Story code: ST-000988
Part 2: The Glass Barrier
When I grabbed her shoulders, the fabric of her heavy wool coat was damp with cold sweat. She was arched violently backward on the linoleum, every muscle in her body locked tight in a rigid bow. I managed to gently roll her onto her side, terrified that she might be seizing. But the moment her face caught the fluorescent light, my heart slammed against my ribs. Her skin was flushed an alarming crimson, and the edges of her lips were already taking on a terrifying, dusky blue tint. Both of her hands were clamped desperately around her own throat, her fingernails digging deep enough to leave ragged, crescent-shaped tracks in her flesh.
The scraping noise wasn’t just her body shifting; it was the horrifying, mechanical sound of air being forced through an airway rapidly swelling shut. She was suffocating in plain sight, drowning in the dry air of aisle four.
“Hey! Someone call 911!” I screamed. The shout echoed off the low ceiling tiles, but it did absolutely nothing to break the hypnotic spell holding the onlookers.
Not a single phone lowered. The tall man in the dark grey suit merely shifted his weight, adjusting his grip to keep his lens focused on the woman’s darkening face. The young woman in the green puffer jacket actually leaned over my shoulder, the bright white ring light attached to her phone casing blinding me as she sought a clearer angle of the victim’s panicked eyes.
“Are you deaf? Call an ambulance!” I yelled, batting my hand upward to push the blinding light away.
“Don’t touch my phone, I’m streaming to three thousand people,” she snapped back, sounding genuinely offended. “Someone in the chat said they already called. Just do whatever you’re gonna do.”
I couldn’t rely on them. I dug frantically into my own scrub pocket, but found nothing; my phone was still on the breakroom table. I looked down at the scattered orange pill bottles around my knees. Lisinopril. Atorvastatin. Routine maintenance medications. Nothing that would reverse severe anaphylactic shock.
I twisted my head toward the thick safety glass of the main consultation window. Marcus was standing in the exact same spot, staring down at us with wide, terrified eyes, his hands still planted on his keyboard.
“Marcus!” I bellowed. “Anaphylaxis! She’s closing up! I need the emergency kit! Get the EpiPen right now!”
Through the glass, I saw him flinch as if I had thrown a rock at his head. Every corporate pharmacy is equipped with a standardized emergency anaphylaxis kit. It was mounted in a bright red lockbox on the wall right behind the main terminal, literally ten feet away from where he stood.
He didn’t turn toward the box. Instead, his trembling hand reached out and pressed the button for the external public address microphone.
“I… I can’t,” Marcus’s voice crackled through the overhead speakers, cutting over the tinny rhythm of the store’s pop music. The audio was distorted, amplifying the raw panic lodged in his throat. “Corporate policy, section four. We cannot administer prescription-only emergency interventions outside the secure zone without direct EMS authorization. You know the rules. We are not doctors. The liability…”
“She is dying on our floor, Marcus!” I screamed, pressing my hands flat against the woman’s collarbone. I could feel her heart hammering wildly beneath her coat, a frantic rhythm trying desperately to compensate for the sudden lack of oxygen. The awful scraping sound had now degraded into a high-pitched, reedy squeal.
“I triggered the silent alarm!” the PA speaker crackled again. “Paramedics are dispatched. Just clear her airway and wait. If I leave the secure area, the automated safe-lock engages. If I administer without a script and she has an adverse cardiac event…”
He trailed off, but we both knew the rest. Immediate termination. Loss of his pharmacy license. Ruinous civil lawsuits. He was doing the awful math in his head, weighing this stranger’s vanishing airway against his entire livelihood and professional debt. Corporate protocol was winning.
I looked back at the crowd. The semicircle had tightened further. The collective glare of their screens cast a sickly, bluish glow over the spilled pills. They were feeding on this. The quiet desperation on the floor, the bizarre shouting match between me and the overhead intercom-it was perfect, unscripted drama.
“Back up! Give her some air!” I shoved backward, my shoulder slamming hard into the kneecap of the man in the suit. He stumbled, cursing quietly, but immediately recovered his footing and brought the camera right back to eye level. He preferred to watch the agonizing scene unfold through a digital filter.
Suddenly, the woman’s violent thrashing weakened. Her hands fell limply to her sides, knocking over the shattered plastic basket. Her eyes rolled upward. The awful squeal of her breathing stopped entirely.
Total, suffocating silence descended on the floor again, save for the rapid clicking of a camera shutter.
Panic, cold as crushed ice, flooded my veins. The only thing that could restart her lungs was sitting in a plastic box behind bulletproof glass.
I scrambled to my feet, my rubber soles slipping on the scattered pills, and lunged toward the heavy steel security door separating the public floor from the pharmacy interior. I grabbed the cold metal handle and pulled with all my weight. It didn’t budge. The heavy magnetic lock required a keycard scan from the outside-mine was in my locker-or a button press from the inside.
I slammed my closed fist against the wire-reinforced window embedded in the heavy door. “Open the door, Marcus! Hit the buzzer! She’s out!”
Through the wire mesh, I watched Marcus pale, sweat gleaming on his forehead. Slowly, deliberately, he took an agonizing step backward, away from the terminal console, away from the door release button.
Behind me, the crowd murmured, a vibrating sound of dark anticipation. Several of them shifted their stances, pivoting their lenses away from the unconscious woman to focus entirely on me. I was beating my knuckles against the unyielding security door, entirely locked out, while she was dying, and they were just watching.