Back from the Brink
851 Words
"Doctor, quick, save him!" Zhang Dahai rushed into the emergency room, carrying the unconscious Lin Haoran in his arms.
At first, Zhang Dahai thought Lin Haoran was already dead. But when he felt a faint breath from his nose, he brought him to the hospital.
"Quick, to the emergency room!" A group of doctors and nurses scrambled into action.
"Quick, the patient is bleeding heavily. Prepare a blood transfusion," the doctor said to his assistant.
"We... we can't determine his blood type. The machine must be broken," the assistant shook his head. The patient's blood sample had been sent for testing, but the machine couldn't identify the blood type at all. The only explanation was that the hospital's equipment was malfunctioning.
"Well, then..." The doctor was at a loss.
"Doctor, the patient's heartbeat is slowing down. It seems like it's about to stop," a nurse said, watching the heart monitor.
"What?" the doctor shouted. He grabbed the defibrillator and shocked Lin Haoran's chest desperately.
"Doctor, his heartbeat is accelerating!" the nurse called out nervously, watching the erratic ECG line.
The doctor immediately set down the machine and said to his assistant, "Have you found the patient's family? I'm afraid this patient might not make it."
This was a situation the doctor had never encountered in over twenty years of practice. The patient was bleeding severely, but they couldn't determine his blood type, making it impossible to administer a transfusion. He dreaded making a wrong transfusion — that would ruin a reputation built over decades.
What was even more baffling was the patient's heartbeat. It would race so fast it was dizzying to watch, then it would seem to stop entirely, along with his breathing. But moments later, his heart would start beating again.
"Doctor, his heartbeat seems to have stopped again!" the nurse cried out.
The doctor grabbed the defibrillator again and shocked Lin Haoran's chest once more. But this time, there was no response. His heart was beating less and less.
"I can't do anything more. Prepare to notify the family to make funeral arrangements," the doctor said, shaking his head as he walked out of the emergency room.
"How is the injured man?" Zhang Dahai was waiting outside.
"He's beyond saving," the doctor said.
"What? I'm finished! I'll have to pay with my life!" the driver slumped into a nearby chair.
Back in the emergency room where they had been trying to save Lin Haoran, something extraordinary happened. The flat line on the heart monitor began to jump again. On the hospital bed, Lin Haoran's bleeding wounds were slowly healing on their own, and his deathly pale face was regaining its color. It was as if someone had cast a healing spell on him. Gradually, the man who had looked like a corpse moments ago now appeared to be merely a sleeping person.
"How did I get here? What is this place?" Lin Haoran slowly sat up, looking around and talking to himself.
"Right, I think I was hit by a car. But I feel perfectly fine now. I don't think anything is wrong with me." Lin Haoran waved his arms, confirming he was okay.
"Hey, beautiful, what place is this?" Lin Haoran said cheerfully when he spotted a pretty nurse writing at a desk nearby. Her elegant demeanor and striking features made an immediate impression. Sigh, these days, talented women weren't always attractive, and attractive women weren't always talented.
"Ghost!" the nurse screamed. She had been writing Lin Haoran's death report, and now this messy-haired dead man was sitting up and asking where he was!
"Ghost? Where?" Hearing the nurse's scream, Lin Haoran scrambled back onto the bed in terror. Ghosts in broad daylight? These were no ordinary ghosts! In the movies, ghosts never dared to appear during the day.
"You... you're not dead?" The nurse, having seen her share of dead bodies, noticed that Lin Haoran looked even more frightened than she was. She began to believe he was actually alive.
"You're the one who's dead!" Lin Haoran shot a glare at the nurse he'd been about to flirt with. She might be beautiful, but on a matter of principle like this, he wouldn't back down. If he were dead, all the beautiful women and money in the world would mean nothing.
"Doctor! The dead man is alive! Doctor, the dead man is alive!" the nurse ran out screaming.
Sigh, another beauty in the wrong profession. Lin Haoran shook his head. If she entered one of those national singing competitions with that scream, she'd be an instant star — famous with just one cry.
"Where's the living dead? Where?" A moment later, the doctor rushed in excitedly.
"I'm a living person, not a living dead person!" Lin Haoran gave the doctor another cold look. It seemed the hospital staff really needed some training. First they announced "the dead man is alive" — but dead men can't come back to life, or they wouldn't be called dead. Now they were calling him a "living dead." He'd heard of living fossils, but living dead people? Only in ghost movies.
- Writer
