And it all started with this meet & greet - Ondreaz Lopez

Chapter 10: "Great job, guys."

The two men from the emergency services swarmed around while the car with flashing lights and sirens was on its way to the nearest hospital.

"What's your name?" one of the paramedics asked and looked at me. "Sophia Tayler"

The guy nodded and tapped Soph's cheek slightly. "Sophia"he asked. "Sophia, can you hear me?"

No reaction.

I really wondered what she had done to herself to get hurt so badly. Ondreaz had said something about a dummy, but what exactly was it supposed to do against her He wasn't alive.

While the paramedics worked on Sophia's body, I sat in the corner of the car and tried to put my thoughts in order. When the day had started this morning, it didn't occur to me that my evening would go like this.

It didn't take long before the car came to a halt again and the doors were ripped open. The men pushed the stretcher, together with Soph, out of the opening and rolled it to the entrance.

Hectic and a bit aimless I ran after them and followed the doctors and nurses who pushed them into a room. "Please wait outside," one of them said and I nodded. Sighing I let myself fall on a chair and leaned my head against the wall.

"'How is she?', a voice, that belonged to Amy asked and I opened my eyes. However, I did not know that myself and so I just shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. I'm just sitting here too," I looked at the clock. "...for seven minutes. It could be a while.

---

It did take. We sat there for over an hour and it was just a terrible feeling not knowing what was going on. "Mr Lopez?" asked a man whose head was sticking out of a door. "Yes?", I asked and stood up.

"You can see Miss Taylor now. She's not awake yet, but she's finished with her first aid," he said and I nodded. "If she's not awake yet, can we all go in?" I asked and he put on a thoughtful look. "I think that's all right," he said then and his head disappeared again.

So the nine of us went into the room and saw Mel lying unconscious in bed. "So I can tell you all the diagnosis. Maybe then you can help me understand how the injuries happened," he said and pulled a clipboard out of the drawer of the nightstand.

"Okay,well... Here's what we've found: Contusions on the right shoulder, two fingers of the left hand and three of the right. "Her left wrist is sprained, but there's no fracture.

The wounds on her hand, the lacerations were very severe on the right side, we had to stitch them up. Her two shins show many haematomas, but no injuries to the bones. There was also a laceration on her head which we sewed up and she had an increased adrenaline level," the doctor counted up and looked at us.

"It was very clever to cool and stabilize the injuries, which helped her a lot and saved her a lot of pain afterwards.

Such a long unconsciousness is really not normal, but our examinations and also the EEG did not show any damage to the brain or similar. We assume that it was a really unfavourable mixture of overexertion and low blood pressure, i.e. a circulatory collapse, and fainting due to pain, as well as lack of oxygen, as I was informed that she was found in a basement room, correct?".

Nod.

"She woke up briefly during care, which is very good. "But we gave her strong painkillers and medication to help her fall back asleep.

The injuries all over her body would clearly indicate violence. "So I have to ask you if there has been any physical violence."

We looked at each other in shock. "Of course not," Ondreaz was the first to say, sounding quite outraged. Defending himself, the doctor - Dr Bennit - raised his arms. "We just can't rule that out. Besides, it would take us a long way, as we have no idea where these injuries might come from.

We also rule out a brawl, because she doesn't have enough bruises in other places for that, like fingerprints on her upper arm, which are the result of a scuffle. So she must have done it to herself."

Those words were like a slap in the face. Done it to herself? I didn't think that was possible, but then how did these injuries happen?

"You had said something about a practice dummy, hadn't you?" Amy asked, now dressed in the Ondreaz. This one nodded. "She does kickboxing. For over fifteen years now. I think she has been training and overexerted herself," she said quietly.

Dr Bennit raised a finger. "Yes, that may well be. The injuries to her hands and legs were caused by the beating and kicking. Those on the shoulder and head from the fall after she lost consciousness and fell to the ground. Yes, that makes sense."

I was reassured that no one else had done this, but on the other hand I was shocked that she had been able to summon up such extreme strength to put herself out of action.

"This helps us a lot. However... In a normal state it is rather unusual to be able to muster such a force. We did an alcohol test, but it was negative. We didn't do a drug test. Do you know anything about that? Something like that? If no, it must have been the adrenaline.

Amy shook her head violently. "No, she never touched drugs, but she was very angry," she said and ducked a little, since she had been the cause of that anger.

Dr Bennit wrote something down on the clipboard. "All right, thank you very much. She won't wake up for several hours. I think we can release her after a short examination, then she needs to rest. If such a fainting should occur again, then she must go to the doctor immediately, but I will tell her again tomorrow. And you should go now. It's almost 2:00."

With these words, he left the room and left us alone. "She must have been quite angry then," Tayler said and took a closer look at Soph. "That looked pretty intense," Chase added.

Crying, Amy ran out of the room. "Well done, boys," Nick said and went after her. We looked at each other confused. "I'm going to stay there," I said. "You just rest there and come back if you want to." The others nodded.

"Okay, I'll stay too," said Ondreaz and looked at me pleading. "Sure, then I won't be so alone," I smiled and the other two disappeared from the room. Sighing, we sat down on the slightly wider windowsill and talked a bit. But at some point our eyes became heavy and we fell asleep.