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It only took him slamming his body against the front door for it to open.
He was weak. Damaged, bloody. A bit of his shirt had been ripped off to bandage a deep wound on his forearm, and his hair had been all scuffled and tossed around. Sunglasses scratched deep, the view through his right eye was as good as gone. His hopeless grabs and shoves left the slightest smears of blood on all he touched, and he was bruised and cut all over. He looked like an awkward mix between a demented serial killer and a zombie back from the dead. So, when he forced himself into the house of a stranger with the hope of finding medical supplies, them screaming and running out the back door came of no surprise. It had happened with a good handful of people by now, with nobody ever stopping to hear him out.
This was fine, this was fine. He knew what to do by now.
This person had no medical kit in their house. They had no bandages, but the little bottle of hydrogen peroxide in their kitchen cabinet was close enough. After a minute or two of struggling with the child-proof lid, wondering what idiot designed this thing, it finally cracked open. Dabbing it onto some of his more minor scratches and cuts, he winced at the pain. Vaguely in his mind was a memory of being told off for doing this exact thing to his wounds in the past– but hey! You only live once, huh? Even if this is making it worse, it’s worth a shot. And, when he had gotten most of the obvious cuts and dabbed off the bubbling chemical, he didn’t even bother sealing the bottle back up.
Digging through the rest of the kitchen cabinets returned nothing, only his hands slipping and failing on him, dropping boxes of cleaning supplies and dirtied equipment all around him. A near-empty fridge, containing only what looked to be last year’s leftover pasta, was as good as useless. He was hungry, sure, but he was also scared to eat it, and that was not a risk he was willing to take– not even on his deathbed.
Scouring the house gave him nothing he could use as recovery, and his head was beginning to spin from the blood loss. He could feel his heart from where it was lodged in his throat– a vile feeling that only motivated him harder. He had to find something to help him. House after house had come and gone, and searching through this one was really his last chance. Breathing was beginning to feel impossible now. And if he doesn’t find something soon, he might–
No! He can’t! Not here, not now, he’s not gonna die ! What’s in the medicine cabinet, he hasn’t checked there yet, is there anything he can use there? He hurried to the bathroom, his awkward lean against the wall as his only support.
Throwing pill bottles with labels he doesn’t quite understand to the side, he eventually strikes gold. A medkit, tucked firmly in the back, that he wrestled to pull out. It had just about been jammed in there, and cracking it open to use the contents only revealed a– a– is that a health pipe ?
He breathed a sigh of relief, and instantly coughed up little specks of blood. A health pipe wasn’t quite what he expected to find inside, but it could work. This wouldn’t fix him, but it’d last him long enough to get to a hospital. A scenario played out crystal clear in his imagination– he’d walk in, numb from a mix of the pipe and his wounds, and claim there he’s been shot up by the cops, maybe even get a few of them fired? Deface their careers a bit? Though some part of him found that idea fun, he had more important things to worry about right now.
He sat down against the bathtub briefly to light up the pipe. As far as luck goes, he seemed to be starting up a good little streak of it. Holding the pipe, he struggled to keep it steady as he forced himself over to the house phone. Exhaling with a puff, he dialled ‘911’ one-handed, pipe still in the other. What comes next in his plan is a practiced act, where he needs to make himself seem like the victim here. Putting on a high-pitched, agonised voice and occasional whimpers of pain would be his ticket to success, and he dug a fingernail into an open wound near his abdomen to make the pained screams seem that much more convincing. Slumping down against the floor, he heard the calm, rehearsed speech coming from the other end of the phone.
‘911, w–’
“Help!” he yelled into the receiver, cutting off the person at the other end. “My house– it’s been broken into! I’ve been shot!”
Coughing and gurgling a bit to really lean into that ‘dying homeowner’ vibe, he hung up before they could say whatever comes next. Because he knows exactly what will happen now. An ambulance will show up, and they’ll believe this house is his own. All he has to do is fake as much of an injured, dazed state as to not be able to answer any of their questions. So long as he doesn’t disclose his name, and nobody asks for any paperwork, he can rest in the hospital, use a fake name, and sneak out to avoid paying fees. Simple enough. He just hoped his ‘panicked civilian’ voice was convincing enough to avoid being seen as a false alarm.
Spluttering up blood, throwing the health pipe aside, he grabbed himself in a hug until help came.