“What are you talking about?” My voice comes out strangled.
“It may not happen,” he says, but I can hear the lie in his tone.
“Doctor, this is the regime we’re talking about. If they want, they could drop a nuke on us.” I laugh humorlessly and press a hand to my forehead.
Gardenias. Alleviate depression and anxiety and stress. Gardenias. Gardenias. Gardenias.
His eyes flit from the doors to me and back again. “Salama, I consider you my daughter. So please, don’t run away from the hospital if this happens. None of us are prepared to deal with it, but we’re going to befine.”
“If what happens?” I nearly shout. “What did the Free Syrian Army tell you?”
But he doesn’t have to tell me. A scream rips the air, and I turn around, shocked. I’ve never heard a scream like that in my life. The doors open to a horde of victims swarming in, but I don’t see any injuries.
“What’s happening?” I shriek, trying to understand.
Dozens of casualties on stretchers or on the ground are convulsing like someone electrocuted them.
Teenagers with their heads stretched back, arms and legs shaking uncontrollably.
Little children with foam at their mouths, looking up, trying to make sense of what’s happening to them.
My feet are rooted to the ground. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t understand.
“Chemical attack,” I hear Dr. Ziad say. “They’ve finally used sarin.”
MY HANDS FLY TO MY MOUTH IN HORROR. MY MINDraces through a list of medications, a list ofanythingto combat sarin, but I come up short. No one iseverprepared for a chemical attack.
“How—how thehelldo I treat this?” I ask with nails in my throat.
“Atropine,” he yells so the rest of the staff can hear, as they move toward the victims. “Diazepam for convulsions.”
He looks back and sees me rooted to the spot.
“Salama!” he says sharply. “We need to act now! They’ll die within minutes, do you understand? An incredibly small amount of sarin is enough to kill a grown man. These are kids.Go!”
My mind activates and all fear shuts down, except that which will motivate my feet to run and my hands to work. Nour drops a handful of atropine syringes into my arms, and I make a break for it. We don’t have anything to protect ourselves against the gaseous nerve agents in the patients, so gloves will have to do.
I assess who needs to be taken care of first. The more they inhaled, the less time they have. I spring to a boy lying on the ground, shaking violently, and push his wailing mother to the side. I don’t have time to explain anything as I jam the needle in his vein, praying all the while. I don’t even check to see if he responds. Time is a luxury we can’t afford now. As soon as I get up for another patient, Nour takes my place and administers CPR.
Another girl with tears streaming down her face and foam at her mouth stares at me without looking, and I fear I’ve lost her.Intravenous injections work fast, I keep chanting in my brain. Her pulse is weak, and her eyes are slits. My breath hitches in my throat. I try not to look into her eyes as I grab her elbow and jab the syringe’s bevel in her median cubital vein. I move on to the next victim. Little Ahmad’s last words ring in my ears the whole time, and I feel his ghost watching me move too slowly to save anyone. His eyes burn like hot coins at the back of my head, impatient with my sluggish hands that don’t inject the antidote fast enough.
I’ll tell God everything.
I lose count of how many I can’t save. Their eyes black, like a starless night, a frozen expression of fear and confusion forever inscribed on their faces. I realize I’m trembling when my hands helplessly clutch at a young woman’s frail shoulders, trying to shake the life back into her.
“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “Please, don’t be dead!”
Her breath doesn’t fog her breathing mask, and she stares lifelessly at me. The smell of bleach burns my nostrils.
Chlorine.
They didn’t just use sarin.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The next bodies my hands touch are dead. No one’s alive. I’m too late. They were right there, and I couldn’t get to them in time. I rise slowly to shaking legs and look at the catastrophe all around.
Bodies upon bodies surround me, and I stand in the center, watching them judge me. My hands are raw and red from the gas coating the victims. The same story is repeated with different characters, but the ending is always the same. And yet, despite knowing it, the pain is great. Greater than I can handle.
