Against All Odds

Chapter 20

Everything started to move in slow motion. 

After frantically calling someone, anyone for that matter for help, things just went haywire and spiralled out of control. Some guy rushed to my aid and checked for his pulse. He must be a medical student. People started to crowd near me and I could hear someone urgently shouting to call the ambulance. Some were running elsewhere. It was total chaos.

Hollie eventually came to my aid and rubbed by back, egging me to tell her what happen. But I couldn't speak. No voice would come out. Only streams of tears. My hands were still shaking frantically, upon recalling how cold Zack's skin when I made contact with it.

The next thing I know, men in white overalls came with a stretcher followed by the Dean carried Zack's lifeless body out of my room.

" SHE'S GONNA-"

Everything started to spin and eventually turned black.

*~*~*~*~*~*

I pry my eyes open but had to close them instantly as the blinding light right above me was too much for my eyes to cope. I press my eyes harder and open them slowly, fighting the bright light. I had to blink a couple of times before regaining my full vision back. Though not all of it. Things still seems fuzzy to me.

Judging by the white walls and the marble floor, I realize that I'm at the hospital.

ZACK!

I swiftly got up and and yank out the IV needle from the back of my hand.

"Madison, take it easy!" a voice muse, near me.

I curiously turn to the source and it's Hollie. Still in her last nights overalls. She's siting on the guest chair near the window. On her lap, is a Nylon magazine.

"I need to be where Zack is! Where is he?" I ask her, fervently.

"He's in good hands. The doctors are doing everything they can to save him. But he's alive. He'll make it." she responds, sympathetically.

That anything but calmed me down.

"But Hollie-"

"Madison, calm down!" she urges, time much more urgently.

She takes the magazine from her lap and stands up, placing the magazine on the chair before making her way at the side of my bed. She propels herself upwards, sitting at the edge.

"Madison, there's things you and I need to know." Her features serious.

I purse my lips. What is there to know? I'm clueless as she is to what's going on.

"The doctors did a toxicology on Zack and they found traces of Propofol."

Propofol?

"According to them, it's a type of anesthesia that is used for sedation or to induce general anesthesia. But in large doses, it could cause blood pressure to go down and slow or no breathing at all."

As if reading my thoughts, she says, "Just as what Zack is going through."

"You found him just in the nick of time, because if you didn't he would've died."

I felt a slight tinge of relief but nothing more.

She pauses, her face contorting to anxiety for a moment.

"Hollie?" I croak, cooing her to continue.

"The police are called in and they're calling this an attempt of murder.," she pauses, her eyes elsewhere but  mine, before continuing in a barely audible voice, "...they're  is naming you as their prime suspect."