Saying Goodbye

Dr Reid walked quickly out of the boys' ward, blood sample in hand. He hated drawing blood from the patients, as it was rare for someone to actually be willing to part with their life source, and this boy was nothing special in that respect.

Max, although a perfectly well-spoken individual, threw a such a massive tantrum when he saw the needle coming. Yes he was inebriated, but surely he wouldn't thrash in his bed quite so much! The thrashing then led to several shattered needles littering the floor, which was a complete waste of resources as far as Dr Reid was concerned.

Sighing to himself, Dr Reid pulled a petri dish from a drawer and squeezed out the blood into it. From the same drawer he also took out a small pipette, with which he a dribbled a drop of the blood from the petri dish on a small glass slide. He slid the slide beneath a microscope and glanced quickly at it on the monitor, ensuring that he could see the alcohol in Max's bloodstream.

Dr Reid then took another extract of blood from the petri dish to see exactly how much alcohol was in his system, which he would then use to calculate roughly how long it would take for Max to become clean.
Suddenly, Dr Reid heard his watch beeping, which meant that it was the end of his shift. With lifted spirits, Dr Reid hurriedly tidied away the tools – he dumped the used pipette and micro slide in to the wash basin to be cleaned and sterilised later, and sealed the petri dish full of blood. He placed the dish of blood in the freezer, after labelling it of course.

Max Rivers, 20245

Dr Reid headed out, whistling.

Unfortunately, in his tiredness and haste, Dr Reid didn't see the crucial element floating around in Max's blood.
He didn't see the thousands of white blood cells.
He saw the alcohol, sure, but that's what he was looking for. He didn't expect anything else.

And Dr Reid most certainly didn't expect anything important.

Or anything life-threatening.