Hidden in the Restroom, Avoiding the Trap1 / 3

Chapter 1

An emergency patient was rushed in during the night shift.

Even though I was the attending on duty, I used a stomachache as an excuse to lock myself in the restroom.

I left the sweet-talking rookie resident to handle the critical resuscitation all on her own.

In my past life, I poured every ounce of my strength into saving that very same man.

I pulled him back from the brink of death through pure sheer willpower.

Yet when he woke up, he sued me for breaking four of his ribs during chest compressions.

The hospital suspended me over a petty excuse because I drank a bottle of glucose from storage to keep from fainting.

That sweet, innocent rookie immediately threw me under the bus, claiming I had been stealing and reselling medical equipment for years.

Her false accusations got me fired on the spot.

To make matters worse, the patient's family hunted me down in the hallway and stabbed me to death in cold blood.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night of that fateful shift.

A frantic knock on the door startled me awake.

I glanced up at the wall clock. It was exactly nine in the evening, precisely thirty minutes before that doomed patient would arrive at the ER.

In my previous life, my resident Hannah Young excused herself to use the bathroom right around this time. She begged me to cover the floor while she stepped away.

She stayed locked in the stall for over half an hour, leaving me no choice but to lead the resuscitation myself.

The patient was in full cardiac arrest when he rolled through the double doors. I performed continuous CPR for over thirty minutes until my arms burned and completely gave out.

Against all odds, I dragged his pulse back from the reaper.

Emergency resuscitations take a brutal toll on the body. After the code ended, I collapsed outside the trauma bay, completely hoarse and soaked in sweat.

My blood sugar crashed so hard that my hands trembled uncontrollably.

I paid a few dollars out of my own pocket for a bottle of oral glucose just to stand back up.

When the patient finally regained consciousness, he complained of severe chest pain. The moment he found out four of his ribs were fractured during CPR, he threw a massive tantrum and demanded a massive financial settlement.

In medical disputes, doctors rarely come out unscathed. Most of us are forced to swallow the bitter pill in silence.

The hospital settled with him, docked my paycheck, and turned my bottle of glucose into an ethics violation to strip away my promotion.

Right after the settlement, Hannah stepped forward to deliver the fatal blow.

"Even though Dr. Miller is my mentor, my conscience won't let me protect him," she had announced tearfully.

"He steals department supplies every single day, everything from surgical masks to expensive nebulizers, and resells them for profit."

Her emotional, deceitful voice echoed repeatedly in my mind.

When that furious patient eventually pinned me to the hallway floor and plunged a knife into my chest, Hannah merely stood in the distance, watching coldly as I bled out.

I could never understand what I had ever done to earn such vicious hatred from her.

She had not only framed me in front of the board, but she had also watched me die without lifting a finger.

"Dr. Miller, can I come in?"

Hannah called out from the other side of the door after knocking repeatedly.

I snapped back to reality and cleared my throat.

"Come in."

Knowing exactly what excuse she was about to use, I beat her to the punch.

"Hannah, perfect timing. Keep an eye on the office for me, my stomach is in knots and I need to hit the restroom."

I recited the exact lines she had planned to say. Hannah froze instantly, her face turning pale and rigid.

"What are you standing there for? Take a seat."

I gestured toward the chair behind my desk. Once she sat down like a dazed robot, I grabbed a pack of tissues and slipped into the restroom down the hall.

Sure enough, thirty minutes later, the emergency alarm blared across the unit.

Hannah dialed my phone frantically, and when I refused to answer, she sent a rapid string of texts.

"Dr. Miller, please get to Trauma Bay One immediately! We have a code blue!"

She was a fully licensed doctor who had completed rigorous trauma training and knew how to run a code.

Yet here she was, desperately trying to dump this ticking time bomb into my lap.

There was definitely something sinister at play.

"Hannah, hold the fort," I texted back. "My stomach is killing me and I can't leave the stall right now."

"You're always eager to take the lead during codes. You can handle this one on your own."

With no other choice, Hannah was forced to run the resuscitation by herself.

I stood inside the men's restroom, gazing out the window into the dark city.

Streetlights illuminated the hospital grounds where I had worked for over a decade and where I had died.

For twelve years, I had kept my head down, treated my patients with care, and never made a single enemy.