Immediately after noticing my next-door neighbour, I went down to my knees and tapped on her shoulders: “Hello? Hello? Are you okay?”

“...”

The girl groaned with discomfort and tilted her head towards my hand. Beads of sweat dripped down from her forehead, and her cotton t-shirt was drenched in liquid. Her face was as pale as the snow falling down from the sky, and her body looked as fragile as glass. The only thing fortunate about her current state was the fact that she was still breathing.

My neighbour was dressed haphazardly as if she was in a rush to leave her house. In the cold winter, she wore a t-shirt and a fleece jacket. Her jeans were acceptable, but she wasn’t wearing winter boots, opting for ballet flats instead. She had even forgotten to wear her mask, something that was mandatory for anyone who wanted to leave the house.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

“...”

The girl continued to ignore my questions. Her eyes gingerly opened up, and her lashes flickered like a fluttering leaf in the wind. I could tell that she was conscious, but whether she could function properly was a different question altogether.

I wasn’t a doctor, and neither was I medically trained. So I was unsure how I was going to approach this situation. From the looks of it, she had a fever, and her body had shut down for a moment, causing her to be delirious.

If it were Len or myself, we would have taken some medicine and slept it off. But we were relatively healthy, much unlike her thin, bony self. In addition...

“Don’t tell me you’d caught the virus...”

I immediately retracted my hand and took a step back. The pandemic was caused by a mysterious virus that induces pneumonia. The news anchor had even said that the infected would simply faint for no reason in some cases.

If my neighbour had actually caught the virus… It was way above my pay grade.

“Damn it, wait here for a moment.”

If the girl had indeed gotten the virus, I had to work fast. Moving as fast as I could, I grabbed my wallet, handphone and other essentials. At the same time, I took a dozen masks with me and placed them into my carrier.

It took less than a minute before I was right in front of my door once again, and sure enough, the girl was still breathing heavily at my door.

“Forgive me for touching you,” I apologised to the girl who had no way of resisting and covered her mouth with a mask.

Since she was in no state to walk, I put one arm on her back and the other under her knee joints. With a heave, I lifted her into my arms and initiated a princess carry. Though, it was far from romantic.

“She’s lighter than I’d thought.”

My neighbour looked to be around 1.7 metres, so I expected her to be about fifty to fifty-five kilograms. However, there didn’t seem to be any resistance on my arms. In fact, it felt like she weighed less than forty kilograms.

“Shit, I got to hurry!”

Although I had no relation to this neighbour of mine, I’ll be damned if she died on my watch.

❖❖❖

The trip to the hospital took almost twenty minutes. Fortunately, the taxi that I’d called for came almost instantly, and I could rush the girl to the Emergency Response. It was the middle of the night; furthermore, it was Christmas, so there weren’t many patients around. Which was fortunate for me.

I carried her out of the cab and rushed to the receptionist in charge.

“Could you help me? My neighbour fainted, and she needs help!”

The receptionist looked at the girl in my arms and immediately nodded: “Okay, I’ll get a nurse to lead you to a place where you can lay her down. A doctor will tend to her shortly.”

Everything from then on happened in a prompt sequence. Two nurses immediately came over, one pushing a wheelchair for me to rest the girl on. Gently placing her there, I followed the nurses as they brought us into a lounge where makeshift beds were available.

The nurses checked on the girl’s pulse and said some medical terms that went over my head. And as they continued their examination, one of the nurses handed me my neighbour’s purse and said: “We’ll take over from here. Please head to the reception to register the patient.”

“Register the patient? We’re not related, though? She’s just my neighbour. I’m not sure if my name can be on the paperwork for anything.”

The nurse jolted a little before replying: “It doesn’t matter. You can just register her first, and we’ll call her emergency contact.”

“Okay...”

Seeing as I wasn’t any help here anyway, I dragged my feet away and headed to the same receptionist that helped me moments earlier.

“Hi, I’m here to register a patient.”

“Yes, of course. The girl who fainted, right? What’s her name?”

“Name? That...”

It was embarrassing for me to say, but… I didn’t know her name.

“Hold on for a minute.”

I took out my neighbour’s purse and searched for any means of identifying her. It didn’t take long for me to find her wallet and all of the valuables that went inside it. Credit cards, cash, memberships cards and finally…

“I got her identification card here. Her name is… Althea Kong.”

For the first time in five months, I’d learnt my neighbour’s name.

“She turned twenty-one in July, and this is her identification number.”

I handed the card over to the receptionist and allowed her to record the details. In the end, it would be better if the hospital knew her identification number. Our country’s citizen database was quite extensive, and with an identification number, the hospital would be able to pull out all sorts of medical records and insurance plans that she was under. Furthermore, they could use it to trace down her next-of-kin, which would be necessary for the girl who lived alone.

“Thank you for registering. You can accompany the patient now.”

“Hold on, could you call her emergency contact? I’m just her next-door neighbour, and I won’t be able to sign on any paperwork.”

“Don’t worry, we will handle that.” The receptionist smiled and returned Althea’s identification card to me. “However, if her emergency contact is unable to make it or if she’s still unconscious and is unable to do it on her own, you may be needed to sign her into the ward if the doctor asks for it.”

It was common for parents to live in the countryside while their children studied or worked in the city. Although I didn’t know about my neighbour’s circumstances, given that I’d never once saw her parents, there was a high chance that they wouldn’t be able to make it in time.

“Okay, I understand.”

I returned to the lounge where I carried Althea only to find a man in blue scrubs tending to her. He looked on the younger side, probably a resident that was assigned to the ER. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, and his mask looked rather well-worn.

The nurses that helped me carry her over were also there assisting the jaded young man. When they noticed me, they immediately tapped on the man’s shoulders and pointed me out.

“Are you the one who brought the patient?”

“Yes,” I replied firmly. “I’m her neighbour. She passed out at my door, and I’d brought her here as I feared that she’d contracted the virus.” There was no need for me to specify which virus, and the doctor nodded in agreement.

“Were you close to the patient?”

“No, we were just acquaintances. We hardly talked.”

“Oh,” the doctor looked away as if disappointed that he couldn’t draw out any more information from me. “Nevertheless, you should stay here for the time being. After checking her vitals, there’s no danger to her life, and she had just passed out. We’ll run some tests to verify the cause of her fainting. If she’s tested positive for the virus… I’m afraid that you’ll have to go into quarantine.”

“Quarantine...”

Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to being in quarantine. The lockdown was one thing, but to be held indoors for fourteen days without going out once?

“Yes. Our tests will take a few hours, so you should rest in our garden or any of our open spaces. Healthy individuals should stay far away from the ER.”

“I see...”

I looked down at the girl on the makeshift bed. Her breathing had stabilised, but her complexion was anything but healthy. She looked more like a pale corpse than a living human being.

“Will she be alright?”

“For now, there doesn’t seem to be any danger. Don’t worry, we’ll do our best.”

The doctor gave a slight bow before gesturing to the nurses. They’d carried Althea down to the wheelchair and pushed her down the corridor into a room that I wasn’t able to enter. In the end, I was just a courier. Now that I’d handed her off to the doctor, there was nothing else that I could do.

“Argh… I need a drink.”

That’s how I’d spend my Christmas in a hospital.