The Grim Reaper

PROLOGUE

Everything was cold and still.

At exactly 12 midnight, an ambulance screeched it tires to a halt at the front door of the hospital. It's blue, and red roof lights flickered on the white walls of the hospital, painting the night with gloom, but no one had noticed. Immediately four nurses wheeled out two stretchers outside the hospital, towards the back of the white-red ambulance. They yanked open the doors of the ambulance and heaved the two severely injured patients on the stretchers.

"Straight to the Resus." A burly young doctor yelled. He looked at one of the patients who was an old man. His white shirt and the oxygen mask on his nose were spattered with the thick dark blood that cascaded from his bald head. His hands dangled beside him as the nurses pushed the stretcher through the lobby. If there was one thing that was clear, it was the fact that the old man might not make it.

"Stay with me, ma'am. Be still, just stay with me" One of the nurses spoke to Ellen, the other victim, as they wheeled her down into the lab with her husband.

Few ticks later, Ellen opened her eyes to the fogginess of the hospital. The lights were blinding, and the shrieking noise the stretchers' tires made with the ceramic floor was deafening. She tilted her head sideways, gnashing her teeth as excruciating pains shot through her body. She could see the nurses in white, their blood-stained hands pressed on the sides of the stretcher, and their lips mumbling words she could not hear.

Unlike the metallic smell of blood and pharmaceutics that greeted her nose the last time she visited the hospital, Ellen smelled death. She could see her husband laying stiff with his hands dangling beside him as the nurses wheeled him along. He looked different now. The last time she had seen him, he had told her that everything would be fine. She remembered his smile after the pilot had announced that their plane would definitely crash and that there was nothing to do. Even on the verge of death, he chose to smile.

But things were different now. He had promised to be there with her, smiling when they finally made it, but his eyes were shut.

She choked off as she struggled to stand and check if he was alive. Ellen thought about George their only son who would probably be waiting at home, expecting them to return.

She remembered her promise to return before night fell, the look on his face when she told him he could not follow them, and how he had patted her cheeks with his small mouths.

"I will be back before you can say noodles," she had promised, but now it is just going to be the opposite.

Without much time lag, the nurses wheeled them into the surgery lab. The lab was smaller than she had ever thought – everywhere was almost foggy. She felt her eyes lid closing against her wish, yet she struggled to stay alive. Then she heard a buzzing sound from the right. She cocked her head towards the direction and found the nurses and two doctors attending to her husband. They all were clothed in transparent gloves and white scrubs. She watched closely as one of them tore open her husband's shirt with a scissor. Another fumbled with a Defibrillator, rubbed the surface together, and moved it closer to the old man's chest.

"This should give us a normal perfuming rhythm of the heart sir." The nurses said as she lowered her hand slowly, trying to aim for the old man.

"Let's have it then." One of the doctors commanded.

Then she lowered the pads unto his chest, lifted it as soon his body shook, yet nothing changed. Not even a single thing.

Ellen starred in pain, she could hear a nurse now talking to her. Her head was pulled back and her body prepared for treatment, yet she kept her ears opened. She waited for a statement that would confirm that her husband was still alive, but nothing came.

While she was still struggling to hear what was going on, a nurse raised a filled syringe in the air. She watched Ellen and for a moment felt pity for her.

"This will make things easy." The nurse with the round-rimmed glasses sighed. She looked like a nerd who could have banged lots of awards in law school or probably excel as a famous scientist.

"It will be over in a moment." Her sonorous voice came through.

Then she lowered the syringe into Ellen's right wrist and injected her.

Soon, she fell into a dizzy trance. Her eyes became heavy, and her body felt lighter than her actual weight. But she still struggled. Finally, when it appeared that all her effort to remain awake was futile, she heard the young doctor who was attending to her husband speak.

"We lost the old man, time of death 12:35." His baritone voice carried those words as though they were nothing.