Who: Cora Hale What: Passing out and being taken to the ER When: 11 December 2014 Where: UC Irvine outside of Ten’s classroom to an ambulance to be taken to the hospital Warnings: Lots of health issues. Status: Narrative | Complete
Okay, so maybe there was something more going on with her than just stress. Cora could admit that. Really. Or no, she couldn’t. She’d been feeling like crap for weeks now, and it wasn’t getting any better. It had started while Lydia was in the hospital but while it had been slowly progressing with every passing day, now Cora literally felt like a dead girl walking. The fact that the past few days had involved waking up with a bleeding head wound that randomly would start bleeding didn’t help, but the fact she kept waking up that night with a pit in her stomach and her heart pounding erratically was enough to make her consider that maybe, just maybe, this was more than stress.
Even so, she couldn’t exactly miss class. It was getting too close to the end of the quarter, which meant all the major projects were due, preparing for finals and just a bunch of things she couldn’t miss. She just didn’t have the energy to really mask that she felt like crap anymore. The day before she had noticed Hans’ pointed looks from the worsening cough and then the look she got when her head started bleeding again, which meant that she actually decided to send him a text about canceling their run. She could take a hint.
That done, the twenty year old got herself some tea and a piece of toast before getting ready to go to campus. It was the only thing she could even stomach at the moment. It still tasted like ash in her mouth, but it was at least something. Barely something, but something. God she was freezing. The continuous snow storm really didn’t help that fact, but it was a coldness that seemed to seep into her bones and blood, as if it were congealing it. She just had to get through the day and then she could try to get more rest than usual this weekend. Even if Hans’ reply text seemed to be demanding she go to the hospital, but who had time for that?
Her limbs felt heavy and in pain but like with everything else, Cora just pushed past it. She didn’t have the luxury to rest yet. She had papers to turn in today. So it was into jeans, a sweater over a long sleeved shirt and her back and Cora was out the door. Focus. She just had to focus and she’d be fine. She knew that Lydia was also worried since she was the one who saw Cora continually, but they both had school and Cora knew that Lydia had her dreams to deal with on top of it all. She tried to help, but given their paths hadn’t crossed in Lydia’s dreams, it meant Cora had literally no idea what was going on in them.
It probably was a miracle that Cora made it to the campus, it wasn’t like she really had much memory of doing so. It was all autopilot. By the time she was waiting for French Nations, Cora had curled up on one of the benches in the hallway, trying to conserve what little body heat that she had. Two more classes. She just had two more classes to get through and then she could go home and burrow in her room. That was the goal. That was the light at the end of the tunnel that was this day. And if she didn’t feel better tomorrow, she’d go to urgent care or whatever and see if they could figure out what was wrong as the last time she’d gone to the doctor when it had started had revealed no results beyond the assessment that she was just stressed and running herself into the ground with school, which had been her personal assessment.
A coughing attack was the first warning that something was wrong. Coughing in and of itself was not a new thing lately, but this one felt different. It felt like she was breaking her ribs from the cough, her chest hurt and felt compressed and there was the definite feeling of blood or...black gunk? What the hell. Dead blood probably. That made sense from coughing too hard? Okay so the blood wasn’t new either in the past week, but again, cough hard enough and it could happen. Still, the previous class was leaving and once the coughing had subsided (with worried looks from students around her which she ignored), Cora stood up and took a step before everything became increasingly fuzzy. Her heart was doing the rapid erratic beating again and suddenly she was on the ground.
Unconscious, Cora was unaware of anything that was going on around her. Voices blurred into a low buzz in her passed out state, the arrival of EMTs from whomever had called for help unnoticed or the sensation of being lifted onto a gurney, strapped in and wheeled to an ambulance. All there was was darkness.