She was drowning.

Her cuts were stinging, almost as though someone had poured a whole bottle of disinfectant on her wounds or like a million bees and wasps stabbing their deadly stingers into her skin a hundred in a row. Her head was pounding as though she was hit by a sledgehammer.

Her abdomen also felt weird, she could feel a cold hard object inside her body which was disturbing her organs. She could feel warm, sticky fluid flowing out of her body in a steady stream, wrapping around her like a cloak. The stench of iron filled her lungs and her brain identified it as blood. She was bleeding heavily, possibly bleeding to death. She could not see anything nor feel anything. She was numb, a bruised and battered doll sinking below the ocean.

She was sinking lower and lower, her soul slipping further and further into darkness...

She landed on a bed with a thump. Marie let out a soft groan.

Her body was aching and sore as though she was hit by a cement truck. Her eyelids were like lead and she struggled to open them. She winced when bright light pierced her blurry sight, blinding her. She could hear the soft blinking and whirring sounds of the life-support machines in the room. Was she in an ICU? Marie blinked a few times, slowly, to let her eyes adjust to the brightness. She could feel a slightly scratchy material covering her head, arms and abdomen.

Gauze?

She quickly looked down and her mouth dropped open, her breath creating a fog on the breathing mask. She does not have gauze on her, she was completely wrapped up in gauze. The only parts not covered in gauze was her face and neck.

Why was she wrapped in gauze? Did she got into a car cras-oh. Her thoughts came to a stop as images and bursts of flashbacks were let loose. She closed her eyes and slowly watched as her memories played themselves to her behind her eyelids.

She remembered everything now. She was on her way to the hospital due to an emergency call from her assistant. She remembered having to turn at a corner and she also remembered slamming her shoe on the brake pedal. But the brakes jammed and stopped functioning. Her car had went full speed towards a large tree where it crashed.

She remembered seeing the whole front of the car getting crushed and the distinct feeling of her stethoscope stabbing itself into her stomach. She remembered how her body was thrown about despite wearing a seat belt. She was bruised and cut everywhere due to the impact of the collision.

Marie's eyes snapped open, her chest rapidly going up and down as her breaths became shallow. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her panic was rocketing higher and higher. She could hear the heart rate monitor letting out warning beeps due to the sudden increase in heart rate.

She let out a gasp one more time when she noticed a huge lump at the side of her bed from the corner of her eyes. She craned her neck to get a better glimpse of the human-shaped lump despite the stinging protests of her sore muscles.

Her eyes widened when she realized that the huge lump was indeed a human! The lump had shiny, tousled black hair. Definitely human. To her utter surprise, the said human was also holding her hand! The human's hand was large and she could see the muscles bulging out of the skin.

A man? She wondered.

She could hear the imaginary sound of whirring in her brain as her brain connected the dots of this suspicious human. So the lump had black hair and large hands... Obviously a man.

But...

Marie felt a strong sense of dread creeping up on her. This man, where is he from? The clothes he was wearing underneath the transparent flimsy ICU visitor's gown was definitely not something she had ever seen the Castacian men of her country wear. Never had she seen such clothing before. The cream military uniform looked rumpled and had bloody patches on some parts - as if he had struggled to save someone dying. As if he was trying to pull someone out from a wreckage. As if he was trying to save her.

Oh crap. What if the man was from Acaris, the enemy country? Had she accidentally entered enemy grounds on her way to the hospital? Her questions raced in her mind, piling on top of the other and jumbling up her thoughts. She could hear her heart rate monitor letting out more warning beeps as her heart rate increased by a tenfold. She wanted to mute the monitor's annoying screeching noise - now she knew why some of her patients would screech angrily st the sound of the heart monitor's beeping- but her body felt like it was laden with weights and she could not even lift a finger.

Just as the monitor's warning beeps were bordering to a crazy level of loudness, the man woke up. Marie jumped at the sudden movement and hurriedly snatched her hand away from the man. The man looked up and his face showed relief to see her awake.

Marie was about to open her mouth and demand where he was from but all words died on her tongue when she saw his face. Hr looked exhausted but boy, he was handsome. He did not look like the typical handsome models in magazines and billboards but to her, he was handsome. Beautiful even. His face was the perfect blend of chiseled jaw yet still have the soft features. His arms were bulky with muscles but still remained lean-looking. His eyes were almond-shaped and his irises were an alluring colour of chestnut brown. His lips had a faint cupid's bow yet full and very pink. She was tempted to kiss him. Snap out of it Marie! You don't even know where he's from!

He rubbed his eyes ringed in dark eye bags and was about to ask her if she was okay until he heard a loud wailing sound and saw her frantically beeping heart monitor. His eyes widened and he hurriedly slammed his palm down on the red button fixated to the wall near the bed.

Within a few minutes, another man who looked to be the doctor and his assistants and a group of nurses rushed in. They shoved the man aside and quickly checked Marie. They checked for the dilation of her pupils, her rotor movements and for any visible bleeding or swelling from her bandaged head. To their utter horror, she could not move any of her fingers or lift her arm or lift her leg. Only her head could move and even then, it was done with difficulty.

The doctor's eyes shone with panic before he masked it away and he quickly checked her other movements but to no avail. Marie was paralyzed from the neck down. Or temporarily paralyzed as the doctor told her he hoped it would be. The doctor barked out orders at his assistant who hurriedly jotted down notes on his clipboard to give Marie a list of drugs to keep her calm and to constantly check her rotor movements.

Marie felt her heart cracking into two and her dreams shatter into a billion pieces. Her once colourful life became devoid of colour and turned into a washed out painting of black and white, the pencil lines rubbed away and the characters in the painting turned to ash.

If she becomes permanently paralyzed, her whole career as a doctor and her life as a Healer was over. As a doctor, her hands and legs was her life. Her hands saved people's lives and her legs take her to people who hangs between life and death. Without them, being a doctor was impossible. Without them, her life as a Healer was gone, her future completely shattered.

Marie could not utter a single word as a traitorous tear escape its confines and rolled down her cheek.