Chapter 1: Don't Burn Me!

Splashing a handful of water onto his face, Eric Carter slowly raised his head and looked at himself in the mirror, appearing somewhat haggard. As an emergency room doctor, this kind of exhaustion seemed to be standard.

"Dr. Carter, there's a new patient coming in soon. It looks like he fell from upstairs—maybe a suicide!" Nurse Grace Parker called out from the doorway of the men's restroom.

"Got it, I'll be right there." Eric Carter replied, then pulled out a tissue to dry the water droplets and started to head out.

The ambulance quickly arrived at the hospital. Lying on the stretcher was an elderly man dressed in a gray Tang suit. The old man was coughing nonstop, occasionally spitting out blood and fragments of internal organs, his whole body covered in blood and filth.

Eric Carter immediately ran over, pushing the stretcher while observing the patient's condition, and shouted to the people ahead, "Prepare the surgical instruments, hurry!"

The patient's condition was very bad.

"I... I... don't want to die."

The old man opened his eyes and looked at Eric Carter, who was the closest person to him.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. We'll help you. You won't die."

Most patients on the brink of death say things like this at such times. Very few can truly face death calmly. As a doctor, this is certainly not the time to analyze the situation and tell the patient their chances of survival. What the patient needs now is psychological comfort.

"No... no... down there... down there... it's really too terrifying down there..."

Suddenly, the old man grabbed Eric Carter's wrist, looking at him with a serious expression.

"Calm down, relax. Your life is not in danger." Although his wrist hurt, Eric Carter didn't try to break free.

"I don't want... don't want to go down again... they... they found me... I... they found me..."

"Hiss..." Eric Carter suddenly felt a sharp pain in his wrist.

"Dr. Carter, your hand!" the young nurse beside him immediately shouted.

The old man's fingernails were very long, and for some unknown reason, they were black—a kind of translucent, amber-like black, not the kind that comes from dirt collecting underneath.

At this moment, the old man's fingernails had already embedded themselves into the flesh of Eric Carter's wrist.

"I won't go down... won't go down... won't go down... haha... cough, cough, cough..."

Suddenly, the old man sat up and coughed violently. Then, his body trembled, the hand that had been gripping Eric Carter fell away, and he became completely still.

"Prepare for resuscitation!" Eric Carter shouted.

The old man was pushed into the emergency room, where doctors and nurses began resuscitation measures, and the defibrillator was readied.

"Dr. Carter, let me treat your wound." Grace Parker came over at this moment.

As doctors, they actually weren't worried about such minor injuries. What they feared most was that the old man might have some other disease, which could put the doctor at risk of occupational exposure. After all, the old man's hands had just been covered in blood, and no one knew if he had any infectious diseases.

Some diseases, once contracted, could ruin a person's life.

After the wound was bandaged, another doctor came out of the emergency room and shook his head at Eric Carter.

This meant the patient couldn't be saved.

Everyone felt a bit down, but for them, this kind of thing was already commonplace, and they would soon adjust.

"Dr. Carter, you should get checked out," Grace Parker suggested.

"No, I have something to do tonight." Eric Carter shook his head, went straight to the locker room to change his clothes, and then walked to the hospital parking lot and drove away.

As soon as the car drove under the Jianghai Avenue overpass, Eric Carter's phone rang.

"Hello, this is Eric Carter."

"Dr. Carter, the kids are all waiting for you."

"Sorry, Principal Bennett, I was delayed by a patient. I'm heading over right now. Please ask the children to wait a little longer for me."

"Alright, alright." The call was quickly ended.

Eric Carter glanced at the time again—it was already 8:30 p.m. The children at the orphanage usually went to bed early.

When the red light turned green, Eric Carter stepped on the gas and drove off.

"Beep!!!!!!!!!!"

At that moment,

A heavy truck ran the red light and sped over. Eric Carter only had time to turn his head and look at the blinding high beams outside the car window.

Then,

"Bang!"

The world spun.

The small car, as fragile as a sheet of paper in front of the heavy truck, was sent flying, rolling several times in the air before crashing to the ground.

……

"Ugh..."

Eric Carter regained consciousness.

He found that his body couldn't move at all, as if he were stuck.

At the same time, he couldn't open his eyes. He knew he'd been in a car accident—a very serious one. Out of professional instinct, he wanted to check his injuries right away, but he couldn't move.

All around, there were the sounds of other vehicles passing by from time to time, and all kinds of honking.