I make my way up the white corridor, smiling, it is the best part of my day. I walk past the many empty rooms, dark reminders that I will ignore, my shoes clicking on the tiling of the floor as I reach my destination, the rattle of my trolley greeted with excited murmurs and impatient grumbles as I make my way into the childrens ward.
“Feeding time for my little monsters!” I grin as the children who are ambulatory mob me.
“Me first!”
“Nuh uh!”
“Rafee, Rafee, lookit…”
“I drew a picture!”
The babble surrounds me, bouys my spirits. They are so small and fragile, but they bounce back so quickly. The front is many kilometres away, but many of these children have lost family and other things to the encroaching battle. I distribute the food with a smile, there is enough for everyone today, and I will never tell them why.
With everyone fed, I move amongst the bedridden, checking their healing, their bandages and more. Genrtle words pass from my lips, I cannot remember them even moments after, but perhaps the now is all that really matters. In each of them I see the sister I left behind and hope only that she is in a better position than these. A sharp voice cuts across my visit and there is silence in the ward.
“Athi!”
Icy cold and indignant, she uses my personal name to shame me, to let me know she knows all about me, my past, and the whys of it all… at least she believes she does.
“Yes, Doctor Lanari?”
The deference in my tone and the use of her title somewhat mollifies the harriden, but she rallies easily, never far from displeasure.
“You are late on your rounds, wasting time with pointless frippery. Get moving, or I will see you out of this hospital by the end of the day!”
I quickly gather my things, the flush of adrenaline cold through my system. I know cognitively that she cannot fire me, we are understaffed as it is, but her tone and the hints of her accent are ingrained deeply in me, even here, far from the Ascendancy. Even if she did fire me, I would not go… there would be no one to catch all her mistakes.
Lanari was born with everything I never had, and she never questioned that superiority, her superiority. Her family bought her the title I sacrificed so much to never win. She claims she is out here to spread the superiority of Chiss medical skill to the outsector savages, but her bodyguards had confided that her family sent her out here to avoid the malpractice suits. She should be nowhere near the front as we are now, but if she has one redeeming quality it is a fearlessness bordering on insanity.
The rest of my rounds are uneventful enough. Feeding, changing, cleaning; Warm words for the living, gentle honesty for those waiting to die. The hours pass in shades of white and black and red and yellow and brown and blue, the colors of bodies, alive and dead and in between as we do what we can.
The Alarms rouse me, three sharp blarts, repeated over and over. My blood runs cold and I have never been more awake in my life. The alarm cries throughout the entire city, deafening and demanding.
Seek shelter, seek shelter, seek shelter.
Fire from the sky, fire from the sky, fire from the sky.
There is no time to dress, to think, to do anything, I am out of the on call room in moments, my shift all that stands between me and the night air. I run, bare feet on tiled floor as I hear the first distant crumps of explosions, of orbital bombardment, growing closer, and closer and closer.
I dodge and weave between other staff and patients, some orderly, some lost in the chaos as I run for the ward. My ward. The children. My children. I am almost there, I hear them crying in fear and confusion, I hear them call for me, but suddenly there is an arm around my waist, strong and hard, blue skin ignoring my scratching, my kicking and biting. I scream my rage, my hate, as I am dragged from those who need me, the dazzling light and the roar of the blasts, I am dragged around a corner, those behind are shredded by flying glass, burned by superheated air.
Things blurr, Lanaris face, her bodyguards running, dragging me, the building trembling, crumbling. Burnt flesh and hair and skin, blood and bone, blinding light and screams and deep, harrowing darkness. Eventually I am running, too, my body making decisions my mind cannot, Lanaris bodyguards move through the press towards the shelter doors, their pistols vomit bolts of energy as they clear a path for their mistress and for me. They kill to live, and the stink of burning is closer and more bersonal.
An eternity has passed now. We are through the doors, the sounds of all those dying outside are muffled, but the screams and shouts of those within are not. Lanari and her guards closed the doors with dozens still outside, and the fight for the doors continues as I hide in the corner, sobbing, lost.
Their shouts stop as the lights flicker. There is a moment of stillness and silence, in slow motion I watch as the cracks spread across the roof in a slow wave. I remember laughing as the roof falls, flesh and bone giving no true resistance to the rock and plascrete that was meant to preserve them.
All is dark and still now. There are no cries. No shouts. Even the pain in my crushed leg and broken arm have faded. I do not know how long it has been, but I am not sad. I am not afraid any more. They are waiting for me, you see. The twenty seven I left behind, was not strong enough to save. My children. Dead, waiting. I will be with you soon, I promise.
Time has passed and there is sound again, voices and machines, rock is moved and there is blinding light.
Wait for me…
…Just a little longer.