Chapter 3

"I don' t understand. He was stable. We did everything right."

I was staring at the flat line on the monitor, the sound a dull roar in my ears. The team was still, frozen in a state of collective shock. We had brought him back from the brink, only to lose him to something completely unrelated, something impossible to predict.

David Lee shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Aneurysm? There were no signs, no neurological symptoms."

He picked up the phone, calling the morgue to confirm the preliminary findings from the rapid autopsy we had ordered.

"Yeah... that' s what they' re saying," he said into the receiver, his voice hollow. He hung up and looked at the rest of us. "It' s confirmed. Massive, spontaneous cerebral aneurysm."

The air went out of the room. The victory we had felt just minutes ago now tasted like ash. It was a one-in-a-million fluke. A cruel twist of fate.

Or was it?

"It wasn' t a fluke."

Emily' s voice, quiet and somber, cut through the silence. She stepped forward from the corner of the room where she had been watching everything unfold.

"I told you. I told you he was going to die. Some things are just meant to be. Fate doesn' t like to be cheated."

She looked around at the stunned faces of my colleagues, her expression a perfect blend of sorrow and wisdom.

"And the ambulance... I tried to warn you about that, too. I' m just glad no one was hurt in that one."

My skepticism, which had been a simmering ember, burst into a raging fire. This was too neat, too perfect. The patient' s death, the sabotaged brake line on the other ambulance-it was a narrative, a story she was crafting to build her own legend.

I turned on her, my voice low and shaking with anger.

"You. How could you possibly know any of this?"

Her eyes met mine, wide and innocent. "I don' t know how. I just... do. I get these feelings, these images. It' s a burden, Sarah, not a gift. To see these terrible things and not always be able to stop them."

"A burden?" I took a step closer, my fists clenched at my sides. "You seem to be handling your 'burden' just fine. You pointed at a dying man and wrote him off. You made a prediction that almost kept us from saving him."

"But he still died, didn' t he?" she countered softly.

"That' s not the point!" I snapped, my voice rising. "And the ambulance? How did you know about the brakes on Unit 4? Did you 'see' that too?"

"Sarah, that' s enough!"

Ryan' s voice was sharp, a command. He moved to stand slightly in front of Emily, shielding her. My own fiancé.

"She was right," Ryan said, his voice firm. "About the patient and the ambulance. You' re upset, we all are, but you can' t attack her for it. She tried to warn us. Maybe we should start listening."

The betrayal felt like a physical blow. He was choosing her, this manipulative stranger, over me. He was siding with her narrative.

"You can' t be serious, Ryan," I whispered, staring at him.

"I' m perfectly serious," he said, his jaw tight. "You' re letting your emotions get the better of you. You' re not thinking clearly."

The rest of the team shifted uncomfortably, avoiding my eyes. They were confused, scared. And in their fear, they were starting to believe. The story was more compelling than the truth.

Later, I heard the whispers. Emily was spinning her tale to the more impressionable nurses and residents. She told them a fabricated story about a near-death experience she had as a child, a lightning strike that had left her with this "terrible gift." She spoke of visions, of spirits, of a connection to the other side.

It was all nonsense, but it was a story people wanted to believe. It gave a reason to the unpredictable, a pattern to the chaos. She was becoming a legend in our hospital, a dark angel of the ER.

I felt like I was going insane. I was the only one who saw the strings, the careful manipulation behind the curtain.

My chance to prove it was slipping away.

Then, inevitably, the alarms went off again. A fire at a downtown hotel. Multiple casualties, severe burns, smoke inhalation. A nightmare scenario.

As we all rushed to prepare, I saw Emily walk over to Dr. Peterson, who now looked at her with a new, hesitant respect.

She placed a hand on his arm, her face grim.

"Dr. Peterson," she said, her voice filled with a dreadful urgency. "There' s an ambulance on its way, from the Northside station. It' s carrying a family... two small children."

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if in pain.

"Don' t let it come here. If that ambulance reaches this hospital, the power will fail. The entire grid. The ventilators will shut down. Everyone on life support... they' ll all die."

Her voice broke on the last word, a masterful performance of horror and despair.

The entire ER froze. Every single person was looking at her, then at Dr. Peterson, their faces pale with terror.

She had their complete and undivided attention.

And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that this was another move in her game. A bigger, more dangerous one.