Hope

My heart nearly stopped beating. Slowly, stiffly, I turned my head.

It was Adam Keelman, from the donation department. The sight of him brought me relief, and I sucked in air greedily. "Let's begin the surgery, Dr. Keelman."

That surprised him. "I thought you'd opted out. Did Dr. Flemont not talk to you? You shouldn't make any rash…"

I put a finger against his lips. There was no time, so I went straight to my final plea.

I dropped to my knees and begged him. "Please, you must help me. This is the only way I can survive. Please, you have to trust me."

Adam stared at me, wide-eyed with disbelief. I was rumpled and disheveled, and he heaved a sigh but eventually gave a nod.

I was already in the operating room when the trio came. The surgery was underway, and Yvonne punched the wall. "Damn it! We're too late!"

Zoey helped her up, cruel delight flashing in her eyes. "Let's go, Yvonne. You can't save her if she doesn't want to be saved. We've done what we could. No one can blame us."

"Yeah. If she's out of the way, you can get promoted to department head in no time flat. Don't forget about your friends."

Their ignorance only stoked Yvonne's rage. Their smugness irritated her so much that she wanted to sew their mouths shut. "Shut up, you morons!"

Yvonne strode off in a huff. Her followers looked confused and indignant, but still hurried after her.

…

I was under anesthesia the whole time, but I vaguely heard fragments of conversation. The doctors were gasping in astonishment. "Her kidneys rotted away right after we removed them!"

"Suture the wounds now!"

"Dear God, we removed both kidneys. She's dying."

Unbeknownst to them, my kidneys grew back right after the wounds were sewn up. A full minute passed after the ventilator stopped moving.

Then, loud, greedy breathing filled the room.

"Dr. Greenwood's vitals are returning! This is a miracle!"

The anesthesia faded and was replaced by agonizing pain. When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by medical staff staring at me as if they had just witnessed an extinct creature return to life.

"It's a miracle you're still living after you had both kidneys taken out."

"We've put you through a checkup. Your kidneys grew back."

The director kept it a secret and made sure the doctors who knew about the matter signed NDAs. Then he ordered them to never perform this kind of surgery on me again.

A woman with two sets of kidneys and a doctor pushed to the brink of suicide thanks to infighting weren't exactly going to help the hospital's reputation.

I touched my lower back and moved my legs a little. Yes, I could feel them now, and that was how I knew I'd won the gamble.

That told me all about how Yvonne healed her patients.

Aside from the doctors in the donation department, everyone believed the director had stopped me in time and that the donation had failed.

Donald and Yvonne paid me a visit while I was in recovery. He told me not to mess around and left, while she was still smug as ever.

"I have no idea how you found out, but I couldn't care less about a dying woman's secret. I managed to do it once. I can do it again."

I kept my head low and said nothing.

…

The next day, I got myself discharged and continued my recovery at home.

Yvonne was about to meet her reckoning.

Three days after the kidney cancer patient's surgery, the hospital made headlines. A huge crowd surrounded the entire building.

'Top hospital healer exposed as fraud. Kidney patient dies at home three days after surgery.'