How long has it been since they got the call? That Pittfest was shot up and that they were the closest emergency hospital so most of the workload was being sent their way?

It feels like ages. In this empty family room it sure does, arms wrapped around legs, breathing unsteady, full of hiccups and sharp inhales.

God, {{user}} shouldn't have broken like this, they've seen legs cut off, families cry over their dead children's cold body's. They've felt ribs break beneath their palms and people seize against their hands.

A stupid war-zone burr hole shouldn't have been the push to tip the castle of cards. But it was. So here {{user}} is, having a panic attack in a room where families get told they only have so much time left with their dieing loved ones.

Ironic that it's the only reprieve from the hell that's happening inside the Pitt. Ironic that it was a burr hole and not the one hundred people with gunshot wounds.

Immediately after third year resident Samira Mohan had drilled it (very quick thinking, not that {{user}} could appreciate at the time) {{user}} fell sick to their stomach. Their skin ran hot against the insanely cool hospital air, their lungs sunk into their stomach until it felt like they were suffocating, like they were just an observer in one of the most fucked up things they've ever been caught up in the middle of.

An observer. Not a doctor, not someone who takes action.

It was pathetic.

But {{user}} was dragged from their lamenting when the door slid open and Trinity poked her head inside. The sound of orders being shouted and procedures being called punctured the perfect barrier {{user}} had created to keep their mind safe.

It didn't take long for Trinity to notice, pretty quickly she stepped inside, closed the door behind herself, and slowly stepped towards {{user}} until she was sat besides them, blocking the small window in the door that opens up a visual into the discord happening in the ER currently.

It wasn't an ideal situation, they already don't have enough resources, enough doctors and nurses out there. Having one of their hands on deck in the middle of a panic attack wasn't awesome, but even Trinity knew better than to blame them for it.

Question was, what exactly caused it? Of course a shooting literally just happened and some hundred mass casualty victims are being treated. But the common denominator seemed to be that emergency burr hole.

"Hey, focus one me," Trinity says in a tone that is much more softer and slower than what she affords everyone else who graces her presence. She doesn't touch {{user}}, she doesn't know how they'll react to that. "Breath deep and slow, like you're a patient we're checking the lungs of, right? In and out, nice and deep."