A man in his late thirties bites frantically at his nails as he sits nervously across from Taylor. She glances around, attempting to yet again distract herself from the time, and finds that the two of them are the only ones in the exceptionally large waiting room. Even the front desk is unoccupied, with nothing but the back of a frame from an outdated computer monitor peeking from behind the counter's edge.

Suddenly, the man gazes down at the floor as he closes his eyes and tightly presses his palms together. Through his faint words, muffled by the sound of his own crying, Taylor can tell that he is praying. Something that she hasn't done in a very long time.

The stout receptionist finally returns, holding what Taylor had counted to be her third coffee by now. A loud squeak can be heard as she nestles into her chair before scooting it inward until her extended stomach shoves against the table. Her strawberry blonde hair is pulled back into a loose bun, the frizzy strands held together by nothing but a thick rubber band.

"Excuse me." Taylor rises from her seat and passes the devout man as she makes her way to the heavyset lady. "Can I see him now?"

The woman takes a sip, or more like a chug, from her foam cup. She clearly doesn't have a care in the world. "See who?"

"You know who," Taylor snarls, her eyes shifting back and forth as she attempts to control both her anger and agony. "The guy I've been asking you about for the past hour now. Marc Douglas."

"No need to get snappy." The receptionist, truly unaffected by the morbid atmosphere surrounding them, uses her index finger to slowly click a few buttons on her keyboard as she looks dully at the computer monitor. It's clear the hospital's system is, surprisingly, more inadequate than its staff at times. "One moment."

The woman continues to peck at the keyboard, slowly typing in letter after letter, and they are interrupted by one of the head nurses—a seemingly also unsympathetic lady who Taylor has become well familiar with by now—entering from the doors to the right of the room. She sets a file on the counter and slides it to the receptionist but, before she can make a quick dash for the exit, Taylor grasps her upper right arm and nearly pulls her to the ground.

"Yes, Ms. Chase?" Although the nurse's voice is composed, it's obvious that she has had a stressful night.

Join the fucking club, Taylor can't help but think to herself before speaking. "Let me see him."

Unlike the receptionist, the nurse doesn't play stupid. "I'm sorry, but it's like I told you earlier. Visitors are not allowed in during surgery."

Loosening her grip on the woman's arm, Taylor's voice lowers to that of a helpless plea. "Just tell me... please... Is he going to be okay?"

"I can't make any promises," she replies but a slight smirk appears on her face as she slips in an out-of-character reassuring statement. "But Navarro is the best doctor in town. He's treated much worse cases and the majority of those patients have recovered fully."

Little to Taylor's knowledge, one of those worse cases is actually lying down in the Intensive Care Unit this very moment. But he has yet to recover the slightest.

"Thank you." She pulls her hand away, allowing for the woman to head back toward the still swaying doors.

Stopping at the doorframe, the nurse glances over her shoulder. "Take a seat, Ms. Chase. We'll let you know as soon as he's out of surgery."

And, as much as she wants to follow her into the surgery room, Taylor does exactly what the nurse had told her. The last thing she wants to do is get in their way. After nearly another hour drags by—and after seeing the man who was begging for salvation be told that his wife had passed—she hears commotion and, through the narrow crack between the doors in the lobby, she can see five nurses swarming around a stretcher as they roll it down the corridor.

Jumping to her feet, she nearly faints from the blood rush to her legs but, pumped by both adrenaline and panic, she quickly dashes past the several rows of empty chairs and across the waiting room toward the set of doors.

This steals the receptionist's attention from her crossword puzzle and she stands up from behind the front desk. "Ma'am, do—" She glances over to see the doors already swinging shut.

The air immediately feels much colder and Taylor isn't quite sure if it's from the hospital's low temperature or from the fear penetrating her veins. She can feel her spine clattering erratically inside of her like a dismembered tail of a rattlesnake and, in an attempt to mask her timid state, she bites down on her bottom lip to the point where she can taste blood. She follows the group of nurses as they hurriedly cut a corner, heading down another intersecting hallway marked 'ICU'.

As she walks past several rooms, one in particular draws her attention as she catches a glimpse of a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye. She halts, turning her head to see Casey sitting on a chair against the far wall. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail and, apparent by the heavy bags under her distraught eyes, Taylor can tell that she has gotten little to no sleep in the past couple of days. Her attention quickly drifts to the man lying unconscious on the bed in front of Casey. Still hooked up to a machine with a tube tunneling out of his mouth, Riley breathes steadily through the ventilator.

And, as if someone had reached inside of her abdomen and is slowly twisting her entrails, she feels her chest tighten as her gaze settles back on Casey, who is now looking her way. The two girls lock eyes and, in this moment, it is as if they feel the other's pain through their broken stares. With words unspoken, the once fighting friends come to a mutual truce.

"Ms. Chase?"

She turns to see Dr. Navarro standing in front of the open doorway to the neighboring room. "Y—Yes?" she stutters, suddenly finding it difficult to speak.

The doctor gulps as he pulls the door halfway closed, although she can still hear the nurses talk among themselves from inside the room. "The operation went well."

"Okay. Good." She takes a step toward the room. He gently blocks her with an open palm, indicating that he's not finished. Worry again consumes her. "What is it?"

"Normally I cannot discuss a patient's condition without an immediate family member present," he says but, noticing the distress intensifying behind Taylor's unnerving glare and perhaps recognizing it all too well, he gives a mental middle finger to the hospital's policies. "Mr. Douglas woke up mid-surgery and we had to increase the induction of anesthesia. Unfortunately, the higher dose didn't react so well with his body. To be more specific, we had increased complications with the damage already inflicted to his chest cavity."

"Is... Is he going to be okay?"

The doctor takes a quick glance at the floor before gazing back up at her, trying his best to keep his voice as calming as possible. "The drug unexpectedly caused an airway closure and atelectasis, which is a collapsed lung. We had to insert a chest tube to help drain any fluids or air from around his lungs, allowing them to fully expand, and we're hoping that this will improve his condition."

She reaches for the wall as her knees suddenly weaken and, nearly losing balance, instead finds Dr. Navarro's hand grabbing onto hers for support. His other hand light grazes her shoulder as a comforting smile widens across his face.

Clearing her throat, Taylor slips her hand out of his and readjusts her posture. She can still feel her legs trembling. "Can I see him?"

"Now may not be the best time. He's still in an unconscious state and—"

"Dr. Navarro, please..."

He nods and, without further thought, reaches for the handle to slowly push the door back open. "Of course. And please, feel free to call me Adrian."

Done setting up their patient, all but one of the nurses exit the room as they head back to the ER. The head nurse stays behind to double check that each of the machines are hooked up properly and, after no more than half a minute, adjusts her stethoscope around the back of her neck and heads for the hallway to follow her colleagues.

"Thank you, Adrian," Taylor says as she walks past him to enter the room and immediately finds her eyes fluttering closed. She can hear the doctor slowly pull the door shut behind her, giving her privacy, and takes a moment to inhale deeply before opening her eyes.

The hospital monitor beeps steadily from beside the bed. Marc stiffly lies underneath a thin blue sheet, which has a small opening cut into it near his upper chest to allow a clear plastic tube—leading from the inside of his damaged lung—to overhang the edge of the bed. Strapped around his head, the ventilator mask fogs with a light film of steam with each breath that he slowly wheezes. A very similar sight to what she had just witnessed next door.

Drip... Drop... Drip...

Taylor glances down to see a small amount of blood trickle from the tube, dribbling into a steel pan on the floor below. Her eyes immediately begin to swell and, struggling to breathe, she feels as if her lungs are also on the verge of collapsing. Her right hand digs into the blanket next to Marc's limp arm and, still gasping desperately for air, she watches as more blood tunnels through the narrow tube and the dripping quickly adjusts to a rapid pour.

♫ ᴘᴀʀᴀʟʏᴢᴇᴅ / ɴғ ♫

Only two chapters remain!