Igor Viktorovich Mednikov leaned back in the worn seat of the old Gazelle ambulance, his eyes closed in exhaustion. It had been a long shift, and the weight of the night was starting to drag him down. “Stepanych, if I go another shift without a day off, I’ll marry the first woman I meet, just so she’ll feed me borscht,” he said with a dry laugh, though it was more of a tired murmur than anything else.
Stepan Anatolyevich Kuznetsov, the paramedic beside him, snorted and continued checking the ampoules in the first-aid kit. “Getting married isn’t difficult, Viktorych. It’s getting divorced that’s the hard part,” he quipped, his voice laced with his usual sarcasm.
Pavel, the driver, barely acknowledged the conversation, his eyes glued to the road as the city lights flashed by. He had heard this all before—the endless banter of men worn out by their jobs. To him, it was all just part of the night shift routine.
Igor, however, didn’t find the exchange comforting. His smile was strained, an empty gesture that revealed more bitterness than amusement. He was tired, not just physically, but emotionally as well. The weight of the past few years had become unbearable. Once a promising surgeon, Igor had left behind the sterile halls of the operating room after a single moment of failure. A tremor in his hand during an operation had cost him his career. His colleagues had saved the day, but he couldn’t forgive himself. He left surgery behind and found himself in the chaotic world of emergency medicine, where decisions were often made in split seconds and lives were saved with bandages and injections instead of scalpels.
“Another night, another emergency,” Igor muttered under his breath, though there was little energy left to care.
As the Gazelle rumbled down the streets, they arrived at their next stop: a decaying two-story house in a neglected courtyard. The place looked as though it had been forgotten by time itself. The peeling facade and dirty windows added to the sense of gloom that filled the air.
“Well, this is depressing,” Pavel muttered, glancing around warily. He had seen enough to know when a place felt wrong.
“I hope I don’t run into anyone on the stairs,” Stepanich added with a chuckle, though there was no real humor in his voice. His nervous energy made everything seem more intense than it probably was.
Inside, the atmosphere shifted unexpectedly. Despite the exterior’s decrepitude, the apartment was cozy, and the air smelled faintly of baked goods. A young woman, Svetlana Sergeyevna, sat anxiously at the table, her face a mix of worry and hope. She stood as they entered, her posture tense but grateful.
“Please come in. Kiryusha has a high fever and a severe cough…” she said, her voice cracking slightly with concern.
They followed her to the bedroom, where the girl, Kiryusha, lay on the bed. She looked pale, her eyes feverish and burning with an intensity that unsettled Igor. The room was dimly lit, but the air felt thick with the weight of the moment.
Igor moved to her side and checked her vitals, trying to suppress the worry that threatened to rise in his chest. The girl’s condition was bad, and it wasn’t just the fever that was alarming. There was something else—something that made him pause and think about the unpredictability of life. He had seen countless emergencies, but something about this one felt different.
“Stepanych,” Igor said, his voice soft but firm, “We need to act quickly.”
Stepan, who had been checking the medical supplies, nodded without a word, sensing the urgency in Igor’s tone. Pavel, though silent, seemed to share the same unease as he watched the scene unfold.
The minutes that passed felt like hours. As Igor worked, he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this situation than a simple fever. He had seen enough pain in his life to recognize the look of desperation in Svetlana’s eyes.
Suddenly, as Igor administered a treatment, he felt something—a note pressed into his palm. It was crumpled, hastily folded. Without thinking, he opened it.
The note read: “Help me. Please, don’t let her die. She’s all I have left.”
Igor’s heart skipped a beat. The weight of the words hung in the air, and for a brief moment, everything else in the room disappeared. This wasn’t just a medical emergency. This was a life-and-death situation wrapped in a desperate plea for salvation.
“Who wrote this?” Igor asked quietly, his voice heavy with concern.
Svetlana’s eyes filled with tears as she answered softly, “I… I wrote it. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing her.”
The room was thick with tension as Igor worked with urgency, his mind racing. He had faced many challenges in his life, but this—this was different. It wasn’t just a case of fever or illness. It was a reminder that in the world of medicine, sometimes the fight for life was the hardest battle of all.
Stepan finished preparing the medication, and Igor administered it swiftly. Time seemed to stretch and contract as they waited for the treatment to take effect. The silence was deafening, but in that silence, Igor realized something crucial: no matter how hard he tried to escape his past, moments like these kept pulling him back. The world of medicine, with all its highs and lows, had a way of finding him again.
As the minutes ticked by, Kiryusha’s condition began to stabilize, her fever slowly subsiding. Svetlana watched in awe as her daughter’s color returned to her cheeks, her breathing becoming more regular.
Igor stood back, finally allowing himself to breathe a sigh of relief. He glanced at Stepan, who was watching him with an expression of quiet approval. Pavel remained silent, as always, but the tension in the van had dissipated.
“Well, this wasn’t exactly how I imagined the night going,” Igor said with a small smile, the weight of the moment still heavy on him.
Stepan grinned, the lines of tension on his face easing. “The night’s not over yet. We’ve still got a few more calls.”
Igor nodded, but this time, there was a sense of quiet understanding in his heart. In this line of work, there were no guarantees—only the next shift, the next emergency. And sometimes, even the smallest act of kindness could change everything.
As the Gazelle rumbled off into the night, Igor thought about how unexpected this evening had been. A simple ambulance shift, a note with a desperate plea, and a life saved. Who would have imagined how all this would end?