"The next ambulance will be here soon, just hang in there."
——
I didn't make it to the next ambulance.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself floating in mid-air.
Cold rain poured down on my neglected body. I tried to reach out and hug myself.
But my arm passed right through it.
I smiled bitterly.
So, I was dead.
Maximo was right. I was a doctor, so I knew exactly what that meant.
At 50 km/h, eighteen consecutive backward movements followed by a violent impact.
Matilda never intended for me to live.
But as the head of internal medicine in Harold City, he could easily determine that I only had superficial injuries with just a glance.
I shouldn't have had any illusions.
When it came to Matilda, everything else became unimportant.
Including my life.
In the distance, the ambulance siren grew closer.
The doctor and nurses jumped out of the ambulance and rushed towards me in the pouring rain. I watched my limp, noodle-like body being lifted into the ambulance.
Amidst the doctor's screams, the constant injections of adrenaline and the fluctuating defibrillator, nothing could prevent the electrocardiogram from flattening out.