that?"

I nod.

"No nerve damage," he tells me. "This should work great."

He walks away and comes back with a metal contraption the size of a shoebox. After positioning it over my knee, he presses a button and holds the box in place. Then, he reaches out his hand and envelopes mine in his.

"Why..." I start to ask as I pull away. But before I can finish, pain explodes through my knee, just like when I was shot, and I squeeze his hand with all of my might.