All Medics To The Stage

forty three

**Please play the song, it goes with the story this time**    

Akira led Josh to a small pond that wasn't too far away from the benches. Akira smiled, "See? This is where they keep the coy fish, that one," he pointed at a small orange fish, "that one's my favorite. I call him Splash."

     Josh nodded, "Can you feed these fish too?" Akira shook his head no, "The nurses do that, they all take turns. Who's your favorite nurse? Mines is Emily, she always brings me toys." He cooed. Josh thought about it for a second, he hadn't met too many of the nurses since Nadine was his primary nurse, but he was pretty fond of her, "My favorite nurse is Nadine. She's very nice and always tells me jokes to cheer me up."  The boy laughed, "Nadine is always very silly when she comes to my room. But even sometimes, she sneaks me things like sweets when she brings me lunch, " he looked around sneakily, "don't tell anyone I told you that okay? It's hush-hush top secret. That's what Nady says," he held out his pinky to Josh, " pinky promise it."

     Josh intertwined his and Akira's pinkies, "I pinky promise it, " He said, smiling. Akira nodded, "Let's go back inside, I'm getting cold and I wanna rest in my bed, " He whispered with a small wheeze in his voice.

     Josh sucked a sharp breath through his teeth, it was getting pretty chilly outside. He nodded and took hold of Akira's hand, "Alright, let's go back inside then. But this time, you wait for lunch because I'm gonna be broke if I buy any more food from the cafeteria." Josh joked, walking along with Akira inside the hospital. "Okay okay, that's fine. Do you wanna come to my room? We can watch cartoons together, my mom brought me a tablet—" his sentence was interrupted by violent coughs. It startled Josh, he didn't know what to do or how to react, his body just stood there paralyzed as Akira struggled to breathe.

     Josh watched in shock and pure terror as Akira fell onto the ground, coughing and wheezing, a small stream of blood coming from his mouth as his eyes rolled to the back of his skull, nurses pushing Josh away. All he could do was stand there dumbfounded.

"Code blue,
All available staff to room 304,
Code blue,
All available staff to room 304"

     He took a deep breath, staring at nothing and at the scene all at once, gazing as they whisked Akira away into emergency care.

     Everything was spinning, but in slow motion; it was making him sick. There was faint ringing in Josh's ears, alternating between loud and super quiet, he wasn't there mentally anymore, his mind was elsewhere.

     He came back to reality when he felt Dr. Paulson ushering him to his room, everything felt surreal; fake even. "What's wrong with him?" Josh heard himself say, his ears still ringing. "He's got bad lungs," the doctor replied. Bad lungs? What exactly was that supposed to mean? That wasn't a straight forward answer like Josh wanted.

"Just sit tight, I'm sure you'll hear from someone soon."