The End Has No End

Prologue

Ezekiel Bennet looked down at the boy in front of him. The youngster had temporarily passed out from pain, but was still breathing. Ezekiel made a show of pressing his fingers to the boy's wrist, though he could sense on his own that the heartbeat was steady. He moved to examine the wound in the shoulder as a nurse removed the torn fabric from around it. His nose twitched at the scent of blood in the air, but he ignored it to focus on his work.

"Mm... hmm. Looks like the bullet went straight through. He's lucky, it just missed the bone." He spoke in a low voice, a hint of a Southern accent still coming through after all these years. 

Straightening, he moved to a small sink to wash his hands. "Stitch him up, will you Ms. Williams? I'll write up a prescription for the pain and inform the family." "Yes, Doctor. But I'm afraid there's no family to inform yet. He was brought in from near the docks, apparently."

Ezekiel sighed. It seemed every day more cases came in like this. The docks were a highly contested area for two gangs of youths, and the violence was escalating. The hospital he worked in was the nearest one to that area, just a few streets away. 

"I'll ring the police then." He shook his head and parted the curtain separating the little examination room from the rest of the emergency room. Stepping to the nurse's station, he placed a call to the police station. He'd barely put the receiver down when a blaring ambulance siren pulled up outside. Seconds later a flurry of activity burst through the double doors.

The ambulance drivers and a gaggle of nurses and a few other doctors crowded around a stretcher, a few of the nurses bursting into tears. The young doctor tensed, a cold sense of doom washing over him. The nurses here were some of the most professional he'd ever seen, and weren't prone to such acts of emotion. He quickly pushed through the crowd, where a few of his coworkers were desperately at work.

"It was down by the bus stop on Pier Street, she got hit crossing the street. A car full o' those kids trying to outrun the cops. " The ambulance driver beside him said sorrowfully. But he barely registered the words as he stared at the crumpled, bloody form in front of him. The activity and emotions around him seemed to fade out, leaving him in a vacuum of silence.

Vera. Vera Ashford. The white of a nurse's uniform could be seen here and there between splotches of mud and blood. The neat bun she'd put her dark brown hair into had come undone, though her cap had somehow managed to stay on, securely clipped into place. If not for the mud and blood- and a rib bone he wished desperately could be unseen- it would almost look as though she had fallen asleep on the stretcher.

She was a coworker of his, and a friend. The best friend he'd never had, the only one in years he'd considered telling his deepest secret to. The plucky nurse he had found himself falling in love with, despite his vow to never form such an attachment to anyone.

Even without his abilities, he knew the girl in front of him was dead.  

A thought occurred to him then, slamming into his head with the force of a sledgehammer. He could've saved her, made sure nothing could ever hurt her again. If he had only admitted his feelings sooner, told her who- or what- he really was, she'd still be here, not lying there broken and dead. To make matters worse, the smell of her blood had filled the air around him. It couldn't be ignored. He wanted nothing more than to drain whatever was left from her corpse, and for the first time in decades, he was truly horrified at himself.

Ezekiel couldn't take anymore. He turned and ran out the emergency room doors. It couldn't end like this. He would find a way to get her back, and he would tell her everything.