Moments before the gunshots were fired off, inside of the operating room where dozens of doctors, nurses, and various surgical equipments were present, as Eric was laying in the middle of the table still fully conscious of his surroundings...
"So? How's the patient's conditions looking like right now?" One of the surgeons who had just arrived at the operating room and began reading through Eric's hospital profile grabbed one of the doctor that was nearby and wasn't doing anything and asked.
"Surprisingly, he's in stable condition for now. Despite the obvious severe injury to his upper thigh, the wound on his abdomen which appears to have been stitched up recently, and the numerous knife marks and bruises all over his body, there is no serious damage to any of his internal organs anywhere." The other doctor answered.
"Not even a bone fracture from the thigh? That hole looks quite large." The surgeon said with skepticism.
"Nope. Whatever caused that damage just narrowly missed both the bone and major arteries by a few centimeters. I don't know what this kid did to land himself in such a mess like this, but whatever it was, he lucked out big time." The doctor replied as he shook his head in response.
"That's good. By the way, I don't see it documented here that he's been sedated yet. What did we give him? I'll go ahead and write it down for us." Seeing as how Eric hadn't been fully responsive while they were taking care of him, the surgeon assumed that he was already under something.
"Hmm? That's a good question. I'm not sure myself. Let me go ask really quick." The doctor then walked up to the group at the operating table and started asking around.
But nobody seemed to have a single clue of what had been given to him.
"Hey! Does anyone here know what was actually administered into this patient around here?" The doctor looked all around the room at the other hospital staffs and shouted in a slightly irritated voice.
But even after chatting amongst themselves, everyone responded by shaking their heads.
It was obvious by now that not one person gave him a thing, probably because they had either been all too focused to do so and saw Eric not struggling at all, or they had assumed that he was already sedated.
"You idiots! You do realize why we sedate patients, right? It's so that they don't-"
"It's fine, I don't need to be sedated." Eric suddenly interrupted the doctor and stated with a relaxed tone.
Hearing this, everyone couldn't help but become shocked and let out audible gasps.
"Mr. Porter! You're... you're feeling okay? But how? Doesn't it hurt?" The doctor asked completely baffled.
"I'm used to it." Eric avoided answering the question directly and calmly replied.
"..." Everyone fell silent for a moment and stopped what they were doing for a while after hearing what Eric had just said.
But eventually, they all got back to it and accepted Eric's wishes even though they knew that they probably shouldn't of have.
A couple of minutes later, a woman nobody has ever seen before suddenly stepped into the room, and without a moment's hesitation, she pulled out a handgun in front of everybody.
"All of you, get out of here this instant. I won't ask again." The mysterious woman threatened them in a stern voice as she pointed her handgun at Eric.
Everyone immediately raised up their arms out of fright and moved away from where the gun was pointing at, but most people didn't leave the room right away and stayed inside.
"Listen, this patient is in critical condition right now, so we can't leave him be. Let us at least treat him first before leaving." One of the nurses who was brave enough to speak out tried reasoning with her.
The woman with the gun wasn't having it though and she cocked the gun.
Then...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
She fired 3 shots directly at Eric, hitting him in different areas each time.
That was when everyone assumed that there was no possible way they could save Eric anymore and all fled the room without even trying to put up a fight.
They might have the advantages in number, but nobody was willing to lead the charge and be the one to challenge the woman first.
Once everyone was out of the room, the woman locked the door to the operation room and aimed at Eric again from a far distance.
Afterwards, she shot Eric multiple more times until her gun magazine was completely empty.
Seeing that Eric's body laying lifeless there however, and that he didn't even move when she had shot at him, she assumed that Eric was dead and coldly stared at his body.
Still, just to make sure that he was fully dead and that he wouldn't somehow just get back up like it was nothing, she grabbed one of the scalpels off of the table that was next to her, went to the table where Eric was laying on, and lifted the scalpel up in the air in order to pierce his heart.
And that was where she had made her fatal mistake.
Because right before she could strike down at Eric and end him there at last, Eric suddenly opened his eyes, quickly got up from the table, grabbed her head before she could even react, and bashed it against his knee, causing her to completely miss her strike and hit him somewhere else instead.
"Agh!" The woman quickly fell to the floor and reeled in pain before hurriedly crawling back away from the table Eric was at.
Then with one hand held up against her eye where she had been struck by, she looked up at Eric.
And as her head was pounding extremely hard and feeling as though it was about to explode, she saw the immense amount of blood dripping all over his body.
There was so much blood in fact that it almost covered his entire body, and only the scalpel that was lodged into his body was the only thing that wasn't painted a shade of crimson from the neck down.
But just like last time, despite all of that, he showed no signs of weakness at all.
"First the parking garage, and now this?"
"Contrary to what I've thought about you, you've gotten reckless around me, haven't you?"
"Aurora."