My first PoM story! Feedback would be much appreciated (:
Disclaimer: I don't own The Penguins of Madagascar or any other Dreamworks characters ):
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep…
The beeping was going to drive Private insane. He had been sitting in the same chair, in the same room, looking at the same faded paint on the wall, and just waiting for the same thing for the past month. Some people came and went, his surroundings remaining unchanged for the most part, but that beeping noise was always there.
He was sure it was mocking him.
The beeping was constant, day and night, and it never once sped up or slowed down. It was reminiscent of a metronome and that only served to irk Private more than before.
Beep. Beep.
Private sighed and closed his eyes, trying in vain to ignore the noise of the heart monitors. He had talked to the doctor about getting a muted monitor but he was met with firm rejection. The Beeps helped to serve the doctors with immediate information about the patient's conditions and muting it would result in an increase of potential loss of life. Private couldn't argue with that logic and forced himself to become more familiar with the constant beeping of the monitor monstrosities.
Private sighed once more and opened his eyes, glaring at the monitor with as much hate he could muster.
Although he was familiar with the special hospitals he and his team visited, the ward he was constantly visiting was one he wished he never knew about. The doctors were less attentive, less gentle with the patients. Probably because they knew what happened to the majority of their patients.
The ward Private had been visiting for the past month was called the "Head Trauma Ward." A special ward built for all of their head trauma patients. Being part of the special training, then going out for special missions, it wasn't uncommon to see and hear the gurneys rolling in and out of rooms, then up and down the hallways. Most of the time, the patient woke up since the head injury wasn't too serious in the first place. Well, serious enough to knock him out for a while but not serious enough to keep him knocked out forever. Those patients were usually out for about a week before going back to perform their duties as soldiers.
The longest anyone stayed in the ward was approximately two months. That was only if the unit received a sufficient amount of funding to keep their comrade in the doctor's care. Units usually lost their funding long before their friend woke up or the friend died. Either way, the expiration date was around the two month mark.
Private's friends just passed the one month mark and they had yet to show any signs of improvement. He continued receiving funds for his unit, which was odd considering how rare it was for the department to sponsor someone for more than two weeks, let alone three someones for over a month, but Private wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He heard the rumors about favoritism and bribery but at the end of the day, Private never cared enough or bothered to figure out why people were saying what they said.
Private sighed again and took another glance at the beeping monitor closest to him.
No change.
He spared a look at the two other beeping monitors in the room, only to see the same thing. He could feel the tears welling up again and had to look down, closing his eyes once more so as to focus on something else.
These people lying motionless in their hospital appointed beds were all he had left in the world. They were his fellow soldiers, his brothers in arms, his comrades, his friends. It hurt to see them so unchanging and motionless. Private wanted to shout out towards the sky, run outside in to the hallway and scream, runaway, or just take some sort of action. He felt so restless and useless and anxious all the time, it was all that ever occupied his mind.
When his mind had settled from his thoughts, he found himself with moist eyes and lack of breath. The room was quiet again, sans his heavy breathing and the beeping of the three monitors.
The sun was beginning to set and he could hear people shuffling out of the adjacent rooms, mumbling their goodbyes to un-listening ears. Private continued to sit and listened to the people moving outside of the room. Remaining unfazed and unmoving, Private allowed his mind to zone out while waiting for the designated nurse to come and dismiss him.
"Visiting hours is over, sir," the nurse said softly.
Startled, Private looked up and replied with a vacant, "what?"
The nurse frowned a little and did a once-over of the young man sitting in the corner of the room. He did this every night and it had become routine for her but every time she saw his eyes, her breath caught in her throat and her heart broke a little.
"Visiting hours is over, sir. I need to ask you to leave." The nurse spoke while trying to avoid his eyes. He was going to ask again and she couldn't bear to see his face when she gave him the answer.
"Have they improved?"
"Were there any change?"
"Did the doctor mention anything about their status?"
He always asked one of those three questions. He focused so much on those monitors and their condition, and it made her wonder if he thought about anything else.
"I'm sorry, sir. The doctor hasn't found any changes in their current condition at all. We'll let you know when anything changes."
Private just blinked at her.
The nurse decided to continue with her duties and busied herself with checking on her three patients. When she neared Private's corner, she cleared her throat and motioned for him to leave while still managing to not make eye contact.
"Right."
Private took a deep breath then sat up from his chair to leave. He walked slowly towards the door, avoiding his gaze from the three bandaged patients. Each step he took matched a beep from one of the monitors and Private felt his mind come into focus. That stupid beeping was never going to leave him alone and Private vaguely thought that maybe it was actually keeping him sane. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought before it could take root and hurried his pace. He stopped at the doorway to look at his friends one last time before turning in for the night.
Once home, Private rushed through his nightly routine of eating dinner, showering, then silently sitting on his bed before going to sleep.
The room felt so empty and he was beginning to feel lonely again. He felt lonely because there was a lack of heavy snoring from his older companions. He felt lonely because he couldn't feel their warmth and presence in the empty bunks that surrounded him. He felt lonely because he couldn't hear the refrigerator door opening in the middle of the night to provide a midnight snack to whoever woke up. He felt lonely because no one was there to comfort him from the numerous nightmares that woke him up at night.
Private was lonely because he missed his family.
Private let out a small sob before letting a few tears fall along his cheeks and onto the floor. Turning off the table lamp next to his bed, Private burrowed himself into his blankets and silently cried himself to sleep.
As Private started to drift into another night of fitful sleeping, he barely made out the sound of steady beeping coming from one of the beds. He tried to ignore it but his mind made one last effort to remember the source of the sound. Private's mind was succumbing to exhaustion when he realized what the sound was: an electronic clock that beeped off the seconds. The clock his leader kept by his bed because he said the steady rhythm helped him rest and remain vigilant at the same time. That only served to send Private off into dreamland with a sorrowful heart and the sound of constant beeps.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep…