CHAPTER 2

The mid-night breeze swept. The window sills were pounding against the wooden frame due to the ferocity of the breeze. The moonlight settling over the city, and birds all seeking refuge in the nooks and crannies of every building. The coolness changes to a chilling sensation on her skin. Hanna moves her attention away from the graphic novel she had been reading since a few minutes before nightfall. With thoughts of the novel's characters racing through her mind, she searched around the bed for her slippers. She got out of bed and made her way to the door, where the switches had been mounted to the white painted wall. The moment the lights shot on, Hanna’s iPhone 5c rang, the screen reading ‘Unknown’.

"Hello. "Who's speaking?" Hanna inquired in a brittle, half-asleep voice. "Hello. "Am I speaking with Gabrielle Talbot's family member?" the female voice said.

"Yes. This is her daughter, speaking. May I ask who you are?"

"We're calling from St. Marks General Hospital. Please tell me your name."

“Hanna”, Hanna replied to the voice. “Okay Hanna, we have an urgent message for you. Please come to the hospital as soon as you can. We are not allowed to relay the message on the telephone. Therefore, please do come to the hospital as soon as possible. Please report to the support counter near the entrance. Did you understand Hanna?"

"Yes, but what happened? What is the issue? Please inform me now?” Hanna inquires.

"It's about your mother, Hanna. Please come to the hospital and get all of your inquiries answered. Thank you." And the line is cut off from the other end. Hanna's heart is starting to race. She goes to the bed cupboard and grabs out a hoodie and a pair of socks, places the hoodie over her top, slips her feet into the ankle socks, puts on her shoes, and starts toward the door.

She grabs the lock and key from the side drawers and forces it shut, her hands trembling. The door closes, and the lock clicks into place as the key turns. Hanna walks toward the main exit, climbs aboard her bicycle, which is placed outside with no tire locking, slides past a few cars, and accelerates toward East Avenue Road. The soothing cool breeze transforms into a hard chilly wind, the old street lights burning with a faint glow, hardly any light falling on the dark compound layered floor. The woolen hoodie doesn’t seem to help against the coldness. Her chest consumes all the coldness and hurts. Hanna's mind goes blank, but she knows something is wrong. Something was about to wreck her day. She couldn't tell whether it would ruin a few days or more. Her hands pressed the bicycle handle to turn at the crossing. Two left, one right. Hanna's bicycle slowed at the entrance, and the hospital's lit board stood in front of her. She looked forward to locating a bicycle parking spot, and once she found one, she rushed toward the ticketing machine. The green button was pressed, and the ticket was spat out of the yellow-colored machine. The gates raised, and Hanna made her way to the spot specified on the ticket. She jumped off the bicycle and ran to the escalator, which took her directly to an assistance counter, exactly as the person on the phone had instructed. "Hi. I am Hanna. I received a call from here. I'm here to see my mother? Mrs. Gabrielle Talbot." The receptionist turns over her documents and folders to another staff member, grabs Hanna's left hand, and leads her to the area with the 'Emergency and Casualty' sign. Hanna knew what she was about to see. Her mind was still blanking. Perhaps she will faint at the sight of something horrifying. Her mother's picture came to mind. "Hope momma is okay."

~ ~ 

"We got a red alert!... Red Alert! Room 314", a nurse calls over the telephone as the resuscitation team dashes into the room, Gabrielle Talbot dripping from her mouth, the bedsheet soaked in velvet, and the tiles slippery. While one of the team members performs CPR on Talbot's lifeless body, the defibrillator is set up to electrically revive the heart. "Three.. two.. one.. Go.." the technician says as he presses Talbot's chest with the devices on both sides. The body twitches and heaves before falling back onto the bed. "Again," one of the nurses says in a louder voice so as to command. The technician charges the device again with the same voltage within the same minute while the rest of the team examines the heart rate monitor seeking any shift in the continuous green line. The body springs up again, and this time the sensor beeps, the green line indicating the recovered pulse and heartbeat.

One of the nurses orders a full stomach cleanse to eliminate the lethal substance from Talbot's bloodstream, and a nasal cannula is connected to his face. A stretcher is requested over the phone, and the nurses take the necessary steps to stabilize the body. Talbot was going to be moved to another room on the seventh floor, number 702. The head of nurses on the floor was called while the stretcher arrived with two men holding it at the shorter ends.