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day 1: hospital

sam quickly shoved the dollar bill back in her pocket and began walking in the direction the doctors had gone. their agitation caught her attention, and anything was more interesting than her father's conversation with his sister.

she turned the corner and didn't see the doctors or nurses anywhere. she walked down the hallway, unsure of where they'd gone. sam reached another hallway and heard shouting to her right. she followed the voices and came to a room with doctors and nurses crowded around a patient's bed. there were loud alarm-like sounds coming from the machines, and sam strained to hear what she could over the noise.

"the bleeding's not stopping!" one of the nurses cried out.

one of the doctors shouted something sam couldn't make out, and a nurse ran over to a cabinet and grabbed a bottle of clear liquid. her uniform had splatters of blood all over the front.

"hurry!" the doctor yelled.

the nurse filled a syringe with the liquid and then inserted it into one of the tube's coming from the patient's body. sam struggled to see the patient, but the staff blocked her view.

"should we check for internal bleeding?" the other doctor asked.

"we can't risk opening him up," the first doctor replied. "he's already lost too much blood."

"who checked this man's medical chart?"

one of the nurses looked up and said something inaudible.

"what about anemia?"

"no, doctor, he doesn't have anything that should cause this."

"where the hell is the blood that i ordered?!" the other doctor shouted.

one of the nurses quickly left the crowd and ran out of the room, rushing to find out what had happened to the blood they needed. sam could finally catch a glimpse of the patient, now.

her eyes went wide. there was blood everywhere. it seemed to be pouring out of the man's ears, eyes, mouth, everything. it looked like he was convulsing. his arms and legs were strapped down, but they still attempted to flail about, and his back kept rising up violently while the nurses tried to hold him down.

sam turned away and walked down the hallway, feeling sick to her stomach. she glanced at the soda machine as she passed by it, but she just kept walking.

the machine was bright red, and she found that she just didn't really feel like a soda.

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