"Fuck! FUCK! FUCK!" I scream as blood sprays across the pristine marble countertop. My severed finger lies there like some grotesque garnish amid the scattered carrots while crimson pumps rhythmically from the stump where it used to be attached.
The pain hasn't even registered yet, just pure shock as I watch my own blood splatter across the kitchen in pulsing jets. It's surreal like I'm watching someone else's disaster unfold.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god," I babble, grabbing a kitchen towel and wrapping it around my hand. It soaks through almost immediately, the white fabric turning a sickening crimson. The blood is everywhere, on the vegetables, on the counter, on the floor.
I stumble backward. My heart hammers against my ribs as I stare at the severed digit lying amid the ruined meal preparation.
"Morgan's going to be so fucking mad," I whisper, watching in horror as blood seeps into everything.
My phone. I need my phone. But my hands are slick with blood, and when I try to grab it, it slips from my grasp and clatters to the floor, screen shattering on impact.
"No, no, no, no," I'm hyperventilating now, the kitchen spinning around me as blood continues to pump from my mutilated hand. "She just bought me this phone."
The enormity of the situation finally hits me. I've lost a finger. An actual fucking finger. And I'm standing here worrying about Morgan's reaction to blood on her countertops and broken phones.
I need to get to a hospital. But Morgan's house is isolated, a good twenty minutes from the nearest emergency room, and I don't have a car. I don't even have an Uber app set up on my new, now broken, phone.
A wave of dizziness washes over me, and I sink to the floor, leaving a smeared trail of blood down the cabinet as I slide. The kitchen towel is completely soaked through now, blood dripping steadily onto the tile.
"Oh my god, am I going to die?" The words escape my lips in a ragged gasp as I struggle to pull air into my lungs. My chest feels impossibly tight, like someone's sitting on it, and black spots dance at the edges of my vision. The severed finger stares back at me from the countertop, a surreal sight that my brain still can't fully process.
I can't die here. Not like this. Not in Morgan's kitchen with my blood pooling on her expensive tile floor.
The kitchen spins around me as my breathing becomes more erratic, each shallow gasp doing little to fill my lungs. Time stretches and warps. It could be minutes or hours that I sit here, clutching my mutilated hand to my chest, blood soaking through my shirt.
I need to find a way to call 911, but she doesn't have a home phone, and mine's busted.
The distant sound of a door opening barely registers through my panic.
"Oh hey, I forgot my…" Morgan's voice cuts off abruptly. "Adam? ADAM!"
Her heels click rapidly across the floor as she rushes toward me, dropping to her knees beside me without any regard for her expensive pantsuit. Her face, usually so composed, is contorted with horror and concern.
"Jesus Christ, Adam! What happened?" Her hands hover over me, uncertain where to touch as her eyes dart between my bloodied form and the carnage on her counter.
"I think I'm going to pass out," I mumble, my voice sounding distant and strange to my own ears.
"No, Adam, stay with me." Morgan grabs my face between her hands, forcing me to look at her. Her green eyes are wild with panic. "Jesus, what happened?"
"Cut my finger off... accident..." I manage to say, nodding weakly toward the counter where the severed digit lies.
Morgan follows my gaze, her face paling when she spots it. "Oh my god." She swallows hard, then seems to steel herself. "Listen it's going to be okay. You're going to be fine."
She springs into action, grabbing a new dish towel and wrapping it tightly around my hand, creating a makeshift tourniquet. "Keep this elevated," she commands, placing my arm across my chest. Then she's up, grabbing a bowl of ice.
"We need to preserve the finger," she explains, her voice steadier now as she carefully places my severed digit in the ice. "Can you stand? We need to get you to a hospital right now."
"I think I can," I reply, my voice steadier than I expected. With Morgan's help, I grip the edge of the counter and pull myself upright, surprised at how easily I rise to my feet.
"Oh," I say, blinking in confusion as I stand completely steady. The dizziness that had overwhelmed me moments ago seems to have vanished. I look down at my blood-soaked clothes, then at the crimson pools on the floor. "That's... a lot of blood."
But despite the horror movie scene surrounding us, I suddenly feel mostly fine? My breathing has normalized, and while my hand throbs with pain, it's not the unbearable agony I'd expect from losing a digit.
"Was I overreacting?" I ask, staring at my wrapped hand in bewilderment.
Morgan shakes her head firmly, her eyes still wide with concern. "No, you were just in shock. It's a completely normal response to trauma." She takes my good arm, guiding me toward the door. "The human body produces adrenaline when injured. You might feel okay right now, but we still need to get you to a hospital immediately."
Her Mercedes chirps as she unlocks it remotely, opening the passenger door for me. "Get in. And keep that hand elevated above your heart."
I slide into the leather seat, careful not to touch anything with my bloody hand. Morgan places the ice-packed finger in my lap before rushing around to the driver's side.
"Hold on," she says, peeling out of the driveway with a squeal of tires. Her knuckles are white against the steering wheel as she speeds down the winding road leading away from her mansion.
"I'm really sorry about the kitchen," I say, the words sounding ridiculous even to my own ears. "There's blood everywhere."
Morgan shoots me an incredulous look. "Are you serious right now? I don't care about the fucking kitchen, Adam."
"But your floors…"
"Can be cleaned," she interrupts sharply. "You, on the other hand..." Her voice catches, and I'm startled to see tears glistening in her eyes. "Just... please shut up about the kitchen."
We drive in tense silence for several minutes, Morgan taking corners at alarming speeds. The adrenaline that's keeping me calm seems to be wearing off, pain beginning to radiate from my injured hand in earnest.
"How bad is it?" I finally ask, nodding toward my wrapped hand.
Morgan's jaw tightens as she accelerates through a yellow light. "Bad enough. But finger reattachments have a high success rate if we get there quickly." She glances at me, her expression softening slightly. "You're going to be okay, Adam. I promise."
The emergency room doors slide open with a mechanical whoosh as Morgan practically carries me through, her arm wrapped securely around my waist. The sterile smell of disinfectant hits me immediately, mixing with the metallic scent of my own blood that's soaked into my clothes.
"Help! We need help!" Morgan shouts, her voice echoing through the waiting area. Several people look up from their magazines, their faces shifting from mild curiosity to horror as they take in my blood-soaked appearance.
A triage nurse appears within seconds, wheeling a gurney toward us. "What happened?" she asks briskly, helping me onto the stretcher.
"Severed finger," Morgan says, holding up the ice-packed towel. "Kitchen accident. It happened maybe twenty minutes ago."
The nurse takes the makeshift ice pack from Morgan, examining it quickly. "Good thinking with the ice." She begins pushing the gurney toward the treatment area. "Are you family?"
"I'm..." Morgan hesitates for just a moment. "I'm his girlfriend."
The lie rolls off her tongue so smoothly that even I almost believe it. The nurse nods, waving Morgan along as we disappear behind the double doors marked 'Authorized Personnel Only.'
"Wait!" I suddenly blurt out as the nurse wheels me through the sterile corridor. "The oven! Morgan, I think I left the oven on when I was prepping the roast!"
Morgan's face transforms instantly, her concerned expression giving way to something that looks almost like panic. Her eyes widen and she grips my good hand tighter.
"The... oven?" she repeats, voice strained. She glances nervously at the nurse, then back at me. "Are you sure?"
"I'm pretty sure I turned it on to preheat before I started chopping," I say, my mind racing despite the pain. "Four-fifty for the roast. It could be a fire hazard."
Morgan bites her lower lip, looking genuinely anxious. "I... I'll call someone to check," she says quickly, pulling out her phone. Her fingers tremble slightly as she scrolls through her contacts.
The nurse shoots us a sympathetic look. "We need to get him into surgery right away if we want to save that finger," she says to Morgan.
Morgan nods distractedly, the phone pressed to her ear. "No answer," she mutters, ending the call. She looks torn.
"Go," I tell her, surprised by her intense reaction to something as mundane as an oven. "The house is more important than…"
"Don't be ridiculous," she snaps, though there's a tremor in her voice. "Nothing is more important than you right now."
The nurse pushes through another set of doors, leading us into a treatment area where a team in scrubs waits. Morgan follows, still clutching her phone, her knuckles white with tension.
One of the nurses approaches Morgan, her expression serious as she examines the severed finger in its ice pack. "The surgeon is prepping now. We need to move quickly."
"How long will the surgery take?" Morgan asks, her eyes darting between the nurse and her phone.
"Ma'am, we have to put him under ASAP to get that finger back on him," the nurse explains firmly, already motioning for the anesthesiologist. "The sooner we reattach, the better his chances of regaining function."
I look at Morgan, seeing the conflict in her eyes. "See, it's no problem," I tell her, my voice steadier than I feel. "Just go and come back real quick. Check the house, then come back."
She hesitates, biting her lip as she glances at the double doors.
Morgan looks at me and finally sighs and nods. "I'll be right back, okay?" She squeezes my good hand, her green eyes searching mine. "Don't you dare die while I'm gone."
I smile weakly. "I promise I won't."
She leans down and presses a quick kiss to my forehead. "Thirty five minutes tops. I'll be back before you're even prepped for surgery."
I watch her hurry away, her red hair swinging as she disappears through the double doors. The medical team swarms around me, attaching monitors and prepping my mangled hand.
"Your girlfriend seems nice," the nurse comments as she cuts away my blood-soaked sleeve. "Very concerned about you."
"She's not actually…" I start to correct her, then stop. What's the point? "Yeah, she is."
A different nurse approaches with a clipboard as the first one sets me up on an IV. "I need to get some information for your chart. Full name?"
"Adam Avery."
The nurse types my name into the computer, then her eyebrows lift slightly.
"Oh, you're already in our system. Excellent." She turns the screen toward me, showing a form filled with my personal information. "Is all this info right?"
I hardly look at it, my mind still fixated on my severed finger lying in ice nearby. The throbbing pain radiates up my arm despite whatever painkillers they've started pumping into me.
"Yeah, that's right," I mumble, wincing as another nurse gently unwraps my bloody makeshift bandage.
"Great. And your emergency contact is still..." she squints at the screen, "Lana Blake?"
My head snaps up at that. "What? No, She's not…"
But the nurse has already moved on, scribbling something on my chart. "I'll go contact her since you're alone. We're prepping an OR now."
I try to speak again, but the anesthesiologist approaches, adjusting something in my IV line. A pleasant warmth begins spreading through my veins, making my thoughts fuzzy around the edges.
"Wait," I slur, struggling to keep my eyes open. "Don't call…"
My words dissolve into unintelligible mumbling as the medication pulls me under. Through my rapidly narrowing vision, I see another nurse glance up from her computer terminal.
"Huh?" she says, furrowing her brow as she notices my sudden descent into unconsciousness. "Did he just say something about not calling someone?"
The first nurse shrugs. "Probably the anesthesia talking. They all get weird right before they go under."
"At least this one didn't cum all over my leg like the guy last week."
The ceiling lights blur into streaks of white as my eyelids grow impossibly heavy. I try once more to form words, to tell them not to call Lana, but my mouth refuses to cooperate. The last thing I register is the second nurse's puzzled expression hovering over me before darkness claims me completely.
A/N: Alright this is really it this time. I'm on vacation now fr.