“Ma’am, are you alright? Ma’am, can you hear me, do you need help?”
Of course, I get the strange calls on the day I’m babysitting the trainee.
I thumb the mic clipped to my collar. “Dispatch, we have a female, early twenties, nonresponsive.”
“Wow, she’s gorgeous,” Dan says beside me.
Rookies.
“Head in the game Dan, what do we do first?”
“Uh - scan the area for hazards?”
“Damn straight. Eyes off the hottie, read the surroundings.”
Tearing his eyes off the beauty, Dan scans the ruins. “Strange place. Feels like the whole place is under some kind of spell.”
He’s not wrong. The wall of brambles we had to fight through? Unnatural. And the ruins within? Like a castle frozen in time. Eerie.
“You’re going to see some strange things working this job kid,” I tell him. “Just maybe not babe-in-a-ball-gown strange.”
He nods, trying to look professional, but his eyes drift right back to the damsel laid out on a stone plinth like a catalogue model for medieval mattresses.
“No apparent hazards,” Dan reports.
“Mechanism of injury?” I test.
“No sign of mechanism.”
Correct. She looks like she lay down for a nap mid-storybook.
“Okay, next step?”
“We, uh… approach the individual?”
“Slow your roll rookie.” I catch his shoulder before he bounds forward like a puppy chasing after a squirrel. “Ma’am, we’re paramedics,” I call out. “We’re here to help.”
Up close, she’s even more ridiculous. Perfect skin, no makeup, no pallor, no clamminess. I’ve resuscitated overdoses, assaults, heat strokes, and one guy who fell into a vat of Princess Penelope’s Powdered Pea ProteinTM, and none of them ever looked this good. I’m jealous. I’ll admit it.
Dan’s not contemplating her complexion. He is laser-focused on her lips. They’re the sort of lips that inspire bad romantic decisions.
“What do we need before treatment Dan?”
“Consent?” he sighs.
“And in her current state?”
“Implied consent?” he brightens.
“Very good. I’ll check her ABC’s.”
I open her airway. No obstruction. I tilt my ear to her mouth. Nothing. Dan practically vibrates when I motion for him to repeat the checks.
“Well?”
“No airway obstruction. But no breathing either. No chest rise.”
I give him credit. It must take superhuman willpower to do a proper assessment when you’re hypnotized by a cleavage engineered to inflame a young man’s fantasies.
“She’s not breathing,” I confirm. “Circulation?”
“Skin cool but not cold. Colour is good.”
Which makes no medical sense. Someone who isn’t breathing should be bluish. Someone dead should be cold. She’s neither. She’s… pristine. As if she’s waiting for her close-up.
“What next?” I prompt.
“CPR!” he blurts, eyes flicking to her lips again, hopeful as a puppy with a treat bag.
“Chest compressions, Dan.”
He wilts but nods.
While he pumps away, I update dispatch and prep the AED. I hate tearing that gown, but protocols are protocols. I place the pads.
“Clear!”
Shock delivered. Her body arches off the slab, then settles again, golden hair now artfully tousled instead of perfectly arranged.
No pulse. No response. No nothing. Just beauty in stasis.
We run the full protocol. Compressions. Shocks. Reassessment. Nothing. Meanwhile, Dan looks like a man torn between lifelong duty and the world’s strongest crush.
“Mouth-to-mouth?” he asks, equal parts earnest and lovesick.
“Sorry, kid,” I say gently. “We’re calling it.”
His shoulders slump. The first one you lose is always rough. Harder when she looks like Miss Enchanted Forest 2026.
We load her onto the stretcher. Getting back out through the brambles is a fight, but once we break through, it’s just us, the foggy morning, and the prettiest corpse-that-isn’t-one I’ve ever seen.
In the rig, Dan keeps sneaking glances at her in the back.
“Alright rookie,” I say, breaking the spell, “let’s get moving. Dispatch says they need more units.”
He blinks. “Another call?”
“Yep. Sounds like a girl and some pigs got mauled by a wolf out by Granny’s Place.”