Alistar threw on a pair of black jeans, white T-shirt and a dark blue jacket, and after locking up his house, and waved at the troopers standing outside the yard. He popped in his earphones and headed towards the nearest branch of the new hospital. The walk showed him how quiet it had become compared to the past weeks. Even without getting information from the system, there were no news reports about any incidents all morning. All the rushing around they did certainly was worth it being able to watch persons walk their pets and seeing children playing in a nearby playground. It all made his thirty-minute enjoyable.

Staff were hustling outside the main entrance of the hospital branch to accommodate all their visitors with blood drive vans parked all around the parking lot collecting donations. Just the fact that it was so early in the morning, the amount of people out was astounding. ‘Crimson Cross Medical Hospital’ was plastered in bright red above the main door, what a strange name Alistar thought to himself, and the entire hospital was like a small glass birdcage with only small sections of concrete between each slab of glass.

 Alistar found some assistance in a nearby nurse and directed to a registration line and from there a waiting tent with chairs set up underneath. Since he wasn’t sure how long his wait would be he decided to use his phone to do a bit of research on the Crimson Cross to learn a bit more about them. The group that owned the hospital chain, The Sanguin Group, seemed to have been around for quite some time. Originating from their northern neighbor, in the past forty years the group slowly expanded their hospitals into the surrounding countries and finally decided to finally move into his own with their first hospital opening around ten years ago.

Their list of admirable achievements includes but not limited to; using their hospital branches and staff to provide relief to areas damaged by natural disasters and vampire attacks, aiding and funding research for vampire victim rehabilitation and a potential vaccine to vampirism, funding and building homeless shelters and finding a way to eventually integrate vampires into human society peacefully. It was strange to see a group wanting to find a way to bring vampires into human society, but he couldn’t deny that if things are to move forward the two groups need to learn to coexist.  

It all gave him a decent amount to read until a nurse called for him and he was taken to an empty chair beside a donation van. The nurse slipped in the IV needle and drew a little of his blood to be taken for testing to ensure it was safe for donation. Most of the nurses present, including his own, appeared to be rather young as if they all had just left nursing school and got hired, with the oldest appearing to be in their early thirties.

When his results came back all clear his nurse placed a new IV needle into his right arm and started draining his blood. The two entered a casual banter while the process slowly carried on, only ending when a doctor came over and called away his nurse. The two were out of earshot but Alistar could see that the doctor had a pair of papers in his hand that he referred to while speaking to the nurse. The two making occasional glances at Alistar which made him more curious as to what it was. Alistar noticed that the doctor had a tattoo that peeked out of his sleeve, he could not make out what it was, but he could tell that it was shaded red. His nurse had a similar red tattoo peeking out from her collar that he didn’t notice before and when she came back she was oddly smiling.

“Mister Cromwell, do you perchance happen to have any siblings?” she asked.

“I do but he isn’t with me right now.” Alistar hesitantly replied.

“That is great! You and your brother have a rare blood type that makes you universal donors.” She swiftly uttered, seemingly unable to hold back her excitement, “Would you be interested in bringing him as soon as he is available, it would be greatly appreciated to have a good supply incase we need to perform a transfusion.”

“All I can do is bring it up to him and see if he agrees.” Alistar replied, hoping that it would calm her down.

Alistar had given blood before, but this was his first time seeing someone so excited over it. Maybe they didn’t have enough reserves at this branch so him giving made her overly excited. She expressed her gratitude and slowly removed the needle from his arm. He was told to avoid moving too much as he would most likely be a bit dizzy while she took his blood packet for storage. He was indeed a tad lightheaded to the point he could barely raise himself from the chair to go back to the waiting tent. His vision failed him with brief flashes into a fuzzy world and he could barely feel his fingers even as they gently rubbed his arms. Dinner tonight was being ordered instead of cooked.

It was strange, Alistar could feel his consciousness slipping into a slumber without much explanation on why he would be so tired. The only thing that came to his fleeing mind was that more blood than what was expected was drawn. The staff was young, it was very much in the scope of possibilities that his nurse mistakenly took more without realizing in her burst of excitement. Leaving him to fight the sudden embrace of slumber every nod his head took encouraged. However, it was a losing battle as the sounds around him slowly faded into the background and his heavy eyelids came together and sent him into the darkness.