1st host, Iza Redal: Your best is not enough!

Posted on Mon Nov 1st, 2021 @ 10:13pm by Lieutenant Myne Redal
Edited on on Thu Dec 23rd, 2021 @ 7:33pm

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Trill Homeworld
Timeline: cca. 400 years ago
1219 words - 2.4 OF Standard Post Measure

//ON//

The disease had been wreaking havoc among the local population for two years now, and they still weren't even close to finding a cure. Their greatest minds could not understand what had caused this pathogen, nor how it could be cured. All they could do is work on damage control.

Whipping tears from her face, the doctor sighed and looked outside through the dirty glass of the bathroom window. The forest looked peaceful and quiet, she longed to be able to enjoy such serenity. Her patients were waiting for her, waiting and hoping she could ail their pain while she worked desperately to try and find a cure.

Resources were scarce and so was personnel. Few of them were naturally immune to the pathogen and they were needed to help in other areas as well. Without proper manpower at her disposal or medical supplies, the doctor felt overworked and exhausted. There was so much she could do with the handful of nurses that were still part of her staff.

It was getting harder and harder to deal with the suffering these poor people went through. The screams and cries were heartbreaking, but she had to push on, for them, for her friends, family, and people. The man strapped to his bed screamed like a beast possessed, straining against the leather straps. Power went out two days ago and the operating room was useless now. This had turned into a field hospital, and she had to work with what she got. Making the first incision earned her more screams from the man.

"PLEASE!!" The man screamed.

"Try and bear it!! You will die if I don't do this!! Please, I am doing my best here!" She tried to calm him down.

"Please!!" The man cried and sobbed.

"Your symbiont is sick, and it is killing you! I must find where it is bleeding from!!"

She tried to block his words from her mind as she continued. The operation took over an hour, leaving her exhausted by the end. But she managed it, in the end she really did. The man was sleeping down, she had given him a painkiller, even if those were in short supply. The symbiont looked healthy now.

"Doctor, are you feeling alright?" A nurse looked up at her from the chair at the end of the patient ward.

"Yes, just tired. Any news from the city?"

"Nothing good ma'am. The situation is getting worse and even those unjoined have started dying. They are sending several our way."

"But what are we doing to do with them? We are out of bed, meds, everything really. Can they restore power at least?" The doctor asked exasperated.

Shaking her head, the nurse sighed. "No ma'am, they said they can't spare the manpower for it. Civil order is breaking down."

"Did they get any further with their research on the cause of the pathogen?"

"Not really, they said it is something affection the symbionts that jumped to the host and from there to others. They... asked to tell to continue your own parallel research."

"Damn, I guess I will go back to the lab then. Can you bring the woman that died yesterday? I want to do her autopsy and see if our latest attempt did anything."

"I brought her there earlier doctor."

"Thank you."

Exhaling from exhaustion, the doctor nodded and headed slowly to her lab. It would be a long night, maybe she could sneak in an hour or two of sleep after the autopsy. Hopefully, no one would fault her for sleeping, even though her patients needed her. This was too much...

A few days later things looked even grimmer. The man died, so did other of her patients and by now she was out of painkillers. Her nurses looked even more tired than she was and the morgue was full. They were out of beds and she even had to go out to the forest to bring the new wave of patients in.

All had the same symptoms, internal bleeding, fever, and behaving erratically. Even those without symbionts. Though those were the worst cases and she needed to operate on them as quickly as she could. Still, this did not stop the pathogen from killing her patients.

Back at the nurse's station, she stood on a chair staring blankly at the table, her nurse silent as well.

"We can't go on like this." She sighed trying to hold back tears.

"No we can't ma'am. But you have to hold yourself together." The nurse said softly. "We are all counting on you doctor."

"I know, it is just. I need to sleep, I need to rest and our patients are in so much pain. There is so much guilt, every hour I sleep means more suffering they have to endure and more deaths."

"Ma'am, without you even more would have died already. Please, you have to keep going."

"You keep saying that, but every day I feel that I am more and more alone in this. Where are the others?"

"Priaos and Koog have died. You were tired, but you tried to operate on Priaos, she died yesterday, fever. Koog unfortunately, couldn't take it anymore, he took the easy way out."

"So only you are left Nolid? Thank you, I don't think I could do this without you."

"Don't worry doctor, I am here for you, till the end."

Taking Nolid's hand in hers, the doctor teared up and nodded. "Thank you Nolid. I guess I should go back to work. Hang on in there."

With that the doctor returned to her patients. Why wasn't the city sending help? At least painkillers and other much needed precious meds. How could they be so cruel to just dump these people here without giving her the means to help treat them.

She made no progress in her research either. Taking the dead symbionts and opening them up did not reveal any cause for the pathogen. The unjoined patients did not reveal anything new either.

Walking between the rows of beds, whimpering and crying patients she stopped. She could head something, something loud. At this hour late in the night? Light suddenly illuminated the hospital and the patient ward.

"This is the security force. Doctor Iza Redal, come out with your hands up or we will open fire." A voice boomed from outside through a speaker.

What were they talking about? The doctor stopped to look around and for the first time she noticed something was amiss. The hospital was not like she remembered it. It seemed suddenly old, very old, decrepit even.

The patients around there looked at her terrified, crying, sobbing. The dead, disfigured bodies of those who died still tied to their beds.

"Nolid?!" Iza asked and turned to look at the nurse only to see her rotting body resting against the wall. A knife having gone through her temple and pinning her to the wall, right next to her desk.

Looking down she saw her clothes and hands stained with layers of dried and fresh blood. Falling to her knees, Iza Redal began to cry. What happened? How, why... a gun could be heard firing and everything went dark for her.

//OFF//

Doctor Iza Redal
Chief of Medicine - Henora Hospital Trill
Former Redal Host