A/N: All characters are Steph's, personalities are mine! This is my first story for Twilight, and ever, so I take constructive criticism well!
Hope you enjoy!
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It didn't take me long to figure out what was wrong.
I mean, initially, I knew something was wrong: the monitors were beeping drastically, my attending was yelling numbers at me that seemed to be in a foreign language, and my human was foaming like some rabid raccoon. The wife's prayers were going on and on I basically memorized them in all of the two minutes the chaos had started, and let's not forget the human who was seizing all over the place.
The lights were flickering—God knows we needed new lights—the nurses were doing all they could to help the situation, but, in the eyes of the attending, especially mine, it was a lost cause. Even if they singlehandedly saved this man's life, somehow they would be doing it wrong, and of course, get sent on a timeout.
Flipping through charts, pushing medicine through too-small tubes, and telling the wife he was going to be okay, wasn't exactly my forte. I knew the man was dying, and we had to move fast. Just with so many bodies in the room, I doubted that was possible since my attending is always putting her self where she doesn't belong, and thus making everything worse—but that's okay, that's what nurses are for.
The flickering light was really starting to bother me, to a point where I considered running to the switch and shutting it off myself just to get rid of the horrible migraine that was forming, but you can obviously see why that is a bad idea. Instead, I'll push through the headache, take as many Asprin as I can without overdosing and get on with my day.
It's not easy seeing these things happen everyday. You'd think one would be depressed and miserable taking care of patients, but we're actually just depressed for the workspace. As you know, our lights are horrible. However, we also run out of supplies daily, our needles almost all the time aren't as sterile as they should be, it smells like death, it's desert hot, and we don't have the proper clothing. The place has dirt all over the place, the monitors are so weak they're all hooked up to baby monitors, which are placed right near the actual monitor's speaker. We all carry our respective baby monitors for the day depending on what beds we are assigned. The air is hot and muggy making infection more prone than usual, however we don't have the sterile items either, so that could also be the problem.
We lose about one-third of our humans weekly due to infection, not having proper tools, or being sterile enough. The humans we lose range from newborns to elders, so no age is safe. Pregnant mothers usually die on the table due to being so openly exposed. A cough will quickly turn into the flu, which will turn into pneumonia, which soon leads to death. We don't have a mourge, so those humans who do die are put into a dumpster which is emptied weekly—which explains the death smell.
We're a small place composed of three attending's, four fellows, five residents, eight interns and three nurses. You may notice the numbers begin to dwindle as we progress further into our years of training and experience. It's because every year, humans catch the infections and diseases that we can't treat and eventually die.
You may be asking why I work here. And believe me, I ask myself the same question everyday. It's dirty, and disgusting, and horrible, and a death house—but it's not.
It's my home. A home that I was apparently dropped off at when I was three days old, before the Takeover; my parents essentially wanted better for me, and this used to be a better place before the Takeover. This is where all babies were dropped off in the utopian society. But off course I don't remember it, due to only being three days old. Soon, the town became a dirt place, next the city, then the state, country, continent, and world.
I've been here my whole life, and as crazy as it sounds, I've never contracted any disease. Maybe it's due to exposer my whole life, or maybe I'm lucky. Knock on wood. The others have been here since the Takeover. They took over when the others ran, leaving humans to easily become Victims. Not caring. Not noticing the horrific torture it would ensue upon the world. We banned together, to keep the world afloat with healthy humans. However we can't do that without proper tools and equipment and training.
Back to the human, however, the baby monitors were going crazy, and the foam hadn't stopped. Compressions weren't working and the man had fallen to the floor off the mattress.
Suddenly, he stopped moving. All movement and sound and breathing had stopped. There was another crash from another mattress across the area, and we knew we had failed again.
"Time of death: eighteen-twenty four," I said, as I ran to the next dying victim.
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