The Dragon’s Bride

“Remember Kassandre soon when you grow up, a man from another world will take you away from here.“ That’s what my mother has always said to me since the moment I could walk on my own. There was no minute she would rest from babbling to me about meeting a king one day from another world that would take me away from here and marry me to rule his world where unimaginable creatures reside. And as a child back then I always believed my mother’s words, and was bullied by kids around my age because of it. They would randomly call me names like “loony” or “crazy”. My childhood life wasn’t easy. Battling illusions, my mother used to tell me that I believed. My pager rang, creating a loud beeping sound, stopping my first peaceful and heavenly sleep of this week. There have been many patients admitted to the hospital in the last two weeks. ‘Great, I can’t even have a rest.’ My hands desperately search for my pager beside me and rub my eyes so that I can look clearly at what the screen shows. “Cardiac 543” it says, it’s the patient again on the 5th floor. I quickly stood up and picked up my white coat hanged on the chair in front of the headquarters bed and ran as quickly as possible to the room of the patient. When I got there, there were already five nurses aiding the patient while waiting for me. The nurses make way for me as I grab my ballpen with a flashlight on the tip and turn it on. Checking for the eye of the patient for brain death. Luckily, the patient’s eyes constricted from the flash. I put on my stethoscope and checked the heartbeat sound of the patient to know the cause of his cardiac arrest. ‘His heart is beating faster than the normal rate per minute’ I leaned my head and listened to the faint sound of breathing the patient made. And observe his skin color, nails and lips for any symptoms. ‘He has a fast heart rate, shortness of breath, blueish skin, nails, and lips. Could it be…..?’ That’s it! “The patient is experiencing ‘Tension Pneumothorax’. The air is trapped in the pleural space under positive pressure. There’s no time, get me a 14 or 16 gauge needle! I need to do a needle decompression. We need to let out the air.” I said after observing the patient. I looked for the second intercostal space in the midclavicular line, where I should be doing the needle decompression, and the nurse handed me a 16 gauge needle. ‘This is the right position’ Without another word, I plunged the needle just enough that I could hear the gush of air from the inside and removed the needle. After that, I covered and secured the IV cannula. ——— I’ve composed myself to meet the family of the patient and inform them of his status. After that, I went back to the headquarters and packed my things so that I could go home and rest. My shift is done for today and I’m going to stop first at the supermarket to buy goods before heading home. The drive was not that long from the hospital to the supermarket. I went inside the entrance door and took a cart to make it easier for me to carry the things I needed to buy. I opened my phone, and looked for the list I needed to get my groceries that I needed at home. As usual, I mostly need milk, yogurts and ice cream. I went to the back of the supermarket to look for the dairy sections. And after finding the goods I needed to buy and other food, I headed to the counter to pay for them and went to the parking area. On my way to my car, I noticed a black figure following me from the shadow I could see behind. I stood there frozen in fear and glanced back at my stalker as it halted the moment I stopped my walk. In fear, I walked faster than I do normally and frantically looking for my car keys in my bag, seeing my car not far away. From walking, I started to run, and just like what I was doing I could feel the stalker was doing it too. I took a glimpse at my back and from a dark figure I could see a person wearing a cloak. When the figure was chasing me, the cloak fell off, revealing an unsightly goblin. Its face and skin are bright and slimy green, its ears are pointy, its eyes are glowing more yellow because of the dim light, and it has a crook and bulbous nose. His frame is not that big but his hands and feet do. In a desperate situation, I grabbed the apple from the groceries I bought, and threw it to the goblin that was chasing me. When the apple hit him hard, he shrieked in pain. His eyes changed color from bright yellow to glowing red. ‘Great, now an angry goblin’ With furious anger, in a second the goblin caught me up and grabbed my feet hard, making me stumble and fall on the floor. My head throbbed in pain, and a smell of metallic rust flooded my nose. I touched my head and felt a sticky red liquid flowing down from the part where I hit my head. My vision faded and my surroundings twirled around. I crawled desperately for a hopeless escape and screamed for help with all my strength. The goblin pierced its long and sharp nails on my leg. The cut was too deep, making me bleed so much. “Ahhhhhhhh!” I yelled as I felt excruciating pain in my leg. Darkness threatened to consume my sight, and at any minute I could feel myself falling to unconsciousness from the unbearable pain and too much loss of blood. The goblin was ready to attack again when a tall, dark and masculine figure appeared, shielding me from being harmed by the goblin. I can hear the goblin squealing in pain, as a new figure emerges from who knows where and fights the unsightly creature. My vision succumbed to the abyss of darkness, while hearing the sound of a man calling me so near but so far away.