DISCLAIMER: DON'T OWN THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS HARRY POTTER. OR DRACO MALFOY.
Okay, I PROMISE that there will be Harry/Draco later on, but for now, this chapter is all Draco's time to shine. Happy (late) Halloween, y'all!
~Michi
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Blood.
Invisible.
It coats my hands, spatters my face, inconspicuous to those around me.
I walk the halls of this damned hospital with blood on my hands, in my hair, on my face, infused into my conscience. Past nurses, oblivious to my plight. Past doctors, who pretend nothing is wrong.
That's right. Nothing's wrong. This is a perfect hospital, albeit a bit small. We have decent doctors, we're clean, we're hospitable (ha, ha). Our patients come ailing, leave happy.
Except for some.
There are cases that set foot inside the hallowed doors of this esteemed hospital who are too far gone to save. Many can tell from the first look that 'this one's not gonna make it'. They gasp for air through constricted lungs, struggle to maintain their own heartbeats, when all they want to do is die. All their humble soul asks for is a quiet place to lie down, close their eyes, and wait for the angel of death to relieve them from their nightmares. Sure, they may be sad at leaving behind those they love, but they'll see them soon, be it heaven or hell.
But their bodies, the selfish bastards, don't want to lie down and die with dignity. They force the patient to go on living, kicking and screaming, shredding each and every last piece of self-respect that one can have on one's deathbed.
And they all die anyway. Every last one of them.
I've seen it so many times, it's a wonder I haven't gone mad yet. Or have I? The insane look in their eyes when they arrive to the glazed-over serene look when they see the light over the horizon of that last breath. The doctors don't even try to save them at this point. Those medical soap operas? Please. There are no doctors armed with sedatives and defibrillators demanding that the patient live to see their significant other. There are no nurses who cry at the sight of a peaceful body suspended in death's talons.
There's only me. The Peaceful Expiration Specialist.
That's the crackpot term the whackos who run this damn place use for someone who specializes in the ancient art of euthanasia. I kill those who are in pain.
It doesn't matter who. I've killed men, women, children, infants just born moments ago. Each soul that leaves its vessel by my hands is just another sin on my soul. Just one more blemish couldn't hurt, right?
Wrong.
It still hurts each time I administer the fatal dose of pancuronium bromide. The victim struggles through their own pain and my injection, jerking and convulsing until each of their respiratory muscles is completely paralyzed. When they realize they can't breath anymore, their bodies attempt one more time to pass air by way of mouth, but it is futile. Their fate was set the moment they walked through our hospital doors.
The family, of course, is always in tears, crocodile or not, when I bring them the news of their dearly beloved's death. They hug each other through their tears and are quiet, save for the sound of loud sobs, usually coming from the females of the group. But they leave soon after, gathering up their loved one's possessions, arguing over the last will and testament, learning to heal, and everything goes back to normal.
But one thing is certain: I will never learn to heal.
I take on the sin of murder to allow one in pain to pass on to the next life. Yet I also brutally snatch the feeble life of a child away, never giving them a chance to learn, to laugh, to love. Does that make me a saint or a murderer?
Why do I take on this sinful job? I feel it is my punishment. It is my eternal sanction for a past crime that still stains my past a brilliant sanguine.
The first person I killed here was a child. Her name was Matilda; a plain name, a plain child. Her features were no prettier clean than saturated with blood, like when she first came in. I still remember the chart stapled to the foot of her hospital bed, even though I had only come into her room once: to end her life.
Her full name was Matilda Jennings Worsfold. Age: ten. Height: four feet, six inches. Weight: eighty-seven pounds. She had been in a car accident, with several broken ribs, a fractured skull, blood in the brain, and lacerations lining her body. I had been told, to ease my guilt no doubt, that she wouldn't live to see the sun rise. I believed them.
They say the first time's the hardest. It wasn't difficult to kill Matilda Jennings Worsfold. In fact, it was simple. Her face was so annoying, her breathing labored and raspy to the point one wanted to scream, "Shut up!" to her prone body. It was just so simple to place my hands around her neck, to squeeze harder and harder, and eventually, the only sounds in the room were my own raspy breathing and the incessant droning of the flat liner beep.
It was so easy to do it. So why did I feel so guilty afterwards?
It's not natural for a man of twenty to cry. It's even less natural for a grown man of twenty to emit such loud, pathetic sobs that I emitted on that cloudy November day in the men's faculty bathroom on the third floor.
I came out of the bathroom like nothing had happened. I had waited for my nose to return to its original shade of ivory instead of the rubicund color it always turned during tears; waited for my colorless eyes to stop shedding fat droplets of water that fell, emotionless, into the depths of the sink.
That was the only time I cried. I don't cry anymore; can't cry anymore, for fear of my sins catching up with me.
They have to sometime.
But for right now, I, Draco Malfoy, shall remain as sinless as the snow that frosts my window, coating everything but the secrets that truly need to be covered.
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I, Michi, solemnly swear that I am up to no good by finishing this story. Mischief managed.
~Michi