The doors of the emergency room slammed open as paramedics rushed in, pushing a bed with a dirt-covered man who was barely conscious. His clothes were torn and dirtied with mud, and blood oozed from cuts and scrapes all over his body. A paramedic kept his hand on the man's chest, speaking rapidly to the trauma team.
"We've got a male, mid-20s, trapped under rock and debris for about five hours. Multiple fractures, suspected internal bleeding, severe dehydration, and possible head trauma. BP is dropping—he's in and out of consciousness."
Doctors and nurses surrounded the bed, moving with urgency as they tried to assess the damage. The patient groaned, barely able to lift his head. His eyes fluttered, and his breathing was shallow, each breath labored and rattling.
"Sir, can you hear me?" A doctor asked, leaning over him. "We're going to take care of you, but we need you to stay awake."
The man's lips moved, but no sound came out. His hand twitched on the side of the bed, fingers curling as if grasping for something unseen.
"Prep for a CT scan and full trauma panel," the doctor ordered. "Get an IV line in now! We need fluids—he's dehydrated and in shock."
A nurse quickly hooked him up to a saline drip while another strapped an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. The speedy beeping of the heart monitor cut through the chaos, though the rhythm was irregular, fluctuating dangerously low.
"Pulse is weak—82 and falling," a nurse called out, glancing at the monitor. "Breathing shallow, saturation at 88%."
"Pneumothorax is possible—get me a chest tube ready!" the attending trauma surgeon said sharply, stepping forward. "We need to stabilize him now."
They cut away the man's clothes, revealing more injuries. His torso was bruised, a deep purple blotch spreading across his side where the rocks had pressed into him. Blood pooled in some of the wounds, staining the white beddings underneath him.
"His abdomen's rigid," the nurse said, concern obvious in her voice.
"Possible internal bleeding," the surgeon said, nodding grimly. "We'll need to take him up for surgery as soon as he's stable."
The man's eyes opened briefly, clouded and distant. He gasped, his chest shuddering with each breath as if suffocating beneath the debris. His heart monitor let out a sharp, steady alarm—a flatline.
"He's coding!" someone shouted.
"Start compressions, now! Get the crash cart!" The room stirred into motion as a doctor began chest compressions, trying to revive the faint spark of life slipping away.
A nurse reached for defibrillator paddles, charging them up, while others hurriedly prepared for intubation, trying to find any signs of life.
"Clear!"
The jolt of electricity coursed through the man's body, causing it to arch on the table, but the flatline remained.
"Again—clear!"
Another shock, no response.
The flatline continued, unwavering, as the medical team exchanged worried glances. The tension in the room grew palpable, a silent acknowledgment that time was slipping away. The doctor's brow furrowed in concentration, and he glanced at the heart monitor, willing it to change.
Calypsius lay still, a faint memory of pain lingering as the world around him faded. The bright lights of the hospital began to dim, giving way to an overwhelming darkness that enveloped him completely.
---
Calypsius jolted awake, the world around him a swirling haze. The sharp smell of the hospital had vanished, replaced by the damp, musty odor of wet stone. His chest no longer burned from the weight of rocks, and the frantic beeping of medical monitors had given way to a strange silence, broken only by the distant drip of water.
He gasped, his hands fumbling against the rough ground beneath him. No bed, no wires, no doctors. Instead, he was lying on cold, wet pavement, his body no longer in the pain he had been in moments before.
"What...?" His voice croaked out, hoarse, barely a whisper. He pressed his hand to his chest, expecting to feel even a sense of the familiar pain, but nothing. His body, though bruised and aching, was whole.
Calypsius tried to stand, his legs trembling as he rose to his feet. The alley was narrow. The faint, ghostly glow of street lamps at the far end offered the only light, casting long, dark shadows to dance along the damp walls. He reached out to touch one, the cold, slimy texture of moss slick under his fingertips.
Where was he?
He turned, searching for any sign of where the hospital had gone. He remembered the chaos—doctors shouting orders, the electric shock jolting his heart back to life, the intense pain coursing through his body—and then, nothing. He wasn't supposed to be here.
A flash of movement caught his eye at the far end of the alley. His breath quickened. A figure, cloaked in shadows, was watching him.
"Hey!" Calypsius called out, though his voice was weak and strained. "Who are you?"
The figure didn't respond, but began to move—slowly, deliberately—towards him. Each step echoed unnaturally in the empty alley. Something about them felt wrong. Too slow, too silent. Calypsius took a step back, his heart pounding, though not from the trauma he had experienced earlier.
Suddenly, memories of the cave flashed before his eyes—the suffocating darkness, the weight of the rocks crushing him, the desperation. Was this another hallucination? Had his mind cracked under the strain?
"Stay back!" he yelled, his voice more frantic now, as the figure continued to approach.
The alley seemed to close around him, the walls tightening as the air grew colder. His body, still recovering from the trauma, felt weak, sluggish. His breath quickened as panic set in. This place—it wasn't real. Couldn't be real.
But the figure, now only a few steps away, felt real. Too real.
Calypsius stumbled back until his back hit the cold, slick wall. His head spun, torn between two realities—the hospital, where his body lay fighting for survival, and this dark, eerie alleyway where shadows moved with a life of their own.
"What's happening to me?" he whispered, as the figure finally reached him, its face obscured beneath the shadows of its cloak.
It leaned in closer, and Calypsius could feel the icy chill of its presence, like death itself hovering over him. The figure whispered something, too faint to hear, its breath cold against his skin. The words sent shivers down his spine, as if spoken from some forgotten part of his mind, and for a brief moment, his vision blurred.
And then—darkness.