Last Resort {Kiah}

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Today had been rough. I had watched, helpless as a young boy had fought for life. I had watch his small body spasm over and over again and there had been nothing I could do. The doctors had told me to stand back as my eyes had filled with tears, as I watched this boy lose his fight to life. Seeing someone so young, just lose control like that was something that I wanted to forget but I knew that I wouldn't, I knew that i would be seared into my brain, into my memories for lifetimes and despite how much I hated it I knew that it would make me stronger.

Tears had fallen down my face and one of the more experienced nurses had try to guide me from the room, but i had told her that I couldn't leave, that I had to watch. I had to watch, I wasn't allowed to escape this. Every death, every time someone lost a life to my incompetence I knew that I would have to watch, have to remember how pathetic I was. It was my punishment. It was my way of torturing myself because I wasn't good enough and I would never be good enough.I couldn't save anyone. But the Nurse had not allowed me to stay, dragging me by the arm from the room, her voice harsh but comforting.

"Nina, Nina look at me." She said, moving to stand in front of me, her cold hands cupping my face. Slowly I bring my teary gaze to me hers and I am shocked by the amount of understanding a fiery determination that I see. "Nina you aren't going to be able to save everyone. You are going to lose people, so many people.... but you cant to that to yourself- no don't interrupt me," impatiently she cuts me off, "You have to be able to accept some death, let them go or you will not be a nurse here but one of the patients. Nina, to be in this job you have to be strong, okay? You have to know when to turn off and when to flick that switch back on because if you don't...  I'm afraid that you wont make it."

She looked into my eyes for a moment longer before dropping her hands and walking away. I watched her leave, her words dancing through my mind and I knew that she had spoken the truth. I knew that I had to learn to let go but I just couldn't. I could allow myself to forget because if I forgot about them, who would remember them?

Now I am walking away. My shift was over but the boy was seared into the back of my eye lids and every time I closed my eyes I would see his withering body, the foam around his mouth and the pain I his eyes. Taking a deep breath I open my eyes just as a frantic boy runs into the hospital lobby. His arm carry the very still figure of a small girl and instantly I find my feet racing over to them. I reach his side hearing his desperate pleas for help. 

The girl at the desk picks up a phone ready to all someone but I reach forwards, my fingers fishing it from her grasp. "Its okay, I got this one." I as I turn to the boy, not allowing the girl to question me anymore. I could to this. I was not loosing another patient today. Looking past the boy and at the girl in his arms I feel my heart begin to race. Her hair was dripping with sweat and her cheeks were red like they had been stained with the blood of a rose. Instantly I am taken back to another time. The time when my younger sister had looked exactly the same, her small chest heaving for breath that refused to enter her lungs.

Suddenly I steps back from the girl, my had over her mouth. It looked so similar, like the way I had lost my own sister. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears and it took all I had to push it down and to take that step closer to the girl, to look her in the face. "Uh, uh she needs help right away." I try to safe with a sense of professionalism but I can hear my voice falter. I had to be strong. I could do this. "Hurry the girl needs urgent medical attention," I almost snap taking the boy by the shoulder and leading him deeper into the the hospital. 

I could do this. It wouldnt repeat its self. Not again. Not this time.

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She was in my hands again, her small body hotter than the suns surface. Her eyes closed, the edges crystallized with a layer of crust. I remember it all to well. I remember as I held her tightly, her sweat morphing into mine as I tried to beat the sickness that was beating her. But even as my mother wailed, I could do nothing but hold the damp cloth to her burning brow. I could do nothing but watch as her life slipped between my very fingers. And here I was again. This girl so small wrapped in the arms of her older brother, slowly, ever so slowly, slipping away from this world. 

I look over my shoulder quickly, the girl looked so vulnerable, so small in her brothers arms (Just like she had in mine, smaller than ever). I wanted to say something, something like it was all going to be okay, assure him that she would be okay. But I don't. I don't because I don't know. I don't know weather his small girl will live. I don't know weather she will perish, perish because of me. Looking back I take a deep breath, trying to stabalise my emotions. I could do this. I had to do this- if not for me then for the boy. I had to do this.

"Just help her." His voice is filled with desperation, a desperation that encased my body, wrapping its greedy fingers around my heart, around my very being. I couldn't escape it. I was trapped, trapped in his words, trapped in his undying perseverance to save this young girl. "Her name is Haley." The hold tightens as her name slips past his lips, suffocating me. To know a name was to know a face. Knowing a name meant pain, meant another lifeless soul haunting my waking memory- but to know a name also meant to lend some strength. I felt myself able to breathe again. 

"I've done all I can do. I don't know what else to do. Please. You have to save her. Please." I don't have to be looking at the boy to see his tears. I can feel them. Feel them though the way he speaks, through the way that he cares and once again I am trapped, trapped with no signs of escape this time. No matter how many times I was to repeat this girls name, I was gone. This boys desperation, this boys need to see his sisters life replenished drowning me. 

I try to speak. I try to tell him that I'll do my best but words do not come as I lead him into an empty room, switching on the lights bathing the room in a harsh brightness. I gesture at the bed, before taking a deep breath and forcing the words past my teeth. "What happened to her? I need you to tell me what she was doing. Has she gone through this before? What have you done already?" My voice lacks emotion, muscle memory possessing my movements, my words. Taking a deeper breath I try to find my real voice, "I know this is... I know this is hard to watch- hard to deal with. But I need you as much as you need me now." I reach over to him, placing a comforting hand on his arm. "I need you to work with me, okay? Tell me what happened." 

[ ooc: 10th retro gm | paxton hayes hey look I did you a post hun <3 ]

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The boy clasped his sisters hand, his tears running down his face, leaving little trails of his grief. It made my heart clench to watch the way he sobbed, to watch the misery which seemed to drown him, making my words almost seem distant. I am so sure that he hadn't heard me when suddenly his eyes lock with mine- his blood shot glassy eyes- and words slip past his trembling lips.  "One day she was fine. She was being as normal as she could. But it all changed. She was coughing a lot. Coughing and coughing. And then came the vomiting. Mom had this cough medicine that made the coughing go away, and something that made her stomach better. And it worked. She was doing fine. Doing well. But it all came back. Worse. She stopped eating. Stopped drinking. Stopped doing everything. More coughing. More vomiting. Horrible diarrhea. She couldn't take any medicine anymore..." His voice shakes, his whole body shuddering as he fights the sobs that tear through him, making the tears fall fast making small puddles on the sheets of Hayley's bed. 

"I've tried giving her water and food. But she kept getting worse. Placing wet rags on her head wouldn't even break a fever like it had done before. I only left her alone when I went to get more medicine, but dad was home. He was always home."  He continues and I can tell in the way that he strains his voice that he was exhausted making me realise it wasn't only this little girl I needed to help but I him as well. I needed to care for him- just like he cared for his sister. "Mom, she died two years ago. I couldn't save her. I did everything she taught me, but it wasn't enough. I hate asking for help, but I need it."  The pain in his voice made my heart break, and I am tempted to reach out to him again, just to touch him gently, to make him realise that he was not alone- not like I had been, I would not allow him to be alone because I knew how it felt, how it felt to be hopeless and alone. 

His brows is pressed to the bed, his sobs filling me, and I no longer allow myself to think of myself, and only of the boy in front of me- because right now I didn't matter. My past didn't matter, the only thing that did was this boy and this girl. They were my priority. Thats when he reality of his words hit me- "What was the medicine?" If she knew the name then maybe she could give Hayley some, not curing the girl but buying them both more time.  "If we could just find some of that medicine then maybe we could buy some time- and time is something we need. I haven't seen this illness before- but knowing more about this medicine will help me know more about this illness." I turn my eyes to the boy, before running them over the small fragile girl before the two of us. I reach out with my hand, placing it on the girls forehead. As soon as my finger tips brush across her brow it feels like they are on fire and I from moving away from them my fingers rummaging through a draw my fingers closing around a piece of cloth quickly fishing it out. 

Running over to the sink I run it under cold water before racing to her side gentling dabbing her face with it, my eyes searching her face, her shallow breathing making my heart flutter with panic- what if it was to late? What if she was to late? 

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The girl lay so still, not eyes the flutter of an eye lid and for a moment I was not sure she was still breathing. Quickly I press my fingers to the side of her throat, waiting. Waiting. waiting... Then I feel it, the small, faint, beating of a dying heart. I breathe a sigh of relief, and step back pressing my hands to my face as I tried to calm my racing heart. I did not wish to lose this battle this is one that I wanted- that I had to win. I press the palm of my hands against my eyes, rubbing them roughly in a way to calm myself dow. It was a habit I had gotten when I was younger. Whenever I was stressed I would push my palms against my eyes, telling myself that it was going to be okay, blocking out everything around me because if I couldnt see it it wasnt really happening. Of course as I grew up I understood that even if I did cover my eyes the problem as still there but the movement still managed to calm me, calm me in a way that nothing else could. 

"It's an antibiotic. I can't think of the name of it right now." My hands drop as he speaks, my vision blurry for just a few moments as they got used to the light once again. I frown at his words anger that I could not hold back burning through my veins for a mere few moments. There were so many different types of antibiotics, I think angrily, how could be possibly think that could help me? like in all honesty I wanted to pound my fists against the bed in frustration because every moment he thought was a moment that I lost, that Haley lost. 

I am about to tell him to think harder when words burst from his lips, his hand scratching his head as he fought to think the exact name. My heart begins to bur with guilt as I watch the boy struggle my anger dying as quickly as it had come to life. "It's a red and yellow pill. It's an antibiotic. I just can't think of the name." I force myself to smile at him, thanking him without words before I begin to search my mind, summon up all the training that I could remember that involved pills of the colors red and yellow. It was hard considering I was still in training, meaning I shouldn't even be in here alone with this boy and girl, but there had been no one else around and I knew for a fact that it would have taken ten minutes for someone to get down here, ten minutes to long for this girl- and even if they had, one look at this girl and at how far gone she was they would have just sent him home, they didn't have the time or the resources to deal with cases that could not be solved. And it was also the fact that this girl looked so similar to her that I knew that I had to be the one to help her, to save her because then, in a way, maybe I could save the one I lost too.

I knew it was selfish, it was wrong and would cost me my job, my career, but I had to be the one.

It had to be me. 

Then it hits me. I didn't know the name of the pill but I knew what it was and where it was. My heart beings to pound harder, just like before until i am not sure I can tell the difference between breathing in air and breathing out air. I couldn't do this, the pill I needed was one of the many pills locked away for fully qualified nurses and doctors to handle, not someone like me. I try to hide my fear as I look from the boy to the small girl. I had to tell them. I had to tell them that I was not what they were expecting, that I was just training that I didn't have the full qualifications- but I also had to tell them, him, that if I hadn't of stepped forwards to help that they would have just turnd him away, he had to understand that me doing this may have been a stupid mistake, but it was a mistake that not only but his sister in danger, but also my own future, my own life. 

"Look, I have to tell you something and I don't want you to get mad. I am not a fully trained nurse, I am just training and in all reality I should have turned you guys away. Sent you back out on the streets because we don't have the resources, the medical aid to treat cases like this, not after the drought that happened a year ago. We are struggling alone and if anyone ever found out about this I would lose my job. I just want you to know that I know what drug it is that we need, but it is out of my reach. It would defiantly cost me my job, my life..." My lips begins to tremble as I speak, out of fear of what I was about to say, "But I am going to help you, okay? I am going to try and save your sister."