I was cocooned in a crinkly silver blanket. There was a mask on my face, and I forgot oxygen could be this clean. When I tried to rip it off, a staying hand caught me.
"Best to let it be." A temperate voice, but firm. "The air down there was all kinds of bad news."
I didn't have the energy to tell him that it didn't matter, that I didn't get sick days. That I didn't need them. So instead I let my head fall back against the seat, my thoughts slide back into oblivion, having to trust wherever we were going couldn't be worse than where I'd been.
The next time I was conscious I found myself in a white, white room. I was hooked up to machines. Slowly, I sat up, and determined I was more or less in one piece. I tore the IV out like the loose cannon in an action film, not willing to be rendered immobile. I took in the situation, trying to decide where I was exactly. A med bay, for sure. There were clear cases full of syringes, supplies, and pill bottles locked up with prescription-strength paranoia.
Mend their bones or mend your own.
My lungs were collapsing like dying stars, burning out their oxygen as my vision narrowed and the ringing of shell casings bouncing off tile filled my ears-
I dug my nails into my skin, finding reality in the crescent slivers of moon they left. I was not that woman sitting in the corner, hugging her knees as she tried to keep out of the way of the blood spatter.
As far as the government was concerned, I was saccharine script on a gravemarker in Kansas.
"You really should have left those in." It was that same mild-mannered voice from earlier, breaking the quiet where his footsteps didn't.
"I don't know what's in those tubes. So they don't get to stay." My voice was rough from sleep and a half-crushed trachea.
"I can understand that." There was something about the lines around his eyes that made me think maybe he did. He took a few more steps into the room and I tensed. He paused, pursing his lips. I was so fatigued, I was becoming transparent. "Look, you don't have to worry about any trouble from me. I'm just here to make sure you get out of here okay."
"Do you run this place?"
"No, thank God. I'm—" He seemed to struggle to label himself. "I'm a doctor."
"So tell me—why am I the only one here?" There were four empty cots in the room.
"To be honest—the people I work with, they've got a lot of questions. And you're the only one in any kind of shape to answer them."
"They're dead, aren't they?"
"A lot of the cell bailed, some are in our custody now." He said. "And yes, there were casualties."
"No." I swallowed. "Good. Fine. Are my cellmates—how many of them survived?"
The Good Doctor shifted his weight.
"You."
My mouth still tasted like arsenic.
"Yeah. Yeah, I thought it might be like that."