AN: I know it has been such a long time. I've have lots of stuff going on. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please if you have any questions feel free to ask. And I know there are some spelling and grammatical errors in there that I will fix sometime soon (hopefully). Oh, and just a warning, there is one mild curse language word. So just beware. And the rating of this story may change, depending on what happens next. I just want you to be aware of that.

Chapter 3

After the doctor had left, I looked around the room once more. There was truly nothing to do. There was no television or computer around; nor was there any books to read. There was practically nothing to do. I was bored.

My eyes kept wondering around the lifeless room, while my fingers started fumbling against one another and I found myself twiddling my thumbs over and over each other, trying hard to find something, just something to do.

"I should have asked the doctor if he had a book for me to read while I wait," I thought out loud to myself. "There has to be something to do while I wait for him to come back," I pondered.

Then there was an odd sound. It sounded like someone grunted, but I wasn't sure of myself. I wanted to get up, but I knew I couldn't because I was attached to the IV and the heart monitor. "Dammit," I muttered. Then without thinking I looked up to the small, black hemisphere like device in the right hand corner of the room. "Great," I murmured. "The hospital must have got that on tape." I huffed out a huge sigh of defeat.

So with nothing to do, my body was starting to fall asleep. My shoulders began to sag and my muscles relaxed. As I was about to close my eyes, I felt something tickle the back of my throat.

I leaned over and coughed into my right elbow, which seemed to make the itching sensation worse because I couldn't stop coughing. My stomach started to cramp up, and hurt along with my lungs that were calling out for oxygen. My eyes started to get watery. My heart started pounding against my rib cage. I took a huge deep breath, trying to depress the coughing, only to be greeted by another racking, hard cough that caused my throat to burn even more. I doubled over, my elbow still over my mouth, trying to keep from spreading germs, but I know that was the least of my worries.

Without warning, the white curtain whizzed open and in ran two young doctors in white lab coats. One of them I recognized as the doctor who had come in before, but the other I was unfamiliar with.

Unlike the other doctor, he had short light, blonde hair that stuck up in many different places like he hadn't combed it. He was about the same height as the other doctor, which was around 5 feet 9 inches and wore a stethoscope around his neck. The only difference was that there was a pen attached to his gleaming white lab coat and he was holding onto a light brown clipboard with papers clipped to them.

My eyes started to wonder to the clipboard the blonde-haired man just set down at the end of the bed. I wanted to know what was on that sheet of paper. But, I couldn't see from the position I was in. So, I decided to give up on seeing what was on the sheet of white paper. "My life was more important," I thought as I watched the blonde-haired man turn on an oxygen tank near me.

"Can you hear me Josephina?" the black-haired, young doctor asked me as he gently put his hands on my legs.

I nodded my head the best I could without coughing on him.

"What my colleague is doing is turning on an oxygen tank so that we can administer fresh oxygen to you," he explained keeping his eyes fixed on mine. "What I need you to do is try to take deep breaths and calm down. "Brian," he nodded towards the man on my left, "is going to put an oxygen mask on you so that you will be able to get clean, fresh air into your lungs. Do you understand what's going to happen?" he finally asked me.

I nodded my head as I inhaled a deep breath, my lungs and chest filling up with air, and right at the moment, Brian put a lightly colored, green rubber oxygen mask over my mouth and nose, while the sea green strap went around my head.

"Take deep breathes," instructed the doctor with black hair. "In. Out. In. Out." He demonstrated by moving his hands slowly up and down.

I took a low deep breath and started coughing. My left hand flew up to the mask and tried to task it off, but someone grabbed my hand before it could reach its destination. I looked over at Brian who had grabbed my wrist. He was shaking his head no. I tried to get my wrist free, but he had a strong grasp on my wrist that I couldn't get it free.

"You don't want to remove the mask," said the doctor on my right. Still coughing, I looked over at the other doctor and with my right hand drew a question mark in the air.

"Why? You asked," he said back to me.

I nodded.

"You need the oxygen mask on because you still have some carbon monoxide in your system," he answered. "The more you cough, the less carbon monoxide that will be in your body."

Once again I nodded my acknowledgment and as I did, an agonizing bark ripped through my throat, making feel like I'm going to gag.

Then, within seconds of my last final cough, it all went away and I was finally able to breath some fresh air. I lied back in on inclined bed. My breathing was heavy making my chest go up and down. It's like I had just ran a 5 mile marathon without any water. My mouth was dry, but my throat was sore. "I guess I just needed to get the carbon monoxide out of my system," I thought to myself. "I must have still had a lot in my system from the fire. I wonder..."

The doctor with the black hair brought me out of my train of thoughts. "Are you feeling any better?"

I gave a two thumbs-ups, realizing that I can move my left hand. "Brian must have let go after I had my last coughing fit," I guessed.

"What's going to happen now is that Brian and I will leave, for we have work that needs to be done. However, you are going to keep that oxygen mask on. Okay?"

Before I could respond, the black-haired, young doctor and Brian walked out of the small colorless room with the curtain whizzing behind them.