Veins of Desire

CHAPTER 3

It was an easy task for Haliya. It was so easy that she was so suspicious as to why she had to do it. Her curiosity was starting to eat her and she hated that. “You are at your dream workplace so shut up!” She scolded herself and got up from bed.

Smelling the pancake that her mother cooked, Haliya stretched and did her morning rituals, readying herself to go to work.

“How was your first day? You didn’t tell me anything yesterday,” Vivianne asked, pouring chocolate syrup on top of Haliya’s pancake.

Remembering yesterday was a bit of chaos for Haliya. As usual, she questioned many things at work and got curious about different stuff but Martin and Wendy only answered her with laughter and their flirty attitudes towards one another. She easily got what she had to do and that was to transfer the blood that Wendy and Martin worked with from the most secluded building to the main building.

“It was fine, I love it!” She exclaimed, telling the truth. She enjoyed every second of her being in that hospital, although it didn’t really go as she planned. It was an unexpected job, but the benefits were good and it almost sounded too good to be true.

“I have to work on my outfit though,” she stated, remembering Sally’s last words to her yesterday. She had already chopped off her bangs and decided to go for curtain bangs, which perfectly matched her diamond-shaped face.

Vivianne looked at her daughter and smiled. “You looked wonderful in any outfit,” she commented, boosting her confidence.

“I love my baggy clothes more,” she tilted her head and then ate half of the pancake.

“Then wear them,” her mother said, winking at her. Haliya laughed, remembering that her mother had been worried about her clothes yesterday, but she genuinely wanted her to be confident.

Just like yesterday and the other days before that, Haliya dropped her mother off at the salon where she was working as a hairdresser. She kissed her on the cheeks and told her to take care.

“You really have the eyes of your father,” Vivianne told Haliya before she left. She smiled without reaching her eyes, heaving a deep sigh.

Haliya parked the car and went straight to the blood bank facility at the back of the hospital. She smiled at some of the patients, doctors, and nurses that she encountered. Some of them they knew, and some of them she wanted to know. There were many popular doctors she admired working at Johnsen Hospital. Not only were they known to their city but also to other parts of the world. Someday, Haliya wished to work with them and get to know them personally.

Most of the time, Haliya sees Sally walking around with her stoic face. She would greet her and then she would raise a brow, asking her why she would not let go of her baggy clothes. Haliya usually smiled at her and then continued walking her way to the blood bank facility.

She would endure the sweet couple, Martin and Wendy – or if they were even a couple because they were still not telling that to her – then she would take the blood to the main building’s blood bank facility, wearing a white gown, latex gloves, and a hairnet. She was making sure that she would put the blood types accordingly and properly in their designated refrigerators.

That was her routine for a week. Everything was going well and Haliya loved what she was doing. But after a week at work, she started to hear unwanted rumors and stories. Stories that you will not be able to hear outside the hospital. She heard some of the nurses chatting about disappearing patients or the reason why the hospital was looking for a lot of new staff, and that there were unclaimed corpses at the morgue that started to be suspiciously claimed. It was not good for the reputation of the hospital once it spread outside, so Haliya was thinking of investigating on her own and clearing out the fake news that everybody spread.

“What do you think?” Haliya asked Ella, another immunohematologist that was assigned to the main blood bank facility. Ella was new to the hospital and came only two weeks earlier than Haliya. Ella was the one guiding Haliya whenever she was at the main blood bank facility. They instantly became friends and shared their experiences in the hospital.

“I don’t know. We’re both new here. But what I noticed from the past few days…” Ella intentionally stopped talking. She looked at Haliya, who was staring back at her with pure curiosity. She laughed and shook her head, wondering why Haliya was so worked-up about knowing the rumors inside the hospital.

Realizing that Ella was fooling her, Haliya huffed and continued eating the tasteless free lunch that the hospital provided for them. “I just wanna know your thoughts, come on!” They were having a quick lunch at the cafeteria of the hospital. Sitting at the side where no one could possibly hear them gossiping and giggling.

Ella was not nosy enough to notice things around her, but she was utterly curious about a specific person at the hospital. “What I noticed is that Dr. Ziro has not been here for a week now! He’s the one I am looking forward to seeing and yet he is not here,” she whispered to Haliya, as if it was prohibited to talk about the most renowned surgeon in the hospital.

Haliya’s forehead creased. “Dr. Ziro?” She asked, wondering who he was and how come she didn’t know him.

“Yes, the best and the youngest surgeon in the hospital. He is the only son of the owner!” Ella stated in amusement. Her eyes were sparkling just by telling the name of the doctor she had been admiring since she came to the hospital. Meanwhile, Haliya was still thinking about who this doctor was. Surely, she knew the owner of the hospital but she didn’t know he had an only child. She knew some of the doctors inside and even some of the nurses, but she hadn’t heard the name ‘Dr. Ziro.’

“Tell me more about him.”

Johnsen Hospital may be known to the people of Westcoast City and even in the nearby cities and towns, there were still a lot of things going on inside that were not disclosed to the public. In addition, the owner of the hospital was a very private person.

Ella shook her head, it was not like she did not want Haliya to know more about her crush doctor's crush, but that was really the only thing she knew. “That’s it. I don’t know anything more and even the other hospital personnel that were interested in him knew nothing personal about him. They just say he’s a magician when it comes to surgery, a very good one, serious, and professional. A great doctor, making him known more than just being the son of his father.”

Haliya left the hospital at exactly three in the afternoon, still wondering about the doctor Ella mentioned. She tried asking Wendy and Marting but, as usual, they didn’t answer her seriously. The things they said were the same things that she already knew from Ella.

“Who are you?” She asked herself as she walked straight to the parking lot. As a person who claimed herself a fan of Johnsen Hospital, Haliya felt uneasy that she didn’t really know much about it. It was as if she was lying to herself!

The rusty door of the car made a creaking sound when Haliya opened it. She stopped halfway, remembering that she had forgotten to get her keys from Ella’s locker. So, she went back to the main building, running.

As usual, the hospital was busy, especially in the emergency room. When Haliya walked past it, she walked slowly, trying to watch how the nurses do their rounds in such a busy environment. Although she wanted to stroll more and watch, she decided not to.

Aside from an overwhelming feeling of envy that she wanted to kill, Haliya received a message from her mother. Vivianne would also go home by three in the afternoon so she had to fetch her.

The moment she turned around was also the exact moment when Ziro came into the hospital. He was in his formal attire, with long curly hair that went to his broad shoulders, a watch on his left arm that cost a million, and a lab coat on his right arm. His steps were big as he went straight to the emergency room, gracefully wearing the lab coat to attend to the needs of a person that needed an appendicectomy.