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[Solidify]

Aiden didn't have time to admire the sight of the grand city ahead, or the people nearby, or even the disgruntled geodude he happened to stagger on. The tremors returned, this time accompanied with a painful tork to his stomach which eventually died away.

Picking up his pace when the tremors in his body didn't let up, Aiden found himself sprinting off down the steep, rocky path and consequently slipping on some loose gravel. With a strangled shout, he lurched forward, his face grinding against the gravel and dirt, and proceeded to violently tumble down the remainer of the path. Desperately, he tried to catch himself with his hands and slow himself down, but his momentum kept him going, and he got an armful of painful scratches and scrapes for his efforts...

[Indigo]

((And Aiden's first steps into Deathgorge are made of laughs and fail. XD))

By the time Aiden crashed at the very bottom, he had attracted the attention of at least five people who had come walking carefully after him. They brought their cameras with them; with the near constant stream of shutter clicks, camera whines, and whirs, the especially quick tourists had probably photographed the actual fall along with the end of it.

Two people who were slightly more concerned with Aiden's well-being jumped into action. "Give him some air!" cried one. The other gave a low, impressed whistle and knelt down. "Did you break anything? You need to go to the hospital?"

[Solidify]

And finally, Aiden's trip ended.

He lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the steep decline and did not move. He hurt. His jeans and previously sewn up shirt were covered in jagged rips and tears and he was matted with dust and dirt. There some in his eyes and it took a moment for Aiden to water them out before he could even see. He was aware of the many scrapes cutting along his knees and arms, along with a particularly deep gash on his elbow. The cuts were bleeding, further staining his clothes and there was dirt and gravel wedged into the wounds. His whole body felt numb. He was laying facedown. Aiden coughed weakly a few times, his breath sending up a spray of dust into the air. He clawed at the ground and cringed. He didn't have time for this! He needed a doctor! The trembling was returning.

Suddenly, Aiden was aware that someone was talking to him. He perked up immediately at the word hospital and tried to weakly push himself up. "Yes," he wheezed, coughing again. "Hospital..."

[Indigo]

The man Aiden spoke to just stared back, completely surprised and afraid. "Oh... Oh, wow."

"...get out of the way, you're messing up my shot!"

"Called it. So called it. Dude falls down at the entrance because nobody puts up a sign."

"Hey, I can have my pokemon port him to the hospital!" An abra was released and quietly held onto Aiden's shoulder. The next thing Aiden knew, the dirt was instantaneously replaced by cool, white tiled floor and the chatter of the bystanders gave way to the startled cries of several new people. Abra had taken the request and had Teleported Aiden right in the middle of a hospital waiting room.

Needless to say, he surprised so many people that the simultaneous shouts of surprise got a "paging any available doctor" over the intercom almost immediately. The wait would not be long; a man in a long white jacket and pants was soon kneeling beside Aiden and eying him critically. "You're getting help right now. What happened to you? Can you speak?" he said urgently, but with the professional calm of one trained well for this kind of situation.

[Solidify]

Aiden clenched his teeth at the incompetence of the people around him. He was thankful when one guy offered to actually teleport him to the hospital.

It took only a few seconds, then Aiden found himself sprawled out across the tiled floor and feeling strangely nauseous. He coughed again as he heard commotion around him once more.

He was still trembling, and this served as a frightfully motivating reason for Aiden to get a doctor as soon as he could. He heard the intercom announcement and slowly pushed himself up onto all fours. Scowling, his mouth felt sticky and warm and he spit subconsciously, sending saliva and blood onto the polished floor. He didn't know if he was bleeding internally, though that seemed a bit extreme, and guessed that he'd merely cut his cheek with his teeth during the fall.

Then, the doctor came. Aiden looked up at him with a grateful and slightly incredulous look on his face. He nodded dully and wiped his bleeding mouth with his sleeve, cringing again as he felt old wounds inflicted on him by Dana and Havoc resurfacing.

He hurt, but he wasn't completely helpless. He clasped the doctor on the shoulder for support, and then shakily staggered up to his feet, his head clearing rapidly.

Suddenly jolted into action by his still shivering body, he snapped quickly and with surprising dynamism, "I need a room." Aiden was aware of the looks he was getting, but he didn't care. He was so close... Still gripping the doctor's shoulder, Aiden looked into his eyes with a sense of untamed urgency and fervor, desperately edging him away from all the people.

((Oh, and the purple guy rules. XD))

[Indigo]

The doctor, whose nametag read "Vern Osborn, M.D.", didn't seem particularly weirded out like all of the people waiting in the lobby, though he did raise an eyebrow in mild disbelief that Aiden even mentioned his need for help. Still, he followed Aiden's lead in moving away from the panicked patients, and then took charge and led Aiden slowly down the hall. "Everything's going to be fine," he assured Aiden, and repeated it to the patients. "We're headed towards a room right now."

Before they got too far past the admittance desk, two nurses intercepted and rolled a gurney down the hall. They came to a halt as they reached Aiden and Dr. Osborn. "Doctor!" one of them called, and both started towards Aiden.

Dr. Osborn helped Aiden to them. "Come on, let the nurses help you on this. We're taking to you E.R. right now. Can you tell me what happened to you?"

[Solidify]

Aiden didn't argue. He staggered forward and fell into the gurney. He was perfectly capable of walking, but who was he to deny these fine folks a chance to wheel him around in a mobile bed?

He did give an involuntary groan of pain as he laid down. His body was really very tender at the moment and even the softness of a bed was enough to agitate it.

"Fell down a hill," he mumbled crossly, coughing again. He quickly shook his head. "That's not important," he breathed. Before he could mention the spiral, he began coughing again and hastily pointed at his chest. "My... chest," he gasped.

[Indigo]

All the while, the nurses were carefully strapping Aiden to the gurney. At the mentioning of Aiden's chest, Dr. Osborn shouted "Go!" when they were through.

The nurses finished and wheeled Aiden into E.R. much faster than it took to walk down the hallway. More nurses were waiting, and Aiden, gurney padding and all, was quickly transferred from to an operating table. "Patient complaining of chest pains and suffering trauma from a fall," the doctor announced to his team. "I need scissors for the shirt,"--which was handed to him the moment he finished the phrase--"and an oxygen mask, stat! Let's go!"

On the word "let's", he had cut up lengthwise through the middle of Aiden's shirt and revealed the red spiral. The black part had inched further along the first coil and made the flesh surrounding it incredibly pale, but not by much. No matter how professional Dr. Osborn was in escorting Aiden into E.R. the sight of that caught him completely off guard. "Get that mask on him," he said to a nurse readying a plastic oxygen mask for Aiden. "Claris, pull Dr. Robins out of the venom ward!"

One of the female nurses ran out of the room while a man readied an oxygen mask to put over Aiden's face.

It was at this point that Aiden would feel extremely nauseated. Whether he would be able to suppress the urge to vomit or not was a matter of willpower.

[Solidify]

Aiden was about to assure Dr. Osborn that he didn't need an oxygen mask when he suddenly felt incredibly nauseus. He felt an incredible urge to vomit, as if something was inside of him that wasn't meant to be there, but he suppresed it and fell back into the gurney, cringing, and let his face be covered by the mask, just relieved that the spiral had been discovered.

((So, plaid shirt not ripped? Just his white one right?))

[Indigo]

((I based my descriptions on your sprite and assumed that the overshirt was a button up one that could be opened. Also, disclaimer: I don't know a thing about the hospital or medical treatment. Google and Wikipedia will only take me so far.))

"Hold up," Dr. Obsorn urged when he saw Aiden nearly vomit, and the application of an oxygen mask stopped immediately. Another doctor, this one a short, heavyset female in her thirties, entered the room with the nurse who had been sent to find her.

"I was on my way already," she explained to Dr. Osborn, took one look at Aiden, and a look a familiarity--then complete resignation--crossed her eyes when she saw the spiral. "Had a case like this just last week. With that paleness and the color changing, that's a mix of pure hastil extract and ekans venom on his chest. Since any kind of hastil extract--forget about one without impurities--is so extremely rare that they don't even teach about it yet, I'm betting the two cases are the same."

"And?" Dr. Osborn pressed. He had quietly given the order for a nurse to examine Aiden's legs as well, which required scissors to cut through his jeans. She duly followed the instructions, unstrapped his legs, and cut through each pant leg.

Just for a moment, Dr. Robins looked incredibly weary and said nothing. "All you can do is treat the injuries he sustained from his fall. He's not about to enter cardiac arrest--he's poisoned. It's at an early stage at least, but I need to be to one that briefs him later."

Though Aiden was bruised in multiple places and had numerous minor wounds, the most severe was the dusty gash near his elbow, heavy bruising over his ribs and shoulder, and how his ring and pinky finger on his left hand were an unhealthy shade of purple. It was the gash on the elbow that got attention first since it was still bleeding badly.

While supplies were being gathered, Dr. Osborn held two fingers above Aiden's face. "I need you to follow my fingers with your eyes," he told Aiden and proceeded to move them right and left.

[Solidify]

Aiden did not object to having his pants or shirt cut open. Anything they could do to help save him...

The apparent poison expert in the room finally diagnosed him. Hastil extract and ekans venom? On his chest? Aiden held his breath as she continued, then swallowed hard. It didn't sound good, but it didn't sound completely untreatable either. He felt hazy and weak, but he was still very much conscious and followed the fingers with his eyes lazily.

Suddenly, he started. "What... what happened to the other patient?" he gasped, looking urgently over at Dr. Robins.

((Same here. Wikipedia = the extent of my medical training.))

[Indigo]

While a nurse pressed her fingers against Aiden's neck and took his pulse, sterile dressing was pressed down onto the gash to control the bleeding.

"First, you need to tell me how and where you got that spiral," Dr. Robins told Aiden over the low conversations between the nurses and the doctor. "After you're treated here, I'll come to your room and we'll discuss the matter in full there. I'll tell you everything I know."

"We're going to sedate you now, so you're going to feel really calm and sleepy for a while," Dr. Osborn said to Aiden. "Don't worry, you'll be conscious, but you probably won't remember very much after it kicks in."

An IV stand was wheeled to Aiden's relatively unhurt arm (with the two injured fingers and not the gash and bruised shoulder). The nurse responsible wrapped a blue strap around Aiden's arm, dabbed a soon prominent vein with a moist cotton ball, and then inserted a small catheter into Aiden's arm as gently as she could.

The drugs took effect by the time the nurse got the catheter held in place. Whether he wanted to or not, Aiden would feel a great deal calmer and relaxed then he had been. Another notable change was that his short term memory saw a decline; sometimes Aiden would catch a phrase or an order from Dr. Osborn, but mostly everything else was spoken once and promptly forgotten. Occasionally things blurred and echoed.

[Solidify]

When Dr. Robins didn't immediately assure Aiden that the other patient had made a full recovery, he began to panic a little. He didn't have time to say much else because in another instant, he was sedated and laying helplessly on the gurney.

He didn't mind. In fact, it felt good to just lay there, unthinking and tranquil. For a brief moment, Aiden was free from everything that was happening around him, and he was able to wallow in his own blissful and distant thoughts in peace.

[Indigo]

((And from that day forth, Aiden battled a nasty narcotics addiction.))

When Aiden came around again he was in a bed, fitted in a cyan, open-backed hospital gown, and in no pain at all. Most of Aiden's awareness had been restored to him, though he would be groggy still and the most noticeable things were those in the immediate area. There was an IV stand and an attached pouch near his bed. The clear contents of the pouch flowed into his arm by means of another secured catheter.

[Solidify]

Aiden opened his eyes slowly, taking in the light first, then his surroundings. He felt groggy and exhausted, but that was to be expected. Squinting against the bright light above him, he slowly looked around to get a better grip on things, his clarity returning rapidly.