Weighing my options in my mind only serves to stress me out more. As a doctor, I'm well aware that every second counts. If I'm going to act, it needs to be soon. If I'm actually going to do this, I'm only making the task more difficult by delaying. I need to decide. Now.

I'm running out of time.

Standing by the dying woman's shoulder, my eyes are drawn to her face. Through half-lidded eyes she looks without really seeing. The pain must be excruciating. She seems to relax momentarily only for her face to become pained again. She's losing consciousness. The shock from her injury is becoming too much for her to handle. Weak moans escape her lips as she tries to say something. I can't make it out.

My heart aches.

Turning on my heel, I make a dash down the length of her enormous body down to her abdomen. I can't believe myself. What the hell has come over me? This goes against everything I believe in. How will I face my wife? No, that’s not important. I’m a doctor—we don’t get the luxury of choosing our patients.

I'm going to try to save her while it’s still possible.

Grabbing fistfuls of her dress I climb up onto her stomach. Instantly I find myself falling onto my hands and knees. Her breathing, though weak, is short and rapid. The 'ground' I'm standing on is far from stable, making this that much more difficult. I glance over to my right, seeing the swells of her chest rising and falling with each agonizing breath. Poor thing.

After a few seconds I manage to find my balance again. I make my way over to the tear in her dress. She's got her hand on it, probably to stop the blood. It's doing little to help from what I can see. Blood has already stained her dress a deep crimson and continued to spill onto the street. 

This already looks hopeless. I need to see the wound. Depending on how deep it is, this could already be over. 

I push against her hand with all my might. It barely budges. Dammit, this is ridiculous. I'm running out of time. The position of her elbow means it’s impossible to push her hand off entirely. Maybe I can move it away? Turning around, I press my back against it and push with my legs. With a grunt and some inevitably pulled muscles, I manage to inch her hand lower. This space should be enough.

I step closer now, not caring that my shoes and most of my clothes are soaked in her blood. Good thing I wore black shoes, I guess. It's not the first time I've seen blood, though I will admit that this is a lot, even for someone her size. The flow doesn't seem to be slowing down either. 

I'm running out of time.

Pulling at the tear of her dress reveals an equally large wound beneath it. Its depth is hard to judge from here. Hm. I'm going to have to take a closer look. I might even need to get in there. The risk of infection is real but I'll take it over her certain death.

I strip off my jacket and shoes. The shirt and socks I'm wearing are not sterile, but I figure they’re clean enough. One careful step forward and I'm standing on her bare skin. My feet are met with an unexpected coolness from her body. Not good. How much blood has she lost? Looking around, I really can't tell. To me it's enough to fill a small swimming pool. If I had to guess I would say at least a couple hundred milliliters. 

"This is going to hurt. I'm sorry."

I plunge my arms into the wound and use some force to pull the skin apart. Some blood splashes onto my face but I wipe it off and continue. My goal is to make some space so that I can work. Thankfully my small size allows my hands into a space this narrow. Pain is par for the course but I won't be causing any more damage than there already is.

The woman cries out, groaning in pain. Her entire body shudders.

"Bear with me. I'm doing an impossible job as fast as physically possible." I whisper.

Once I create enough space, I reach my arm in as deep as it can go. I feel the bottom of the wound with my fingers. With my upper body partially in, I’d estimate it's about two inches deep. That's good. Maybe the guy didn't put his full strength into it? Whether that was a conscious decision or not, I doubt I'll ever know. All I can and should do is work quickly. There's hope for her yet.

My next goal is to determine if there's any perforation of the intestines. If so...I'm not sure there's any point in any of this. Laying on my stomach and leaning over into the opening, I check the damage. 

"Straight through the skin, fat, and muscle. Intestines seem fine, though. Barely missed them--damn that’s lucky."

I sigh in relief. Her risk of peritonitis just plummeted. Once I sew the blood vessels her risk of sepsis will also decrease significantly. That's the most important thing. That, and the blood loss. If I'm quick she can always get a transfusion to replace what was lost. At the current time, she's not lost enough for it to be life threatening. Yet.

I was fortunate to have brought my bag back with me from work. More importantly, it has my scrubs and jacket. There should be something in there I can use. I’ll need my surgical tools. Retrieving my coat, I check each and every pocket, as well as those in the bag. 

"All in all, pretty good. I can work with this."

Setting the contents down in front of me, I look over them once more.

"Sutures, two scalpels, needles, a syringe, flashlight, some gauze, a stethoscope, a bunch of empty vials, a bunch of filled vials, and a few bottles of antibiotics..."

Sealing the bleeding vessels is my top priority. I pick up a needle and sutures and get straight to work.

Leaning back in I see the source of most of the blood. A severed artery is gushing faster and faster with her quickening heartrate. She’s progressing towards hemorrhagic shock. There's no question now, I have to deal with that immediately. I reach into the warm pool and physically grab the exposed part of the vessel with my hands.

"Can't move…my arms...enough to...seal..." I grunt.

Frustration wells up in me. A split-second decision, though extremely unusual, ends up making things easier for me. With extreme caution I push my legs into the open wound before sliding the rest of my body in. Immediately I become stained red with her fresh blood.

"Mnnnagghhh...!" She starts to cry out in agony.

"I'm sorry. There wasn't any other way!" I yell back, my voice drowned out by her own.

To stop the bleeding, I tear off my sleeves and tie them around each side of the vessel like clamps. The blood flow nearly stops entirely. Thankfully veins are pretty stretchy things. Knowing that, I then take each side and pull them together in preparation for the sutures. I have to hurry since I doubt my 'clamps' will hold for long. 

The process of stitching the vessel back together is now doable. Of course, I only have Lilli-sized stitches at my disposal. There's no way to know if they will hold a body this large together. For good measure, I use five times as many as I normally would. It's a struggle, but the bleeding begins to slow down. 

"Nnnnghhh..." She groans.

It sounds like she doesn't even have the energy to cry anymore. My being in the wound probably feels unimaginably painful--like being stabbed all over again. For her sake I double my efforts, working even faster. Soon enough, I manage to repair the artery to a satisfactory degree. It's all I can do given the circumstances. Lastly, I untie each side and test my work. There's no more bleeding.

I exit the wound and her body shudders once more, knocking me over. Whatever pain I was causing seems to have mostly subsided. My work is still far from done, though. The wound itself needs to be stitched shut and it won't be a simple process. There's muscle, fat, skin to do, in that order.

Getting back into my laying position over the wound, I reach in to pull the flesh together. It's a whole other level of difficulty compared to sealing the artery. Someone like me--someone so small--simply doesn't have the strength. I doubt five of me would, for that matter. Maybe if I had more energy, but I’m still spent from moving her hand out of the way. In the end, I only manage to fix the muscle and some of the fat. The skin remains torn open.

"It's impossible. I don't have the resources to do something like this."

Options...I need options. What do I have? What can I try? I need to consider everything. There's a life at stake here. The amount of blood around me wasn’t too much before, but now it’s alarming. It’s easily a liter or more and that’s ignoring the potential infection.

I'm running out of time.

"With the tools I have, there's no way to do this conventionally. Okay, okay...focus on the goal. I need to prevent infection. The skin is a barrier, so I need something similar. A barrier..."

I reach to my right and feel the fabric of the woman's dress. The thinner, silky lining seems usable. At the very least it's the cleanest thing around in this filthy alley. Using a scalpel, I begin to cut away a large square. It's difficult--the surgical knife was never meant to cut things like this. As it's edge dulls, I find myself needing to compensate with more force. Not a moment later the blade snaps.

"Fuck. Fuck!"

The other scalpel will have to do the rest of the job. I continue cutting out the square shape before it snaps as well. Holding the soon-to-be substitute membrane before me, I nod in approval. This will do.

"No, I still need to disinfect this somehow. Getting in there definitely didn't reduce the chance of infection."

The antibiotic pills are what I use next. Though a cream would be better, or even an IV in this case, this may be the next best thing. I break the capsules one by one, spreading the powder in and around the area. I finish a bottle then open another, then another. I exhaust every single pill I have before running out. That has to be at least a couple hundred milligrams--enough to kill a Lilliputian adult many times over. Even with all of that, I'm well aware how little it is for her. If only I had more!

"Focus, focus. Need to seal this already." 

Laying the dress lining out over the wound, I stretch it out to cover every inch of it. All that's left is to secure it in place. Given my lack of resources, I'll need to get creative again. Plus, I'm running out of intact tools to use.

"Think. There's got to be something...?"

My first thought is to suture it to her skin but I'm already very low on the stuff. In fact, I'm low on all of my relevant tools. Despite being the final step of this treatment, it's no less important than the previous. If I leave this partially open gash exposed, I might as well have done nothing at all. She'll die within the week.

I survey my surroundings for something--anything that will do. Maybe she has something on her person? I gaze up and down the length of her body for pockets but see none. Good, I wasn’t keen on searching her. I proceed to scan the alley next. My eyes are drawn to her purse. Wait, didn’t the mugger take that? He must have been in such a hurry that he left what he came for in the first place.

"Why not? It's worth a shot."

I slide down her hip and head over to the expensive-looking bag. It’s tipped over since she dropped it, saving me the need to climb inside. I step into it and look around for anything useful. At first glance, nothing stands out to me.

"Perfume, her phone, hand cream, keys, a cardholder, extra earring backs, tissues, some breath-mints...but nothing useful. Come on, give me something!"

Scavenging through the various, oversized contents reveal something hidden under her phone. It's...a lighter. Beside it is a single cigarette and...something else. I stare at it for a moment, not really able to process anything other than the task at hand. My focus shifts back to the cigarette and I consider my options. 

"So she's a smoker? Strange. I didn't smell it on her at all. Maybe for someone else? Doesn’t matter. This could be useful, maybe."

I haul the lighter out into the street and drop it. Just moving it out here has drained my strength. To think she just picks this metal tank up like it's nothing...how unfair. I head back inside the purse to get the cig and the much lighter tube of hand cream. It takes me a minute but I manage to carry and drag what I need back over to her.

"Need heat. Just can't burn her in the process."

The cigarette comes apart pretty easily as I tear it. I take out the tobacco and only keep the filter and paper bits. It won't burn for long so I'll need to be fast again. I take the cream with me as I climb back up onto her. 

"Okay. If this doesn't work...well, I really hope it works."

I take the cream and spread it along the edges of the lining I cut out earlier. Placing it carefully on her visibly clammy skin, I press down on it firmly. The pressure is key here since I don't want it to be absorbed into the skin. Rather, I need this stuff to harden like glue. Again, time is of the essence.

"Now for the dangerous part."

Back down I go again, using this woman like some sort of slide. I don't have time to think about the silliness of the situation, though. Placing the flammable papers in front of the lighter, I use all my strength to pull the lid open. Fortunately, this isn't some cheap disposable item. Those would require a lot more force to get the flame going. All I have to do for this one is pop the lid.

"Here goes..."

A flame half my size explodes into being. The paper quickly lights and I remove it before it can burn too quickly. Back up I go, keeping the flame away from her dress and exposed skin. Standing over the 'membrane' I slowly move the paper around like a torch, heating the cream. I give each part about 30 to 45 seconds before moving to the next. Any longer and the paper will burn out before I can finish. 

As the flame nearly reaches my hands, I toss the last of the paper aside and away from my gigantic patient. Kneeling back down, I lightly tug at the lining. It seems solid so I give it a slightly harder tug. It doesn't budge. The cream hardened just as expected. 

Finally, my work is done.