It always came back to blood. One needed blood to live. Lose too much blood and die. Statistically, the average human being has five liters of blood in his or her body, the amount varying depending on the health and physical size of the person. Losing half or a full liter of blood will not cause too much damage to the body. Losing two of those liters of blood will result in danger but not definite death. Losing two and a half or even three liters of blood will cause death unless a miracle happens. Any more blood is lost, and the person is dead.
Abigail knew this. She had been studying blood ever since she noticed she bled more than anyone else she knew. Her nose bleeds took five minutes to stop on good days and up to an hour on bad days. Her menstrual cycle was heavy for the first six days and dragged on lighter until twelve days had passed before ending. This process began again after exactly fifteen days had passed. None of her doctors could prescribe any medication or procedures that would fix the problem without making her infertile and she wanted to give birth one day. Any cuts or scraps she got would flow for way too long before scabbing over, even if the cut was small.
She lost blood way too often to be humanly healthy. Nothing she tried seemed to fix her. Now here she was, bleeding out once more, only this time from a bullet in her shoulder. She had pushed the store clerk out of the way in time but had not been faster than the bullet as it pierced her flesh. She clutched at her injured shoulder, struggling to apply pressure as the robber was arrested and paramedics approached.
“I bleed a lot more than average,” she warned as the paramedics took over applying pressure, asking her to move slightly so they could put her on the stretcher, and checked her vitals. “I’ll need a blood transfusion soon. I’m AB positive. This happens a lot, not the bullet, but the bleeding, so please believe me when I say I’ve already lost at least a pint by now.”
“Alright, sweetheart,” the closest paramedic replied. “We’ll double check, just to be sure, but we will make a note of that, and we will do our best to take care of you.”
Abigail nodded with a grunt as her eyes rolled back in her head.
“She may have lost more than what she said,” she heard one of the paramedics say as her vision went dark and the world quieted around her.
She woke to a beeping monitor beside the hospital bed she was lying in. An IV was pushing blood into her system while another was providing what was likely causing the numbing sensation in her body. Both doctors and nurses were crowded around her, checking her vitals and responses to various stimuli. It was another one of those days. It always came back to blood.