"Good morning, Dr Anderson." Kelly, the receptionist says as I enter the hospital.
"Kelly, how many times do I have to tell you to call me by my name?"
"Sorry Dr- I mean Elaine"
"Yeah, that's better."
"How was your day off?" she asks.
"It was good, I got to just relax... I should head to my office now."
"Alright, bye."
At 19:30 was when I got called to perform surgery.
"Doctor, Doctor. We need you." a nurse bursts into my office.
I quickly stand up and follow her to where I'm needed.
"What happened?" I ask
"Seven men were brought in all bruised up and with multiple bullet wounds after a massive shoot out at a club downtown. There is one who has been shot close to his heart. We need you to perform surgery on him."
"Can I have the patient's details."
She hands me a clipboard with his details as we go to the surgery room.
Name: Alexander Martinez
Age: 28
Gender: Male
We pass by the waiting area and a woman comes rushing towards me.
"Please save my son, help him." she begs while crying.
"I'll do my best mam, but right now you need to calm down"
"Please just help him. Please" and that's when she broke down.
A young man then runs to her and tries to calm her down. Her other son maybe.
I go to the surgery room and prepare for the surgery
4 hours later
I exit the surgery room to and make my way to the waiting area.
"Mr Alexander Martinez's family?" I ask just as everyone in the room stands up.
I look around the room with wide eyes.
Scary looking, dangerous men stare back at me, all wearing black. A dangerous aura coming from them.
"Doctor, I'm his mother. Is my son okay?" says a woman with brown hair and green eyes. The same woman that broke down earlier.
"Mam, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that, we managed to get all the bullets out including the one closer to the heart. Luckily for him the bullet didn't hit his heart or any vital organs but it did break two of his ribs which luckily didn't puncture his left lung." I continue "We still have to closely monitor him"
"Oh, thank the Lord. I-"
"But the bad news is that we don't know when he'll be waking up. He seems to have gone into a self-induced coma and there is a possibility that he could've suffered a short term memory loss" I explain
"So my son has amnesia?" she asks slowly
"We're not sure mam, we'll only be sure once he wakes up."
"How long could that be?"
"I'm not sure. Mam, your son was shot multiple times so it could take days, weeks even months for him to heal and wake up. In the meantime we'll have to keep him in ICU"
"What do we do to help?" The same young man who calmed Mrs Martinez down asks.
I look at him warily, not sure who he is. Mrs Martinez must've seen my facial expression and wariness towards him because she says " He is my youngest son, Alex's younger brother"
"When you visit him, please don't be harsh or try to force him into waking up, be careful with what you say to him"
~~~~~~~~
It's been a month since Alexander Martinez was admitted into this hospital and I have noticed a few suspicious things that his family has done to ensure he gets better.
Like, they demanded the whole fifth floor to be empty for him only. They also appointed four bodyguards on that floor to "watch over him".
Even some of the nurses have began asking me weird questions about him for example what he's like, how he looks like, if he's handsome and other stuff.
I make my way to his room to do the usual daily check up on him. I open the door and I'm surprised to see a man standing next to the bed where Alexander Martinez lays.
"Um, excuse me Sir but visiting hours ended an hour ago"
"Oh, I didn't realise it would matter. He's my younger brother" he says with his back towards me
"I didn't know that he had an older brother. Let me just call his mother to confirm." I say while taking out my phone.
"That won't be necessary Doctor."
I put back the phone in my coat knowing that I managed to scare him a little.
"I'm sorry Sir but I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Now"
I didn't trust this guy. I mean yes, I don't know him but there's just something off about him.
He turns around and I have to suppress a gasp threatening to escape. A huge scar on the left side of his runs from his cheek to the side of his lips.
With a sinister smile on his face, he turns back to Alexander's still body laying on the hospital bed and whispers something in his ear.
If it wasn't for the constant beeping of the heart monitor, I would've thought this man had killed him.
Whatever this man whispered to him though caused his heart rate to pick up a bit.
"You need to leave right now Sir before I call security to escort you out" I manage to say without stuttering.
He sharply turns around and glares at me, then slowly makes his way out the door but not before purposely bumping into me harshly.
I stagger back at little due to the impact. As soon as he walks out, I place my hand over my chest where my heart is beating erratically. I take a few deep breaths before doing Alexander's check up
~~~~~~~~
The next day during visiting hours, I decided to tell Alexander's younger brother, who had come to visit him, about yesterday's incident with that man.
"Mr Martinez"
"Call me Dmitri" he interrupts
"Um, well... Dmitri. There's something I need to tell you" I continue "When I came to do your brother's check up, I found a man in the the room standing next to his bed after visiting hours. He said that he was your eldest brother but I wasn't too sure on that so I asked him to leave"
Anger flashes through Dmitri's eyes.
"What did he look like?" He asks
"He had really scary grey eyes and a scar on the left side of his face"
I gasp in shock as Dmitri begins punching the wall to his side.
"Damn it!" he shouts as he continues punching the wall.
"Hey, hey. You need to stop" I say while stretching my hand towards his arm to try and stop him.
He roughly snatches his arm from my grasp and walks away.
'What just happened?'
Later that day at night as I was getting ready for bed. I heard a knock on my door.
'Who the hell knocks at at someone's door at 11:30 at night'
I quickly grab a baseball bat from behind my bedroom door just in case. I slowly take cautious steps to the door at turn the door knob with my left hand whilst holding the bat in my right hand.
I open the door and swing the bat at the person.
"Woah!"
"Wha- Dmitri what are you doing here?" I ask after seeing who was at the door
"I need your help"