The Return of the Injured (Solo)

[Maya Frostfawn]

Timestamp: Fall 14, 523 AV Maya sat in her flat, the air cool from what slipped in through the cracks. Illuminated by the sun's rising rays, which cast shadows that danced across the floor alongside the twirling dust motes that floated toward their surface. She had pulled her chair in toward the table and set up her new mirror so she could clearly see her face, her pale and sickly skin. She had set a small pile of dirt that she had dragged in from just outside her front door beside it, and was preparing to obscure her face with its dust, so she could leave her home and traverse Sunberth's streets in relative safety. She began by pulling her hood down, so its dark fabric pooled around her shoulders before reaching for a handful of dirt. She rubbed it between her fingers for a moment, testing its dryness. It trickled through her fingers as much as she brushed it into her skin, leaving a pale brown dust in its wake. This should do, she thought to herself as she refreshed the pile she held, before raising it to her pale cheeks and rubbing it in. As the last grains fell onto her shoulders, she reached for another pile to rub into her forehead. As soon as she had finished rubbing that pile of dirt in, she began to rub what was there around her face, to cover it in its entirety, to obscure the true nature of her pale skin. When she was finished, she took a moment to study herself in the mirror. She realized she didn't look very good. Not that she ever really looked very good considering that she was mostly dead and all, but she looked pretty bad with dirt rubbed into her skin too. Mainly because one could easily discern that dirt had been rubbed into her skin as though it were makeup. Perhaps this isn't the best way to disguise oneself after all, she realized, although there was little she could have done about it last season, with her lack of mirror and funds to buy proper makeup and other supplies in which to disguise herself. I'll just have to make due for today or I'll run late and I can figure something better out for tomorrow, she thought as she obscured her hands and wrists with the dirt next, before glancing at the floor, whose grime had a dustier, deep grey quality. She wondered how she would look if she mixed that into her skin, and carefully scraped a little off the floor before rubbing it into the back of her hand. It left a deep grey streak atop the brown, which allowed an idea to leap into her mind. She retrieved her disguise kit from its place and grabbed a makeup brush from within. She rubbed the grime she had just applied to her skin into her skin with the brush, swirling it around with the brown. It made it appear as though her skin was far darker than it actually was first and foremost, and it also made it appear as though she had been hard at work somewhere grimy. Somewhere dirty. Perhaps she had been cleaning and gotten a lot of grime upon her person during the process... or something. It was better than the straight dirt, she supposed, as she continued to survey herself, so she took a moment to collect more grime from the floor before returning to her seat and applying it to her remaining hand and cheeks, and brow, rubbing it in with the tiny makeup brush before setting everything aside, satisfied that she looked better than she had before, even if her appearance was one of a grubby worker. Having completed the initial phase of her disguise, she raised her hood high over her head, casting shadows over her skin, and obscuring one's view of her eyes and brows since they were so heavily shrouded in shadow. As soon as that was done, she took a moment to brush off the grime she had gotten on her clothes, which only made them appear grimier, like she had tried to clean them and clearly failed. On second thought, she realized, it kind of worked with the disguise, and thus, content with the thought that she was decently disguised, she rose from the table and set off toward another day of work as the good doctor's assistant. Word Count: 739

[Maya Frostfawn]

She tread the familiar streets that led to the place of her employment in silence. Before long, she found herself before the door she had opened so many times before, the door that led to darkness and screams. The cries of those who bled out in anguish. She could hear them now, calling, and steadily made her way inside the Clinic's doors, where she found the doctor toiling at something or other. They greeted one another, somewhat coldly, and being that they currently lacked patients, Maya went about tidying up a little while they waited for someone to arrive. Eventually, someone did, sweating and looking pale, holding his leg and gasping. It was the patient they had stitched up just over a week before. The one who had cut himself in the leg, and he was looking far worse for wear. Grey was sneaking its way into the paleness of his skin, his clothes were soaked with sweat, and blood was beginning to seep through the surface of his pants' leg where the injury would be. Maya blinked. There was no need to ask a question to where there was an obvious answer, obviously, he was feeling terrible or he wouldn't have returned. "You're back sooner than we expected," she commented as she moved over to him and helped him onto an operating table, her eyes never leaving the spot where his wound was hidden by his pants. "Did you listen to anything we told you when you were last here?" she asked, as the man settled onto the operating table and lay back. The man nodded, his body trembling. "You did not," the doctor commented as his eyes passed over their returning patient. "Or you wouldn't find yourself in such a state and back so early." The man grit his teeth. "I'm in a lot of pain," he commented. "Oh, we can tell," the doctor responded with a sinister smile. "Do something," the patient commanded. "We will... in time," the doctor commented, his sinister smile widening with each of his words. "We're going to have to cut your clothes again, to see what's happening. Pulling them off may add undue strain to your body and worsen your injury," Maya commented as she moved over to their storage cabinets and rummaged around until she found a suitable pair of scissors. Upon returning to their patient, she pinched the fabric of his bloody, sweaty pants away from his skin with her left hand, while snipping them away to provide a window onto his skin with the right. When she was finished cutting, she set the scissors down on the operating table beside her patient and surveyed the skin she had revealed with her work. It was covered in a mixture of blood and pus, which oozed continually out of the wound, past the stitches she had made. She couldn't tell because the injured portion of the man's skin was too messy, but she imagined he had torn at least some of his stitches somehow. "What rigorous activities have you been up to since we saw you last?" she inquired. The man shook his head. "You're lying," the doctor said as he came forward and set his right hand down on the man's shoulder, pinning him to the table. "You wouldn't be in this state if you had done what we told you." The man grit his teeth. "We're going to have to clean this wound before we do anything," Maya commented. It was rather obvious that this was the case and her words were probably unnecessary, but it was always good to announce what you planned on doing to someone before you did it. That was just good manners. So, she grabbed a wet rag from the bucket they used for this purpose, and took a moment to carefully wipe the blood and pus that was oozing out of the man's wound before returning the rag to the bucket. Her ministrations revealed the state of the man's injury. She had been right; several of the stitches were crusted with dried blood and torn, separating sections of the wound she had so carefully knit together a little over a week prior. The wound itself was red; she could see blood trying to seep out of it, alongside a pool of pus. And the skin all around it was a deep red and inflamed. The sickness it contained had certainly spread; it was infected. "You should have come sooner; this looks terrible," Maya commented. "I didn't have the time," the patient replied. "You should have found it; I'm not sure we'll be able to fix this now, but we will try," Maya commented as she picked up the scissors she had used to cut his clothes before and snipped some more of the threads she had used to knit him together previously. The doctor watched her work in silence. When she was done snipping the threads, Maya began pulling them out, one by one. Word Count: 831

[Maya Frostfawn]

Maya tried to pull them out softly, gingerly, so as not to aggravate the man's wound, but she could tell that no matter how hard she tried, she would hurt him at least a little, the wound was just so darned inflamed. The man's sharp inhalations through his grit teeth were also another clue, which indicated as much. "Almost done," she commented, as she pinched another bloodied strand of thread between her fingers and drew it out of his damaged skin, then another and another. "And done," she commented. When she was finished, she looked up at the doctor, a question on her lips. "What should we give him for this?" she asked. "Something for the pain and the redness, clearly, but what do you think would work best given how aggravated the wound has become due to his sheer lack of care and inability to follow simple directions?" The doctor smiled. It was a smile that reached his eyes, which was oddly enough, never a good sign. "We should knock him out first, because what we will have to do next will be quite painful and is likely to do it for us anyway," he commented. "And what should I give him for that?" she asked. "We could brew him some chamomile tea, among other things, but that would take too long..." his voice trailed off as he whacked their patient over the head, rendering them unconscious. Maya wasn't surprised by his actions; they were always erratic and a tad unpredictable, although his violent nature was usually pretty predictable. What surprised her, however, was his willingness to knock the patient out, usually, the good doctor liked to drink in their fear. The horror in their eyes, and most especially, their screams. "What should we do now, doctor?" she asked. "We'll clean the wound up," he said. "With what?" she asked, as she wiped a little blood away with the rag she retrieved from the bucket, now that she had noticed the wound oozing a little, before putting the rag back where she had found it. "We can rub some salt into it," the doctor commented. Maya frowned. "Won't that hurt?" she asked. "Yes, and that is precisely the point." Ahh... so he was in one of his moods, Maya realized as the doctor retrieved a jar of salt from their storage area and proceeded to rub it into the man's wound. The pain it must have inflicted was enough to rouse him, screaming. He began to flail on the operating table, but he had no where to go, for the doctor was pinning him down. "Maya," the good doctor instructed, "please hand me my bonesaw. A patient who can't follow directions doesn't deserve his leg. And even if he did, in this state, it isn't likely we'd be able to save it anyway. Working on him would only be a waste of our precious time." Maya nodded. "Yes, doctor," she responded as she searched around the room for his bonesaw a moment before handing it to him. "Here you are, doctor," she commented. "Thank you," he said, "please hold down his legs while I work," he instructed, forcing Maya to oblige as he set to work hacking away at the man's leg. He made swift cuts, sawing through the body quickly. The man screamed and flailed, but together, they managed to keep him mostly pinned down. "Your flailing will only make this process worse," Maya commented. The doctor said nothing; the screams made him feel alive. By the time the last cut had been made, the patient had bled out so much that he was dead, and Maya was instructed to help put him out back with the others they were forced to dispose of on a fairly regular basis. Something that Maya might have found alarming had she still been alive, given the fact that a doctor was meant to help and heal people, not hurt them. But she supposed, no one had ever bothered to tell this particular doctor. They were too afraid, especially when he was really the only hope the sick, injured and dying had around. Word Count: 691