Saved by my nightmare (A Nigerian Story)

CHAPTER 40

Dedicated to r_ahmah_ and Barakatu1

Abuja, Nigeria.
2020.

"Good morning sir" Maliya muttered as she passed by a senior doctor in the hallway.

In a voice as weak as hers, he answered her greeting and continued towards the garage.

The past week had been hell for them, and none had even been given time to go home in the past four, five days.

A bus had crashed into another the week before, and virtually every department had been paged.

At two in the midnight, Maliya had gotten a call from a fellow resident doctor to come down to the hospital.

When she got there, the enormity of the situation hit her.

People were everywhere, on stretchers, limping, running down the hallway, and some bodies being conveyed to the mortuary.

She could spot a nurse or two in the process of triaging, handing over files to doctors as patients were wheeled to the E.R.

In all, there were about ten life-threatening cases, seven of which were successful.

Till that day, there was gloom in the air, grief choking patients, their families and hospital staff alike.

Maliya had been unable to sleep for days, one of the three cases in which the patients had died had been one she was present for.

It was the first time she'd lost a patient, and no amount of comfort from senior practitioners could get rid of the guilt she felt.

Although she hadn't been the doctor-in-charge, she had assisted in the surgery and so couldn't shake off the feeling of incompetence gnawing at her insides.

They'd told them in school that loosing one's first patient was the hardest experience in their career.

Maliya had——like most of her other colleagues—— disregarded the words of their lecturer as one of those things that they said to increase one's anxiety.

Yet she had fallen so deep into guilt and depression, constantly lost in thought, unable to fathom how a living, breathing woman who'd come in with a terrible gash that cut through the muscle of her thigh left the theatre as a still, non-motile figure covered by a thin white sheet.

It took hours of some senior doctors offering counsel to Maliya and a few other residents for her guilt to lessen.

Somehow, she had managed to push out the overwhelming thoughts and instead focused her emotions on the determination to do her possible best in all the consecutive surgeries.

*****
"Maliya" A voice called out to her——familiar, dreadful.

"Sir?" Maliya turned to face Zayn, a small, fake smile playing at her lips.

"How are you?" He asked, a twinkle in his eyes and his pearly white smile blinded her sight.

"Fine" She muttered, unable to meet his piercing gaze. She wasn't able to explain the feeling, but she wasn't comfortable talking to Zayn anymore.

She was fine with greeting him in passing and making small talk but when his eyes turned intense, pinning her in place she couldn't help the shiver that coursed through her spine, the sweatiness of her palm and most of all the fear that overtook her entire being.