Chapter 3 – The First Flashback
1344 Words
The hospital corridors were sliced by the sharp, rhythmic pulses of the emergency alarm that blared overhead.
Sierra took off running.
She rushed into Trauma Room 3, where a young man was lying on a gurney with blood pooling beneath him with his face pale, and his chest heaving.
The light above flickered, and the smell of burnt skin and copper filled the air.
His chart was a complete mess with internal bleeding, a crash victim and multiple trauma.
One of the nurses yelled, "Vitals dropping." "BP is more than fifty!"
Dr. Marcus shouted from the other side of the room, "Get him ready for a thoracotomy."
Sierra, however, was already on the move.
She knew instead of thinking. She measured the precise intercostal space by sweeping her hands over the patient's chest. Her voice broke through the confusion.
"He's leaving us! Retractor! Right now!"
Although she wasn't supposed to be leading them on this, the staff froze for a moment before obeying because of the assurance in her voice.
Her hands were unflinching as she cut. The blood rushed. Then her fingers located the bleeding vessel, the tear.
"Clamp."
With narrowed eyes, Marcus moved to stand next to her. "Where did you find out?"
She didn't respond.
She was unable to.
Since she was unaware.
---
Elias stood against the glass on the observation deck and watched. He gazed down at the room as his breath hazed the surface.
It was there.
That motion.
That precise grip.
To save time with trauma patients during her residency, Serena had developed the tilt of her hand when she moved the clamp. Nobody else did it that way. It wasn't something that was taught in textbooks; it was muscle memory.
She was serene.
No doubt
---
Sierra leaned over the sink in the changing room and scrubbed her hands frantically. The water turned pink. Something else was causing her heart to thud, not the adrenaline from the surgery.
She felt as though she had slipped into someone else's skin the instant she touched the patient's chest. Before her mind could catch up, her body moved.
Each gesture was rooted in something more profound than knowledge.
Behind her, the door creaked open. She knew who it was without turning.
Elias muttered, "I saw what you did."
With a drop of blood drying close to her collarbone, she gazed at her image in the mirror.
"You are more than just a nurse," Elias said quietly behind her.
Sierra let out a breath. "What are you looking for from me?"
"The truth," he whispered. "I want the truth."
"I told you already. Six years ago, I couldn't recall anything. I had no family, no identification, and no idea who I was when I woke up in a shelter. All I know is that.
He took a step toward her. “But that's not all. No, anymore”.
She looked over at him. She trembled when she spoke. "I have no idea who Serena Vaughn is. I have no idea what happened to her or what kind of life she led. However, I am aware that I am not her”.
Elias stepped again. "You used a method Serena came up with to save that boy. Nobody else makes use of it”.
"That is meaningless."
He looked at her. "Don't you dream of fire?"
Her gaze expanded.
He didn't wait for approval.
"You spot a car, smoke, a collision, a wedding gown.
Her fingers gripped the sink edge as her knees grew weaker. "How are you sure?"
"Because I also witnessed it." I was present. Your body was pulled from that wreck by me.
Sierra shuddered and shook her head. "I passed away. They told you that”.
You were barely able to breathe. In the ambulance, your heart stopped. They declared you dead.
Fear rising, she retreated from him.
Elias muttered, "You were burned beyond recognition." The ring was the only thing that allowed them to identify you. Your ring of engagement”.
She said nothing.
Then...
Her face went white as she fell into the bench behind her.
Her voice was hollow as she said, "I... I've seen it." "In quick bursts, Scream, Glass, Smoke, A ring. A man shouting my name
"Serena."
She blinked vigorously. "No," she muttered. "No. Sierra is my name.
Jamie listened from just outside the door.
He didn't intend to listen in, concerned about Sierra's well-being following the trauma case, he had followed her. However, now...
He balled his hands into fists.
Sierra wasn't her.
And she was being pulled back into something hazardous by Elias Vaughn.
---
Later, Sierra sat with her knees pulled to her chest on her bed. It was dark in the room. The sirens screamed outside, but her thoughts were louder.
She glanced down at her hands.
The same hands that, like they had done a hundred times before, had opened a man's chest and stopped the bleeding.
She pulled her drawer open.
The charred picture gazed up at her. The woman wearing the veil.
After holding it up, she turned to face the mirror.
The same eyes.
Pressing the picture to her chest, she closed her eyes.
"I must know," she muttered.
---
Detective Ava Raines flipped through old files. Vaughn's accident that had been classified as a closed single-car accident with a fuel leak that later exploded.
The Jewelry and dental records were used to identify the victim.
However, something wasn't quite right.
She examined the last picture taken at the scene. In the driver's seat was a burnt corpse.
No passengers, though.
She zoomed in.
On the passenger side, the seatbelt was unbuckled.
She reclined.
That car had been occupied by someone else.
---
Elias took a seat at his piano.
It had been years since he had touched it.
However, his fingers recalled.
When Serena worked late into the night, she would hum the song he played with slow, gentle melody and a requiem composed of aching floated through the penthouse.
The DNA match.
The technique.
The picture.
And the way she flinched when he said the name.
She was the one.
However, why was she unaware?
Who caused her to forget?
---
Sierra was standing in the hospital hallway, looking at a painting on the wall under the flickering light. It was a gray, misty scene of a forest clearing. She was drawn to it for some reason.
She took a step forward.
A memory, not actual sound, reverberated in her ears like a whisper.
* "Run, Serena! Get out, run!"
She made a sudden turn.
She had no one behind her.
Only the quiet.
Only the beat of her heart.
---
Lila leaned over the shoulder of a technician in the surveillance room.
"Keep the feed quiet," she said sharply. "This is only visible to me."
After talking to Elias, she saw Sierra collapse in the changing room on the monitor.
Lila's mouth tensed.
"She’s remembering."
---
Sierra made her way back to the records room.
The same drawer.
Same file.
She took out the six-year-old hospital intake form.
She was drawn to one line:
"The patient had a scar behind the left ear. Perhaps a surgical procedure.
She reached for the back of her ear.
A little bump.
She gasped.
She reached for her phone, snapped a photo, and enlarged it.
A slight scar.
Invisible unless you looked for it.
Her legs felt like they were about to buckle.
She reached for the shelf to steady herself
Papers slipped down to the floor
She took it up.
A note of medical transfer.
Serena Vaughn is her name. Status: No longer alive.
Lila Chase signed it.
Her hands shook.
Lila signed her death certificate, but why?
As she
stared at the paper as the lights in the records room flickered.
Then it went out completely.
Her heart pounded loudly in the stillness as she stood there.
And then
A voice from behind her
A man with a low, cold voice
"You're not supposed to be here."
- Writer
