Chapter 6 - The Strange Patient

Halia quickly took a photo of the roster so she could ask the head nurse about it later.

Just as she put her phone away, the door opened and a man stood in the doorway. It was the same man from earlier; the one that she ran into.

"Hi, Dr. Yan, right?" Halia smiled, trying to act casual.

The man looked at her curiously and nodded his head.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked.

"Oh, sorry, I was looking for the linen room and stumbled into here. I was just about to leave."

The doctor looked at her with doubt, but he moved aside to let her out.

"You're new here, aren't you? I don't think I've seen you before."

"Yes, Dr. Yan, my name's Halia. I'm a new ER nurse."

"You can call me, Isaac. If you're lost again or need some help, you can always ask me," the man offered.

Halia quickly nodded her head and stepped out of the room.

"The linen room's next door," Isaac pointed.

Halia looked at the direction he was pointing and pretended like she had no idea the linen room was there. "Oh, thank you," she said with a smile before she turned and scurried away.

Isaac watched Halia walk into the linen room before he smirked and closed the door to the on-call room.

As soon as she stepped into the linen room, Halia pulled out her phone to check that her photo was clear. Fortunately, she had captured everything she needed. "Isaac Yan," she muttered as she checked for the name of the young doctor she just met.

"He didn't work yesterday...I guess he's one of the suspects then."

Halia noted this finding on her phone. She then grabbed some linen and left the room. When she got back to the bed, the sheets had been all removed and Alex had just returned from the laundry room.

"Good job," she praised. "Now help me put these fresh sheets on."

The young nurse nodded his head and quickly got to work. Halia grabbed a pillow to change the pillowcase as she watched the student nurse fold the corners of the bedsheets meticulously. After putting down the pillow, she quickly folded the last corner in the same way she had observed, pretending that she knew how to do it all along.

"So, you're a student nurse, huh?" Halia began to chat with the young man, hoping she could get some information from him.

Alex nodded. He didn't seem like much of a talker. Probably not the best person to get information from.

"How old are you? I'm 26," Halia said with a smile, trying her best to alleviate the awkwardness.

"I'm 24, I'm graduating from Peking University this year."

"That's great, are you planning to work here after you graduate?"

"Maybe."

"Why maybe? Are the other nurses and doctors not good to work with?" Halia slowly led the conversation to where she wanted it to go. "You can be honest with me, is there anyone I should be extra careful around?"

At that moment, a voice snapped behind her, "Move! Patient incoming!"

Halia quickly jumped aside as two paramedics carried a young child straight onto the bed she had just finished making.

It was a little girl with a broken foot from a car accident. The doctors wanted to double-check that her head was OK, so they brought her into the emergency ward.

A middle-aged woman hurried over and began to test the young girl's coordination and reactions. She also asked her a few simple questions, to which she all answered concisely. The middle-aged woman smiled and turned to Halia who was still standing to the side in a daze, "Call the radiographer and ask him to take an x-ray of this young girl's right foot and also run a CAT scan on her head."

Halia nodded and quickly waved at Alex, "Where do I find the radiographer?"

"Follow me."

Halia followed Alex over to a phone. On the wall was a list of numbers. "This is the radiographer's number," he said as he pointed to an internal phone number on the wall.

Halia nodded in understanding and quickly dialed the number. A radiology nurse picked up the phone, asked a few questions and recorded the details. "We have an empty slot in one hour. We will send someone to get her when it's time."

After Halia was done with the phone call, she felt quite proud of herself. She actually changed a bed and made a phone call today. Not bad for someone that was completely out of her element.

At that moment, a voice suddenly called out, "Hey nurse, I want some water!"

Halia looked towards the direction of the voice and noticed a patient glaring at her impatiently. His head was wrapped in a bandage and the name, 'Jackson Wu' was written on a whiteboard at the foot of his bed.

The weird thing was, he had 3 friends around him and the water dispenser was literally a few steps away from them. Why didn't his friends get it for him?

But, Halia did as requested anyway. After all, it could make her look busy for a little while and no one would ask her to do something that she wasn't actually qualified to do.

After filling up a cup of water, Halia walked towards the patient in the bed. That was when she started to sense that something wasn't quite right; the man's friends were all looking at her with perverted smiles. So, she tried to get away as soon as she put down the cup on the bedside drawer. But...the three friends quickly stood in her way.