Chapter two
1021 Words
The corridor was filled with different movements, the nurses passed with orders in hands like life. Machines pulsed in even chorus; it sounded so hard that the dead could hear.
Yet I stood still at the edge of the ICU, and beneath all those noises I was overwhelmed with the tiny voice speaking about a promise to someone I had never known.
Has someone made a promise I didn't know about? Who was that?
I thought…deeply.
“If I ever saw you… I should protect you.”
“The sketch.
Who was she?
Who was he, really?
I needed answers.
“Bianca!!”
Elena’s voice was gentle, cautious.
She only called me by my first name when she saw the walls beginning to crack.”
They're prepping him for surgery, but his chances…..
“I nodded, sharply cutting her off before she finished her words. She didn't need to. I already knew.
“Please inform Dr. Lucas He will assist. I want Neuro and Cardiac on standby.”
Then I turned, and went down the hallway, before my grief could become visible.
A thought came through my mind in the chaos, quiet but insistent.
Like a whisper in a storm, refusing to be ignored.
Dr. Vennessa Iago, the brilliant oncologist who is yet a stranger to her own reflection. I saw her life unfold like a riddle no one could possibly solve. She wore silence the way others wore perfume that was invisible but inescapable, a second skin that clung to her even in laughter. The smile she practiced was never genuine, like the one that lit her eyes long ago. Every word she gave felt measured behind each syllable and there was a locked door she alone had a key to.
Everything clung to me like the scent of smoke after a fire.
I smiled, weaving my thoughts before scrubbing in. I paused in the hospital locker room.
There, a photo taped inside my locker, the image of my mum in a lab coat smiling,outside a hospital where she was ready to make her dreams come through in order to save the lives of people.
But her career, dreams …..were shattered.
My heart aches each time I come across the picture.
She was my growth. My inspiration. All this while it was her.
She was all of it.
I had seen the pain in her eyes each time the past came back to her memory.
Every time she remembered how it all went wrong.
Now I have taken the step of becoming not just a doctor…..
But a kind of genius everyone looks up to.
To restore what was stolen.
To uncover what was buried.
To clear her name, or at least, to understand the truths she never told us.
The hospital system buzzed in and called my name, which had pulled back my attention.
“Dr Iago OR is ready.”
I swallowed hard, blinking away the sudden sting in my eyes. I walked into the operation room and the weight was still there.
With a thought in my heart, saying, “The truth was simple.”
“But the best way to honor life is to save one.”
The OR door opened.
I walked in.
And in no time, the door swings shut behind me.
I snapped on my gloves.
Nothing else was heard but the sound of the scalpel.
The next few minutes passed in a blur of sweat.
blood.
precision.
I moved on instinct and training.
But behind each movement was something else.
Suspicion, Memory and fire.
Beep, beep,
The sound of a heart beating faint but fighting.
I exhaled sharply,
He was alive.
I began to close. Page ICU. He needs to be monitored for the next 72hours . No visitors. No access without my approval.
“Got it,” the nurse replied.
n
Because something deeper was unrevealing.
The door shut behind me with a gentle hiss.
But inside me, everything roared.
I walked to the nearest sink.
The water was too hot.
But I let it burn.
Blood washed off easily.
Memories didn't.
I pulled up his imaging scan again.
Signs of an old surgical scar one hadn't caused.
There were incisions on his spine, neck and left arm.
Who the hell is he?
There was a knock on my door.
It was opened before I could give a response.
It was Elena.
She stepped inside, holding something in her hand.
“What is that ?” I questioned
“We went through the old man's things,and
found this hidden in his bag.” she said quietly.
It was a small old dark jotter.
I opened it carefully.
Insider it was another sketch
Drawn in charcoal, rushed,messy but detailed.
It was a family standing in the front of a mall.
My breath caught.
It was us.
My family.
My father. mother. me.
And my younger sister….
The one who disappeared in a car accident.
You have got to be kidding me. I whispered but it came out like I shouted.
Below the drawing, in faint ink it was another drawing.
A blue scarf.
My little sister.
The only thing found at the crash site.Beside my father's body who was lying dead. Her whereabouts were unknown.
It has been my worst nightmare.
Suddenly,the memory crashed in.
How life has been.
How life shattered ever since we lost them.
If anyone had told me it would be my last moment with them I would have stayed back home that day.
I looked up at Elena, who was already watching me closely.
“ He knows us,” I whispered,my voice was tiny and could barely hold them together.
“This wasn't just an accident.”
I said, fixing back my gaze on the sketch, this is too familiar,too exact. My fingers trembled against the paper. My pulse is thundering.
“The past.”
It hadn't let go of me, it was reaching through the present demanding to be seen.
It isn't just whispering anymore,It has walked in through the ER door bleeding and has left behind a sign of truths waiting to be cut open.
- Writer
