Chapter 3: Code Blue
The ambulance was a cacophony of contained chaos. The siren’s wail was a physical thing, vibrating up through the metal floor into Jihyo’s bones. The interior light was a harsh, unforgiving white, bleaching the color from everything except the dark red smear on the towel still clamped around Nayeon’s wrist.
Jihyo held that hand, the one without the wound. It was cold and limp, IV taped to its back. A paramedic, a woman with a severe bun and calm eyes, knelt beside the gurney, her fingers on Nayeon’s other wrist, her gaze locked on the portable monitor. The rhythmic beep was too fast, a frantic bird trapped in a glass cage.
“BP’s holding at 90 over 60. Pulse 120. Let’s get another bag of lactated ringers going,” the paramedic said to her partner, who was already moving, his movements efficient and practiced.
Mina sat on the bench opposite, shivering violently in her soaked clothes. She stared at her sister’s face, her own a monument to shock. “She’s so white,” Mina whispered, the words swallowed by the siren. “Why is she so white?”
“She lost blood, Mina,” Jihyo said, her voice steadier than she felt. The nurse in her was narrating, anchoring them both. “Her body’s compensating. The fluids will help.” She stroked Nayeon’s knuckles with her thumb, a small, repetitive motion as much for herself as for her friend.
Nayeon’s eyelids fluttered.
A jolt, electric and terrible, shot through Jihyo. “Nayeon? Can you hear me? It’s Jihyo. You’re in an ambulance. You’re safe.”
The paramedic leaned closer. “Nayeon? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
There was a weak, almost imperceptible contraction in the fingers the paramedic held. A sound escaped Mina, a choked hybrid of a sob and a laugh.
“Good. That’s good,” the paramedic said, her tone warm but professional. “You’re doing great. We’re almost to the hospital.”
Nayeon’s eyes opened to slits. They were glassy, unfocused, drifting past the paramedic’s face, past the IV bag swaying with the ambulance’s motion, to find Jihyo’s. There was no recognition at first, just a vast, hollow confusion. Then, slowly, a dreadful awareness seeped in. Not of the ambulance, or the paramedics, but of failure. Her lips, chapped and pale, parted.
“...why?” The word was a breath, a rustle of dry leaves.
Jihyo felt her heart crack cleanly down the middle. She leaned in, blocking out the medical equipment, the light, everything but Nayeon’s face. “Because I answer your calls,” she said, forcing a strength into her voice she didn’t have. “That’s the deal.Remember? Eighth grade, when Seungmin stood you up for the movies? You called me crying and I stole my dad’s scooter to get to you. You puked rainbow sherbet on my shoes. The deal is, you call, I come. No matter what.”
A single tear welled in the corner of Nayeon’s eye and tracked a slow path through the hair at her temple. She looked away, out the small window at the streaking, inverted world of streetlights and night. “Tired,” she murmured.
“I know,” Jihyo said.“Just rest. We’ve got you.”
The monitor beeped its frantic, consistent rhythm. The paramedic adjusted the flow of IV fluids. “Respirations are improving,” she noted to her partner.
Mina finally moved, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees. “Hey, bug,” she said, using a childhood nickname.Her voice was ragged. “Mom and Dad are on their way. They’re driving up from Busan. Dad’s probably speeding like a maniac, so you’ve got that to look forward to.”
It was a clumsy attempt at normalcy, at the familiar sibling dynamic of teasing. It hung in the antiseptic air for a moment. Then Nayeon’s eyes closed again, a slight, pained crease forming between her brows. “Sorry,” she breathed, almost inaudibly.
“Don’t,” Mina shot back, the word sharp, then instantly softening into a plea. “Just don’t, okay?No sorries. Not now.”
The ambulance swayed around a corner, and the red and blue lights from their own vehicle pulsed through the tinted windows, washing over their faces in a cyclical, artificial dawn. Jihyo watched the colors slide across Nayeon’s still features: red, then blue, then white, then red again. She remembered the pink water in the tub, how it had looked almost artificial, like a bad special effect. This was no effect. This was the real, ugly machinery of despair, the aftermath playing out on a stretcher.
“What happens when we get there?” Mina asked, looking at Jihyo as if she held a map to this hell.
Jihyo kept her eyes on their linked hands. “They’ll take her straight to a resuscitation room. They’ll do a full assessment, blood work, probably a psych consult. They’ll treat the…” She couldn’t say ‘wound’.“…the injury. Then they’ll move her to a room for observation.”
“Will they… will she have to go somewhere? After?”
“Probably. For a little while. It’s for the best, Mina. She needs to be somewhere safe.”
Mina nodded, swallowing hard, her throat working. She looked down at her own hands, trembling in her lap. “I got her voicemail.The one she left you. I called her back a hundred times. When she didn’t answer, I just… I had a feeling. I drove so fast.” She looked up, her eyes brimming. “I didn’t know what to do in the tub. I just got in. I thought if I could hold her up…”
“You did perfect,” Jihyo said, and meant it. “You got her out of the water.You called for help. That’s everything.”
The ambulance began to slow. The siren chopped off, leaving a ringing silence that felt more deafening than the noise. The change in motion roused Nayeon again. Her gaze found Jihyo’s, clearer now, sharp with a lucid shame that was almost worse than the emptiness.
“Jihyo…”
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
The back doors flew open, revealing the blurred brightness of the emergency bay, the cool night air a shock after the closed, chemical smell of the ambulance. Chaos converged. Voices called out protocols. A gurney was rolled forward. Hands reached in.
As the paramedics transferred Nayeon onto the hospital gurney, her fingers tightened around Jihyo’s, a sudden, desperate grip.
“Don’t let them make me go,” Nayeon whispered, the fear in her voice childlike and stark.
Jihyo had to let go as the hospital staff wheeled her away, the wheels clicking rapidly on the linoleum. She stood for a second in the vortex of the bay, Mina beside her, both of them anchored in the sudden stillness.
“Come on,” Jihyo said, taking a deep breath that smelled of diesel and rain. “We have to follow. We have to tell them about the phone call. About the knife. About everything.”
They walked through the automatic doors, into the fluorescent buzz of the ER, the sound of Nayeon’s gurney already disappearing down a bright, bustling corridor. The waiting room was a tapestry of minor wounds and low-grade misery, but their path cut through it toward the desk, toward the hard conversations that were only just beginning. The pink water was gone, but its stain was on them now, an invisible mark they would carry into the bright, sanitized light of this new, procedural dawn.