I rode with Benjamin in the ambulance while my parents followed in the car. The EMTs wanted a doctor to check the burn on my hand. It was red and blistered from grabbing the doorknob. They were also afraid I might have suffered a concussion from hitting my head on the pavement when I passed out. Ben had a deep cut where glass embedded in his leg from the basement windows exploding and a burn on his forearm.
“Isn’t this wicked cool, Milayna?” Ben fiddled with the oxygen tubing running from a tank to his nose.
“Yeah, I’ve never been in an ambulance before,” I said, smiling at his excitement. “Don’t touch that.” I moved the tubing delivering oxygen out of his reach. He kept pulling the nozzles out of his nose, pinching them.
At the hospital, my dad sat next to my gurney in the small exam room in emergency. The doctor had bandaged my hand. The burn wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked—or felt. We were just waiting on the results of my scan to rule out a concussion and then I’d be released. My oxygen levels had improved enough that smoke inhalation wasn’t a huge concern.
My mom sat with Ben in a similar room down the dingy, pea-green hallway. The doctor had cleaned and stitched his leg and bandaged his burned arm. They were keeping an eye on his oxygen levels before releasing him.
My stomach clenched and I pulled my knees up to my chest, trying to protect myself from the vicious pain.
Not now! I can’t have a vision now. Geez, hasn’t it been enough for one freakin’ night?
I was exhausted from the vision and stress of the fire. My chest burned and my head pounded from the effects of breathing in so much smoke. But the images came anyway. They flashed in front of my eyes, and the surroundings around me slowly faded.
A white-haired woman. Crying.
I concentrated on the items around the woman. It looked like she was in the same hospital as we were.
A man clutching his chest. The woman calling for help. Nurses walking past them.
“Milayna? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, and the images fell away. “Nothing, Dad, just a vision.”
White shirt. Blue jeans.
“Dad? Have you seen a white-haired woman with a white shirt and blue jeans on?”
“No. Why? Is she in your vision?”
I nodded, closing my eyes and breathing deeply, trying to relax into the vision.
Ambulance. EMTs rolling in a gurney. The gurney sitting in the hallway. The woman crying.
I could see her clearly in my vision, hear her sobs and calls for someone to help. The smell of disinfectant and sickness filled my nose.
“I’ll be right back.” I slide down from the gurney and walked into the hall.
“Everything okay?” he called after me.
“Yes. I just have to see if I can find the woman.”
Looking from side to side, I sighed. The visions never made it easy. The hospital was busy and the hall was littered with gurneys. I’d have to walk up and down the hall to find the right one.
Which way? Right… no, left. Wait, the nurse’s station is to the left. That wasn’t in the vision. Right, then.
I turned right and walked slowly by the gurneys, looking at the faces of the people as I passed.
Blue blanket falling on the floor. An arm hanging limply over the side of the gurney. The woman screaming for help.
Something caught my eye a few feet in front of me. A blue blanket fluttering to the dirty, tiled floor. I looked up and saw the woman sitting on the foot of the gurney. She stood and bent to pick up the blanket.
I turned and ran to the nurses’ desk. “Excuse me. There’s a man down the hall that needs help.” No one answered me. They didn’t even look in my direction. I looked down the hall and saw the man’s arm fall over the side of the gurney. Nurses passed by him, focused on other patients, other responsibilities.
“Hey!” I yelled, smacking my hand against the countertop. A nurse looked up and scowled at me. “There’s a man down there. I think he’s having a heart attack.”
“Where?” She sighed.
The woman’s scream pierced through the noisy hallway.
I raised an eyebrow. “There.”
The nurse walked quickly to the man. Picking up his wrist, she checked for a pulse before yelling, “I need a crash cart.”
The violent twisting in my stomach eased, and the vision faded away. I smiled. If anything good came of that night, it was helping that man.
I walked back to my room and sat down next to my dad. “It all work out?” he asked.
I laid down, bunching the pillow under my head. “Yeah. Right as rain as Grams would say.”
My dad pulled the sheet over me and patted my cheek. “Good job.”
“Thanks. Dad?”
“Hmm?”
“What do you think happened to start the fire?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe electrical. Maybe something flammable got too close to the pilot light on the water heater.”
“Or maybe a demon with fiery fingers.”