I see Nini's face fall when I tell her the time.

Then she drops to the ground like a stone.

I quickly follow her to the ground and rest on my knees as I shake her and check her pulse to see if she is still conscious.

I see her eyes are slightly open but I also see her blood dripping down her nose.

By a quick examination of her neck, I find a rapidly beating pulse that I am terrified to feel slowing down every second.

I see a wound on the side of her head that I devastatingly find to be leaking an alarmingly large amount of blood.

I start screaming for help even though I already hear the sirens.

"I'M LOSING HER!" I cry out, "SOMEONE CALL 911 RIGHT NOW!"

I am beginning to wonder why they would have sirens when the hospital is not even three hundred yards away from where Nina is laying right now when I hear people shouting at the group that is here for Nina's birthday. They are asking where the patient is.

I wave frantically from where I kneel on the ground beside Nina and yell; "She's here!" I check her pulse and wail in misery when I find nothing, "She collapsed, and she has a giant opening on the side of her head! She doesn't have a pulse!"

The three male paramedics jog their way over as I curse them for not moving faster.

Two of the three paramedics examine Nina.

I move back enough so they can access her, but I stay close enough so I can still see her.

Her face is covered in blood and her skin has gone paper white.

Her skin is the same white as her dress.

They both yell something into their walkie talkie and load her gingerly onto the stretcher.

A group of two girls and one guy (all teenagers) that were crossing the marble bridge have made their way over and have pulled out their phones and started to record the thing.

I charge over to them and have an advantage as they were probably not expecting a teenage guy to stalk over to them out of nowhere.

I smack every phone away from them and toss every one of the devices into the small area of water that is beneath the marble bridge.

As expected; every one of them lost their minds at me. Yelling, screaming, trying to attack me, but I shove them off as if they were nothing but a fly on my shoulder and knock the feet out from the guy who gets a face full of dirt and the two girls shriek and fall to their knees as they frantically try to help him up.

Wiping my hands together, knowing my job is done, I sprint back over to where the three paramedics have started to wheel Nina back to the hospital.

I ran alongside the adults who were with me and Nina in her hospital room as they asked me what happened to Nina.

I give the group a brief explanation and almost trip over Mrs. Montez because she is barely able to run herself, as she is freaking out about if Nina is going to be okay, and all that jazz.

They get Nina into a hospital room where Dr. Lisa and a female nurse replace two of the three male paramedics (one of them stays in the room to try and calm me down because I refused to stay outside) and they immediately begin CPR and Rescue Breaths.

I don't even take the time to look away as Dr. Lisa carefully, but quickly removes the flowing dress off of Nina's body.

Luckily, she was wearing underclothes.

Mrs. Montez was forced by the two other paramedics to stay in the waiting room because she had actually become violent. Screaming and hitting at the two men as they restrained her in a chair from the room we are in.

The paramedic gets an alert on his walkie talkie. Something about Mrs. Montez passed out from exhaustion in the waiting room. He pats me on the shoulder and exits the room. His name tag read; "Xavier".

I look back over to where Nina is receiving CPR from Dr. Lisa.

Dr. Lisa's hands move carefully, but surely as she plunges her palms into Nina's chest, right above the chest plate and keeps a steady pace as she does so.

After 30 compressions, she plugs Nina's nose and tilts her head to open her mouth and delivers two rescue breaths.

I was CPR certified in my Freshman year of High School, so I could have volunteered to give the CPR and Rescue Breaths. But, obviously, in this case, it has to be given by a professional.

"WAIT!" I shout, "She has a wound pulsing blood in the side of her head, the blood will flow to her brain!"

"We don't have any other choice! Do you want her to live?!" she keeps going. 

After three rounds, Dr. Lisa throws up her hands and shouts at the nurse across from her to grab the AED located on the wall behind me.

I just barely move out of the way as she barrels towards me and snatches the AED off of the wall and sets it up, removes Nina's bra which I looked away from, and hooks Nina up to it.

The AED charges and instructs to press the Shock Deliver button. The nurse who grabbed the AED pushes it and I see Nina's body jump but she stays unresponsive from what I can see and from what I can see on Dr. Lisa's troubled face.

The AED says; "Shock delivered. Perform five cycles of CPR".

Dr. Lisa does as she is instructed and once she is done, the AED says; "Reading for a rhythm". Long pause. Then; "Shock advised". The nurse presses the shock button. "Shock delivered. Perform five cycles of CPR".

Dr. Lisa obeys the machine's commands and waits for the AED's next instruction.

"Get bandages!" she yells.

The other nurse in the room flings open a medical cabinet, grabbing two rolls of bandages.

She hurries over to the bed and unrolls around two feet of the sticky bandaging.

"Should I shave the hair around the room?" she asks.

"No, just bandage her head!"

The nurse wraps bandaging around Nina's blood-covered head.

The AED speaks; "Reading for a rhythm," it says. Long pause. Then; "No shock". 

My heart leaps. As does Dr. Lisa's face and the nurse's face.

Dr. Lisa checks for a pulse and she lifts her head to say; "Pulse found".

I pump my fist in the air.

She checks for breathing.

"Steady breathing," she says.

I pump my other fist in the air and march around the room as if we were celebrating The Fourth of July.

Dr. Lisa looks pointedly at me as she puts Nina's bra back on and I quickly lower my fists and look down and say very quietly; "Sorry".

Great. Now I am embarrassed and guilty for continuing to look at Nina's bare chest.

She waves her hand at me and laughs slightly. "Nonsense," she says, "this is indeed a moment to celebrate. She is indeed alive".

I sense a "but" coming.

"But?" I ask her.

"Buuut," she says, "she is in a blackout".

I give her an odd look and probably sound really stupid when I ask her; "What's a blackout?" though I already have a pretty good idea of what it could be a synonym of.

"A blackout," she says, and takes in a deep breath, "is another word for a coma," she exhales loudly.

My heart drops.

"Nina's in a coma?" I ask her.

"Yes," she says.

"Yes," the other nurse chips in. As if her backup confirmation will do me any good.

Dr. Lisa turns to her and gives her a look, and herds her out of the room. As she passes me, I see the name tag reads; "Jane".

Dr. Lisa slams the door shut and walks over to me and grabs both of my hands.

She looks into my eyes and I have no trouble making eye contact with her because our heights are leveled off almost perfectly.

"Conor?" she asked me.

"That's me," I replied stupidly.

"I want to tell you something very important about a past event that might be brought back a lot if Nina wakes up. It's-" I cut her off; "IF she wakes up?!" I demand.

"What do you mean by IF"!? I yell.

"Well," she starts off quietly, "there are certain circumstances that can depend on how the person went into a coma. They can determine if the patient will wake up or not".

"Oh," is all I can say.

"We will be putting her on life support so she has a better chance of waking up".

"Okay," I say glumly.

"The event that might trigger her hallucinations could very possibly be her accident that caused the hallucinations to start".

"What was the accident?" I ask her.

"Well," she says, "Nina wanted to tell you herself. But in her current condition, she cannot".

I nod.

"But first, I want to tell you something that will give her an even better chance of waking up".

I stare at her. Desperate to take her words in.

"The person who is in the coma can choose if they want to come back or not. Basically, when in a coma you are still awake, unless your heart is stopped like Nina's was, but now she has the choice. Sometimes a person in a coma can hear and sometimes they can't. You have to take the chance to talk to her every day. Encourage her to come back".

"I can do that, " I say.

"I know you can," she replies.

"Now. About the accident," she says, "She was in a car accident".

I say nothing.

She continues to say; "She was not in the car, but she was hit and she was mentally broken because she had a lot of brain damage when the car hit her while she was crossing the street".

"What happened to the car?" I ask her.

"The owner of the car was not hurt, and we have no idea if it was their intention to hit her or if they did not mean to hit her".

"I bet they did," I say sourly, scowling my face off.

"Now, let's not jump straight into conclusions," she snaps at me.

Her voice gets softer as she says; "the car drove off from what onlookers said and unfortunately, none of them were able to get the license plate".

"Wait," I say, "how did Kathy get her hallucinations?" I pause and think, "Was she in a car accident too"?

"No," Dr. Lisa says, "Kathy was born with her hallucinations. It's called Schizoaffective Disorder. A genetic thing".

"Oh," I say.

"Yes," Dr. Lisa says, "it is very unfortunate".

I nod in agreement.

"When will Nina be put on life support?" I ask her.

"I will begin working on that right now," she says.

I nod.

She rests a hand on my shoulder and says; "Give her some time, Conor. She needs a few days to rest and gather her thoughts".

"But you said-" I interject, and she cuts me off; "No buts", she says, "you heard what I said".

"Finee," I whine.

She nods and guides me out of the room but allows me one last glance at Nina.

Her skin has returned to its normal, flawless color. Her lips are full and round and her hair is plastered to the sides of her head on the white pillow.

I walk out of the room with my head down and smack right into my mom's arms.

Her arms wrap around my shoulders and I gratefully lean into the warm embrace.

I smile into her shoulder.

For once; she doesn't reek of booze and instead smells like the fancy mixed berry scented perfume she only puts on for special occasions.

Then the emotions of the day seep in.

I let myself crumble into her arms and feel myself lose it as I start to cry, ashamed at myself that I had not caught Nina, as she was not even a foot away from me when she dropped to the ground.

She detaches herself from me and wraps one of her arms around my shoulders.

My face is streaked with dried up tears.

She looks at me and smiles slightly.

She says; "Let's go home".

I am so exhausted that I can't do anything but nod at her.

She walked me out the sliding doors and she drove us home.

The second I enter my bedroom littered with posters of professional sports athletes on every one of my four bedroom walls, I collapse onto my soft bed.

My mom pops her head in and says; "Goodnight Kierce".

I grin at the old nickname. "Night, mom."

She starts to leave when I say; "Mom"? She walks back in and says; "Yes"?

"Could you please close my door?" I ask her.

"Sure," she says, and closes the door.

I move into a more comfortable position and close my eyes.

I recap the day's events. From the smile that lit up Nini's face when she saw the necklace I gave her, to how she looked laying on the hospital bed as I left the hospital room.

Right before I drift off, two final thoughts swim before my eyes; "What will Nina's future be like"?

And; "Will she remember who I am"?

I push them out of my head and slip into the realms of ultimate despairing dreams and the nothingness of sleep.