I woke to shouting. Not the usual hostel noise, this was urgent. My eyes opened to darkness. The bedside clock read 2:47 AM. Footsteps pounded past our door, moving fast down the corridor. More voices joined the first and overlapping.

  Murin was already sitting up, listening. Akki groaned and pulled his pillow over his head.

  The door to our room wasn't fully closed, it never latched properly and through the gap, I could see shadows moving quickly past.

  Murin got out of bed and opened the door wider. The corridor lights were on. Three or four people were clustered near the stairwell at the far end, their voices echoing up from below. One of them was Ron, a fourth-year who lived two floors down. He looked up and saw Murin.

  The brief exchange was fast. Medical emergency. Ground floor. Someone collapsed. Not responding.

  Murin grabbed his coat. I was already out of bed, pulling on the shirt I'd discarded a few hours earlier. My stethoscope was on the desk where I'd left it after evening rounds. Habit made me grab it.

  Akki had given up on sleep and was following us out. We took the stairs quickly, three medical students rushing down in the dark would be a fitting irony if one of us fell and became the next emergency.

  The ground floor corridor wasn't packed, but there were enough people to know something serious was happening. Maybe eight or nine students, mostly fourth and fifth years who lived on this floor. They'd formed a loose circle near the entrance to the common room.

  I pushed through. A young man lay on the tiles. First year, maybe second. His face had that grayish quality that didn't look like sleep or fainting. His chest was still. His lips were already showing a dusky blue tinge. The System activated immediately.

  Murin was already kneeling, fingers pressed against the side of the patient's neck. After three seconds, he looked up and made eye contact with Priya, a fifth-year standing nearby.

  She understood immediately and dropped to her knees on the opposite side, positioning her hands over the center of the chest. The first compression made a sound I'd never heard outside of practice mannequins—the crack of cartilage, the pressure of air forced from lungs. Someone had already called the ER. I could hear fragments of the conversation near entrance.

  I moved toward the patient's head, my mind racing through the protocols. Airway management. But then I stopped. There's no pocket mask, no barrier device. The reality of direct mouth-to-mouth on an unknown patient hit me—infection risk, the protocols we'd been taught post-pandemic.

  Murin caught my hesitation and made the decision. "Hands-only until the cart arrives. Continuous compressions, hard and fast."

  System Update:

  Priya was already counting under her breath, maintaining rhythm. Push, push, push, push. Faster than normal but hard enough that I could hear the sternum flexing with each compression. After fifteen seconds, Akki moved in to take over, giving her a break. We'd been taught that—switch compressors every two minutes to maintain quality. But we'd switch more frequently if someone tired.

  I positioned myself at the head anyway, maintaining the airway with head-tilt chin-lift, keeping it patent even without active ventilation. At least the airway would be ready when equipment arrived.

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  The entrance doors opened. Dr. Rowan Hayes from the ER came through first, a nurse behind him pushing a crash cart with a bag-valve-mask visible on top. Two more staff followed with a stretcher and equipment bags. I felt relief at the sight of that BVM.

  Hayes took in the scene with one sweep—ongoing compressions, airway positioned, student responders who clearly had some idea what they were doing. He dropped to his knees beside us, checking the patient quickly without interrupting our rhythm.

  Murin gave a brief report. Patient found unresponsive approximately three minutes ago. No pulse, not breathing. Continuous chest compressions since discovery.

  The nurse pulled the bag-valve-mask from the cart and handed it to me without a word. I positioned the mask over the patient's face, creating a seal with both hands while she squeezed the bag. The chest rose visibly, proper ventilation, finally.

  The other nurse was already placing defibrillator pads on the patient's bare chest during a brief handover pause between compressors. Hayes called for compressions to stop for rhythm analysis.

  Akki pulled back immediately. The machine analyzed. Its screen showed a pattern I recognized from textbooks but had never seen in real life.

  Hayes announced the rhythm and called for everyone to clear. We pulled back, hands raised. The machine's charging whine built to a peak, then released.

  The body jerked violently, lifted slightly off the ground by the shock, then settled. The monitor showed the same pattern. No change.

  The nurse immediately resumed compressions while another established IV access. Medication was drawn and pushed—I caught a glimpse of the ampule: Epinephrine 1mg.

  Another two-minute cycle. Another rhythm check. Still ventricular fibrillation, though perhaps slightly coarser. Second shock. This time the monitor changed. An organized rhythm appeared, slower than normal but with distinct complexes. Not perfect, but structured.

  The nurse checked for a pulse at the carotid. Waited.

  Hayes listened to the chest with his stethoscope, checking for breath sounds while the team prepared for transport. Breathing was shallow but present. Return of spontaneous circulation achieved.

  They transferred him to the stretcher within seconds, maintaining monitoring and IV access. The bag-valve-mask stayed in place—he was breathing but not adequately. Hayes was already on his phone as they moved toward the exit, likely alerting the ER to prepare for post-arrest care.

  Then they were gone. I looked down at my hands, still shaking. We'd just performed CPR on a real person whose heart had stopped. The BVM was still on the crash cart—I'd squeezed that bag, pushed air into failing lungs. Eighteen hours ago, I'd been agonizing over a failed IV placement. Now this.

  The warden appeared, asking questions that nobody had good answers to. A first-year student, found collapsed, no known medical history, no obvious cause. The hospital would investigate. His family would be contacted.

  Murin, Akki, and I walked back upstairs. None of us spoke. In our room, we took turns washing up. My hands smelled like the latex from the BVM mask.

  We sat in the dark for a while afterward, none of us even attempting sleep. Wondering if we'd done everything right, if he'd survive, if there would be brain damage, what had caused his heart to stop in the first place.

  The reality of what could have happened hit me then. If I'd hesitated longer, if I'd tried direct mouth-to-mouth and wasted precious seconds being squeamish about it, if we'd done inadequate compressions while focusing on ventilation without equipment—any of those mistakes could have cost him. The protocols existed for a reason.

  Tomorrow, most residents wouldn't even know this had happened. Just another night but for those of us who'd been there, who'd felt the weight of keeping someone alive with our hands, tomorrow would be different.

  I lay in bed and closed my eyes, knowing sleep wouldn't come but trying anyway. In four hours, rounds would start. Patients would need care. Medicine would continue regardless of how I felt about tonight.