STORY: Divided We Fall
Rating: T for now
Warnings: Violence, gore, possibly some sexuality later on
A/N: This is a short epilogue, to test the waters. Enjoy. Feedback is appreciated.
Chapter One
"Epilogue"
Once the infection started, it spread fast, like a weed. Antibiotics had little to no effect, and the fever took 10K within 24 hours. It was only another day before he had fallen into a coma. Another few hours before his heart gave out under the fever, and his breathing stopped. All hope lost for his recovery... the infection had only taken three days to put him on the edge of death. And then he had slipped over the edge.
"He's not responding!"
"Hit him again! Harder!"
"It's not working, Addy! There's no pulse, no breathing-"
"Damn it, Doc, move over!"
"Addy... the compressions are only injuring him more..." the Doc's voice trailed off to silence, cut off by tight emotion.
"I said move! Come on, 10K... come on..."
"Doc, let her try..." Warren's voice had a few broken notes. "Just let her try..."
Doc slumped back against the side of the van, his face sweaty, his hands held before him. 10K lay on the floor in the back of the van, lifeless, his eyes halfway closed. With every compression that Addy applied to his chest, blood leaked out from between the opened bandages. Under the gauze, the boy's wounds were festering visibly. The skin was red and swollen around the clear, plastic tube, and there were dark, vein-like threads spread up and down his body from the site of the infection, under his skin.
"We should have known..." Vasquez's accented voice muttered somewhere near by. "Injuries like that... we could not have expected to-"
"Shut up!" Yelled Addy, continuing to perform CPR. She bent over 10K's face and tipped up his chin, pinching his nose shut with her fingers and breathing into his mouth. She breathed for him again, and again, then straightened up and returned to the chest compressions, one after another, at a fast pace. "COME ON!"
"Addy, he will not make it," said Vasquez in a quiet voice.
"Yes he will! Yes he WILL!" After another sharp compression, she bent over him again to breathe for him.
Just then, Murphy's voice cut across the others, loud and commanding. Uncharacteristically commanding, so much so that it stopped the others in their tracks.
"Everyone stop what you're doing."
Addy looked up, taking her lips from 10K's mouth and letting go of his nose with her fingers. Doc turned slowly to look at Murphy, his face pale under the sweat, and his eyes glassy. Warren and Vasquez gave Murphy their attention, too, as silence fell over the occupants of the van.
"That's better," said Murphy. Though his voice sounded tense, there was a measure of confidence to it that struck the others, whether they wanted to take notice or not. "I think we all know the way this has to go." Murphy's eyes moved slowly from the faces of his comrades, flickering to 10K's unmoving form on the floor. The blue-skinned man swallowed hard, hesitating a moment, before looking back to the others. "There's only one thing that will save his life, and all of you know it."
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A/N: Yes, I know it's short. Like I said, just testing the waters. Seeing what people think about this story arc.