It was late moonlight, around 11:00 PM, at the De Luca household; a smallish two storey building built with bricks and water, and glass for windows and wood for doors – the odd bit of metal too – but it was enough for the family of three. On the downstairs floor was a kitchen, a dining room and a living room, and upstairs, three bedrooms, one master bedroom and two other bedrooms for the children, and a bathroom. There was a sound of great pain from the eldest child’s bedroom – coughing, spluttering, chocking. A teenage boy lay distressed in his bed, his bed duvet thrown to the floor and damp with his sweat. He wore nothing but a pair of boxers so he could try and keep cool, but his fever was high and his pulse was racing. Sweat was pouring from his skin, and his black hair was clumped together and sticking to his forehead; his breathing was laboured whenever he wasn’t coughing up blood like a freshly cut wound. The pale complexion on his face was as white as a snowdrop, but showed the fear and anguish of melting snow. One of his shaky hands grasped at his chest: the source of his pain. The hand clenched into a fist. Heavy coughing returned to the vulnerable teenager: his diaphragm was being forced to do too much. He wanted to scream.

        Scarlet was awoken by something she wished would go away – the suffering of her son. Her motherly-affection gear kicked into action inside her heart along with the panic and fear. Her son was her blood and flesh; she HAD to go and tend to him, despite the fact that he was no longer mummy’s little baby. She threw herself from her cotton bed sheets, slipped some fluffy pink slippers over her small, delicate feet, and straightened out her purple silk nightdress. Making sure her velvety black hair wasn’t scruffy, she clambered through her bedroom door and burst through her son’s own; when she saw the state of him, her blue eyes clouded over with tears. Never in these past years had Scarlet got over the pain her son went through – and this was the worst she’d seen him. She rushed to his side, and took him into his arms, bringing the whole of his upper body to her chest level, and cradled him like a baby. She tried to hush and calm him with soothing words of comfort, along with some kisses, but it didn’t help him. She felt him shake uncontrollably as she placed a hand on his forehead: you didn’t even need a thermometer to know how dangerously hot he was. She panicked briefly again, but soon calmed herself down, and began to speak to him.
“I...Isaac, sweetie? It’s mum...E...everything’s going to be fine. I...I’m going to call an ambu...”
“No...no muuum...” Isaac moaned forcefully, cutting off Scarlet’s sentence. “L...let me fight”
“You’re too weak!” She almost snapped “Isaac...I’m going to get help” She got up from the bed, but Isaac’s hand grabbed hold of one of hers.
“Mum...mum please...” he looked pleading, but Scarlet broke free of her sick son’s grip, and rushed downstairs to the hallway. Snatching the phone from its stand, she dialled the number for the local hospital, and waited for a reply. She shook in fear of the safety of her son, and her hand nervously skimmed the plastic coating of the phone. Someone eventually picked up on the other end of the line.
“Hello, this is-“
“MY SON!” Scarlet’s panic mode forced its way up to the front of her emotions, and she flustered around like a bird shaking all its feathers free of its body “My son...he’s fitting...h...he’s suffering, please! He’s DYING!”
“Calm down ma’am, we will-“
“Calm down? CALM DOWN?! How can I calm down when my son is lying in his bed, waiting for the clock to tick his last minutes here on this planet?!”
“Ma’am, please...we need your address to send out an ambulance.” The woman on the other end sounded like a mechanical voice, but she was perfectly human, all receptionists at hospitals had to act like this.
“Oh...it’s...27 Birch avenue...please, hurry!” the coughing of her son could be heard from upstairs: Scarlet hugged herself for comfort.
“We’ll be as quick as we can.” The receptionist hung up. Everything was now a simple waiting game; a waiting game that would determine Isaac’s fate.