A minute had passed, and no matter how much the teenager shook his mother, she refused to wake up. He helplessly looked at her colleague, but the young university student didn’t know what to do either. She helplessly offered to call her an ambulance.
Gary knew that with the colour gang war still going on neither the police force nor ambulances, taxis or anything else would be able to enter this area. Left with no other choice, the teenager took it upon himself to take her to the hospital.
He didn’t hesitate to use Charging Heart to get an extra boost. As long as he could get there even a second faster he didn’t care how much Energy he would have to spend. However, there was barely any need for him to use the skill. His hearing allowed him to hear his mother’s heartbeat continuously weakening and slowing down, further increasing his Heart rate to the point he entered his partial transformation state.
‘Mum, please hang in there! You can’t leave us! We still need you!!!’ Gary thought as he ran through the streets. ‘You made a promise, remember? You promised me that you would never leave us!
‘You have to survive so I can give you and Amy the best life possible! So we can get out of this city, away from all the gangs! You still haven’t even lived your life yet!’
Eventually, Gary arrived outside Slough’s central hospital. It was quite a distance away from Chavley where the gang war had occurred. Fortunately, thanks to his special situation, the teenager took less than twenty minutes to arrive here. Even better, the hospital didn’t look to be overrun with other accidents just yet.
Unwilling to put his mother down, Gary ran through the double doors pushing it open head first. A loud bang was heard as his head slammed the doors open.
“Anybody, please help! My mother’s been attacked by gang members! She’s not waking up!” Gary began shouting the moment he entered the reception area, not caring what type of disturbance he might be causing. His little stunt proved to be immediately effective, leading the security guards as well as the few nurses on duty to come over.
Initially, the guards had been about to tell Gary off for his entrance, but that’s when they noticed how exhausted the high schooler was. It was obvious that he had carried his mother a great distance to come here. Seeing what the woman looked like on his back and the condition she was in, the guards didn’t know quite what to do, until a nurse pushed the guard out of the way.
“How long has she been like that?” The nurse asked, as she walked forward leading Gary to the emergency room.
“I don’t know, a while. She’s hurt, please save her!”
The nurse gave him a determined look, one that made him believe that she would do everything in her power to help.
——
After handing his mother over, Gary followed the nurse’s instructions and remained in the waiting area. His mind was racing, imagining what life might be like without his mother. How he would deal with it, and what would happen to him and Amy. Disrupting his wild fantasies, one of the staff members, another female nurse, came over with a clipboard, handing it over.
“I can see that you’re going through a tough time, but we still need you to fill out what you can at the moment. Is there a father, partner or boyfriend in the picture who we should inform?”
Gary shook his head.
“Ah, I see… For now, please just fill out what you can, but if possible contact some adult to help you and us with the paperwork. I’ll leave you to it and will inform you as soon as we know more.”
After she left, Gary looked at the form, and it was asking details about health insurance and an emergency contact. The high schooler knew that their family couldn’t afford health insurance. With more and more people going out of work, this privilege had been given up. Nowadays it only existed indirectly for Tier-1 and some Tier-2 cities.
‘An emergency contact, an adult. We don’t have anyone helping us. Who could I contact to even help in this type of situation?’ Gary thought, as he gripped the pen so tightly that it snapped, causing the ink to burst all over the form, making him curse.
‘It’s useless anyway, there’s no information I can fill in. How did this happen? I made the Bond Mark so I could protect her, but I still failed! Was it the gang war? It had to be…I saw some of the members as I was walking through.
‘It had to be them! Those damn colour gangs. I’ll find them, I’ll find whoever did this!’ With nothing else to hold onto, Gary was gripping onto the clipboard tightly and it was close to almost snapping.
“Gary!” He heard a familiar voice called out to him. Turning, he saw someone he hadn’t expected but at the same time it made sense for her to be here.
“Amy, you’re here!” Gary said standing up, and once again, tears filled his eyes as he went to hug her. Grabbing hold of her tightly. “I’m so happy that you’re okay, I’m so happy that nothing happened to you.”
A bit embarrassed, Amy pushed her brother away.
“Well I’m not okay, look at my face.” She said, covered in partial bandages, and even her nose was encased in something. “What are you doing here? Did Stacy call you? No, we left our phones with those jerks. I’m so happy to see that you made it out. Are you okay? They didn’t do anything to you, did they?”
It was clear Amy had a lot of questions, and it was the same for Gary as well. For one, he wanted to know who had paid for Amy’s treatment, it was horrible that the thought of money had to always be on his mind, yet at the same time, how was he meant to explain what had happened to their mother. Would telling her make the situation worse, causing her to worry for no reason?
“Sorry, is there a Gary Dem present?” A male doctor called out, coming out from the emergency area. Gary raised his hand, knowing that it must have been news about his mother, but as he came out, the look on the doctor’s face didn’t look promising.
“Gary, I don’t exactly know the best way to say this, but it’s about your mother. Unfortunately, I have some bad news.”