?Akki had spent the first ten minutes shouting something about "natural lighting" to a girl three rows up, but the wind whistling through the cracked window and the grinding of the gears drowned him out.

  ?"What?" Akki yelled, cupping his ear. "I said the scenery is—"

  ?The bus hit a massive pothole. Akki was tossed upward, his head nearly clipping the overhead luggage rack. At the same time, the student sitting next to him, a quiet guy with a massive decorative pillow, turned green and reached for a sick bag.

  ?"Right, that’s it. I’m moving," Akki muttered, scrambling out of his seat.

  ?He lunged toward the very back of the bus, where the long bench seat spanned the entire width. I was already shoved into the corner by the window, Murin was next to me, his eyes closed, trying to take a nap. Akki flopped down next to Murin, squeezing him toward me. "Move over, textbook. I’m not sitting next to Barf-Bag Billy."

  ?"It’s a three-hour drive, Akki," Murin groaned, eyes still shut. "You can't stay still for five minutes?"

  ?"Not when the air quality in the middle of the bus is 90% vomit," Akki countered. He leaned back, his shoulder pressing against Murin's.

  "I look like a literal thumb," Akki muttered, staring intensely at his phone screen. He wasn't looking at medical notes. He was scrolling through his own Instagram feed, his thumb hovering over a photo of himself in a clean lab coat from two weeks ago. "Look at this, Ashru. The lighting? Perfection. The jawline? Sculpted by god. And now? I’m a grease-monkey in a bus that vibrates like a blender."

  ?"Put the phone away, Akki," Murin said, his voice flat. He was staring straight ahead, and gripped the seat in front of him. "Nobody cares about your jawline when we’re about to be marched up a vertical incline by a woman who looks like she eats students for breakfast."

  ?"You’re just bitter because your hairline is receding faster than your interest in women," Akki snapped. It was a low blow. Usually, they'd laugh, but the air in the bus was thin and the tension from the ER yesterday was still vibrating in their bones.

  ?Murin didn't laugh. He turned his head slowly, his eyes bloodshot. "My hairline is fine. My patience, however, is extinct. If you mention your 'aesthetic' one more time while I’m trying to calculate how much sleep debt I can carry before my heart stops, I will actually throw you out of that emergency exit."

  ?"Dark," Akki whispered, though he finally locked his phone. "I like it. The stress is finally turning you into a real person instead of a textbook with legs."? The bus lurched. My head hit the window with a dull thud.

  ?"You guys want a lentil wrap?" a voice called out from the front seat to us. It was Priella. She held out a foil-wrapped bundle of flatbread stuffed with a thick, spiced lentil mash—the kind of reliable comfort food we usually called dal back home, though here she just called it 'the mush.'

  ?"Is it seasoned with the tears of the fourth years?" I asked, taking a bite.

  ?"Probably," Priella said, leaning backward. "I heard a rumor. Dr. Cross didn't plan this trek. The University Board did. Apparently, the donor for the new anatomy wing is a 'fitness enthusiast.' He wanted to see if the future doctors of this country could walk a mile without fainting."

  ?"I'll show him fainting," I muttered, the lentil mash sticking to my mouth. "I'll faint right on his bespoke Italian shoes."

  ?The Base of the Mountain: 9:14 AM

  ?The bus stopped at a gravel clearing. Dr. Helena Cross stood on the bottom step of the bus like a gargoyle.

  ?"Listen up!" she shouted. Her voice didn't need a megaphone. "This is not a vacation. This is a lesson in endurance. You will hike in groups of four. If one person in your group falls behind, the whole group loses marks on their Professionalism assessment. If you complain, I add five pounds of rocks to your pack. Move."

  ?We shuffled out. My left foot felt the gravel through my sock.

  ?"Group up!" Akki yelled, grabbing my arm and Murin’s. "Priella, you’re with us. You’re the only one who doesn't smell bad."

  ?"I smell like lentils," Priella corrected, but she joined us.

  ?The trail was a narrow, muddy vein bleeding down the side of the mountain. Within twenty minutes, the "team-building" had turned into a slow-motion disaster.

  ?"My hair is frizzing," Akki announced, wiping sweat from his forehead. "It’s the humidity. It’s an act of God. I should be able to sue for this."

  ?"Shut up, Akki," Murin and I said in unison.

  ?Murin was struggling. For all his academic brilliance, his lungs seemed to be sized for a small bird. He was wheezing, his face turned pale.

  ?"You... okay?" I asked, slowing down.

  ?"Never... better," Murin gasped, leaning against a tree. "Just... contemplating... the biological... inefficiency... of the... human lung." He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "Why are you... hopping?"

  ?"My shoe," I said, lifting my left foot. I had used half a roll of duct tape to bind the sole back on, but the mud was eating through the adhesive. Every time I stepped, it made a sound like lung collapsing. Squelch-pop. Squelch-pop. Everyone, I mean every doctor knew this sound.

  ?"You look like a Victorian orphan," Priella said, passing us. She was the only one moving with any rhythm. "A very incompetent orphan."

  ?"The orphan has the first aid kit, Priella," I called out. "Remember that when you slip on a rock."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  ?"If I slip on a rock, I'm just going to lie there until the moss grows over me," she shouted back. "It’s a better career path than Orthopedics."

  ?The Twist: 11:30 AM

  ?The path suddenly narrowed into a rocky ledge with a steep drop on the right. The group ahead of us, led by a guy named Zaid who thought he was an Alpha because he went to the gym twice a week, was trying to show off.

  ?"It’s all about center of gravity!" Zaid yelled back to his group. "Watch me!"

  ?He jumped onto a flat, mossy rock.? In medicine, there is a specific sound a ligament makes when it snaps under tension. It’s a crack-pop that you can feel in your own teeth. Zaid didn't scream at first but someone else did for him, "ZAID!"

  ?We ran to the edge. Zaid hadn't fallen off the cliff, but he had slipped six feet down a steep embankment, his leg wedged between two jagged boulders. He was pinned at an impossible angle somehow

  ?"Don't move!" Murin yelled, his medical brain finally overriding his lack of oxygen. He scrambled down the slope, sliding on his butt, followed by Priella.

  ?I tried to follow, but my taped shoe gave way. The sole flew off entirely, sailing into the abyss. I slid down the mud on one sneaker and one sock, landing hard next to Zaid.? The System flickered in the corner of my eye.

  ?"Go away," I hissed.

  ?Zaid’s face was white. He was hyperventilating. "My leg... I can't feel my foot. Ashru, I can't feel my fucking foot!"

  ?Akki was still at the top of the ledge, looking down. For the first time, he wasn't looking at his hair. He looked terrified. "Is he... is there blood?"

  ?"Akki, get down here and hold his shoulders!" I yelled. "Murin, check his distal pulse! Priella, find something to use as a lever!"

  Suddenly the sky turned gray and the first drop of rain hit Zaid’s forehead with a sound pink. He was whimpering now. His leg was wedged deep between two granite slabs. Looked like the trap didn't just break his bones, it crushed them.

  ?"We need to lift the top rock," I said, kneeling in the mud, my one socked foot already soaking and numb. The System was screaming in my periphery.

  ?"We can't just lift it," I yelled, looking at Murin. "If we move that rock without getting an IV line into him first, the toxins in his leg will hit his heart. He’ll go into cardiac arrest before we even get him up the slope. I've got a line in my bag, I can—"

  ?"No," Murin snapped. He wasn't wheezing anymore. He was digging through his pack, but he wasn't looking for a needle. He pulled out a heavy, woolen shawl and a small, battered tin. "We aren't doing the IV yet. We don't have enough saline to flush him properly anyway, and the rain is going to contaminate the site."

  ?"Are you insane?" I stepped toward him, my duct-taped shoe flapping uselessly. "The protocol is clear, Murin! If the pressure stays on, the muscle dies. If we release it without hydration, he dies. It’s basic science!"

  ?"Science is for a clean ER, Ashru!" Murin barked, shoving me back. "Look at him! He’s shivering. His vessels are constricted. You’ll never find a vein in this light, in this rain, while he’s thrashing. We’re doing the Bandhan first."

  ?"The what?" I stared at him. "The Bandhan? Is that some medieval torture? Murin, we are third-year medical students, not village witch doctors!"

  ?"My grandmother used this for field crushes in the village," Murin said, his hands already moving. He began to smear the thick, yellow paste from that tin onto Zaid's exposed thigh, well above the rock. "It’s a tight, sequential binding. We trap the toxins physically by layers of pressure and cold-water immersion from the rain. We slow the venous return to a crawl manually."

  ?"That’s complete bullshit!" I shouted, the frustration boiling over. I knew the System was right. I knew the molecular biology of hyperkalemia. "You’re going to give him a pulmonary embolism! You're following a 'technique' from a woman who probably thought lemons cured polio! Move aside and let me use the kit!"

  ?"I said NO!" Murin stood up, his face inches from mine. "You think you’re so smart because you stayed up all night in the ER? You’re vibrating, Ashru. Your hands are shaking. You’ll blow the vein and waste the only catheter we have. My way works with the environment, not against it."

  ?"It’s barbaric," I hissed, my jaw aching. I couldn't tell him about the System. I couldn't tell him that a glowing red warning was telling me Zaid’s potassium was about to spike. "You’re risking his life on a folk tale."

  ?Murin ignored me. He wrapped the heavy shawl around Zaid's upper leg, twisting it with a stick to create a makeshift, wide-width tourniquet that he kept loosening and tightening in a specific rhythm. It was a rhythmic, pulsing pressure—completely counter-intuitive to every trauma manual I'd read.

  ?"Akki! Hold the stick!" Murin commanded.

  ?Akki, looking like he wanted to vomit, grabbed the wooden lever. "Is... is he supposed to be turning that color?"

  ?Zaid’s leg below the shawl was turning a deep, mottled purple. He screamed and the sound echoed off the rocks.

  ?"You're killing him!" I yelled, reaching for the shawl to tear it off. "His leg is going necrotic! Murin, stop it!"

  ?"Wait!" Priella shouted, pointing at Zaid’s foot, which was poking out from under the rock.

  ?The swelling, which had been ballooning the skin of his ankle to the point of bursting, was... receding. The rhythmic binding was forcing the interstitial fluid back up, but in a controlled, slow-motion manner. The mottled color wasn't necrosis; it was a stabilized stasis.

  ?Zaid’s breathing slowed and the high-pitched panting stopped. He went limp, but his eyes stayed open.

  ?"Check his pulse," Murin said.

  ?I reached down and felt for the pedal pulse in the foot. It was there. Weak, but steady. More importantly, the System’s red warning was fading into a dull orange.

  ?I looked at the yellow paste on Murin’s hands. It was messy and unsterile. It was something that would get us expelled if Dr. Cross saw it.

  ?"It's... it's working," I whispered.

  ?Murin didn't look triumphant. He just looked tired. He wiped a mix of rain and yellow paste from his forehead. "My grandmother couldn't read a pulse, Ashru. But she knew that blood is like a river. If you can't stop the flood, you build a series of smaller dams."

  ?"I still think it's medically reckless," I muttered, though the heat had gone out of my voice.

  ?"Good," Murin said, handing me the stick. "Keep thinking that. It'll keep you sharp. Now help me find a way to lift this rock before the mud slides and buries us all."

  Akki was staring at his hands, covered in mud and blood. "Is this what being a doctor actually is? Because nobody mentioned this part."

  "Welcome to reality," Priella muttered.