Cheng- Macau
Alin- Romania
Andrei- Moldova
Kim-ly- Vietnam
Carlos- Cuba
Alfonso- Ecuador
Mohammad- Egypt
…
Damn this is late. Still, at least I can say with complete honesty that this will be finished before Halloween… 2015. It'll definitely be finished before then…
More blood and heavy topics in this chapter.
...
Lunch break at last.
Stelios entered the reasonably busy canteen, nodding to a few people he recognised as he made his way towards the queue for food. Luckily he'd been so overworked that he'd got a late lunch and managed to avoid it at its busiest, so now there were plenty of seats to choose from.
On one table, Cheng Wang was helping his elderly father eat soup, despite the man's loud complaints that it tasted awful. On another, a young blonde woman sat drinking a coffee by herself, knowing she couldn't afford to spend the rest of her tenner on food and, on another, Alin Radacanu was talking and joking with his little brother, Andrei, to distract the child from the cast binding one of his arms.
Stelios ordered a lasagne, smiling as Kim-ly spooned it onto a plate. She didn't smile back, but then again, she hardly ever smiled when her friend Niran wasn't around. The other member of canteen staff, Eduard, was refilling a tray of chips.
Dr Kirkland was sat at a table with two of the paediatricians, Carlos and Alfonso, and Stelios decided to join them, carrying his tray and greeting them with a smile.
"Hey, Dr Angel," began Carlos, leaning forward with his phone clutched in his hand, "have you heard?"
"Heard what?" Stelios sat down and began shovelling piping-hot pasta into his mouth; who knew how long he had before his pager went off again? He swore that thing was out to get him. Haunted by his own pager? Great, just great.
"What do you mean 'what'? Where have you been all day?" Alfonso piped up, "this school in Kent was put under lockdown and when the police finally got in, everyone was dead! The kids, the teachers, cleaners, everyone!"
"What? You're joking with me!"
"That's what I thought at first," Arthur told him, "but it's true, apparently. Look." Carlos passed his phone over to Stelios, open on a page in a newspaper's website and the young man's mouth dropped at the news article he was reading.
"But how could something like this happen?" The entire population of a school in Canterbury had been brutally murdered? How was something like this allowed to happen? And so suddenly?
"That's the thing," Carlos spoke up again, leaning back as if happy to be the centre of attention and the one in the know, "the police have no idea either! They're saying it's a terrorist attack, but it doesn't sound like one. And that's not the strangest part."
Stelios leaned in closer. "What is?"
"The bodies," Carlos had the full attention of the table now, "when the forensics examined them, they looked like they'd been dead for weeks. They were all rotten and gross, but they'd only been dead for a few hours."
"What?" Arthur wrinkled his nose, "that's disgusting!"
"How do you even know all this?" Stelios raised an eyebrow.
"It said in a different article," Carlos shrugged, "I'll find it in a moment."
"There's no need," Stelios took another, shaky mouthful of pasta, "I believe you."
"Well I need proof," Arthur stated, "come on. Cough up."
Carlos rolled his eyes, snatching his phone off of Stelios to find another article.
"Safe to say I'll be giving Canterbury a miss," Alfonso commented, "shame. I wanted to visit that Cathedral sometime."
"But this has happened before!" Carlos looked up for a moment, "all over the world in schools, hostels and hospitals, and other public buildings with vulnerable people! And recently too."
"Yeah?" Stelios exchanged disbelieving glances with Arthur, "where?"
"Two cities in China," Carlos' brows furrowed as he tried to remember, "one in Finland, one in Mali, one in Albania, three in Ethiopia, one in Ecuador."
"What?" Alfonso grabbed the phone off Carlos, "come on that isn't funny! Stop joking around!" He scrolled through the article.
"I'm not joking," said Carlos, voice flat, "trust me, I wouldn't do that to ya. This messed up shit is real."
"I still think it's a hoax," Arthur commented, "not on your part, of course, but the newspapers."
"What? Every newspaper got together to print the same bollocks?" Stelios asked.
"Don't they usually?"
"Yeah, about celebrities and politicians, maybe," Carlos said, "but something like this? They know they'd be in a whole mess of trouble for making up a story about kids dying. If it's a hoax, then that would be pretty fucking twisted."
"Will there be an inquiry?" Stelios had forgotten about his pasta now.
"Of course!" cried Alfonso, "right?" He turned to Carlos, who nodded.
"Those poor people though," he muttered, "and their families too!"
"Well, I'm officially miserable," Stelios rested his head in his hands, giving a long sigh, "I think I'll talk to someone else, if it's all the same to you." He stood up, taking his tray with him, "excuse me, gentlemen."
He'd just seen Mr Mohammad Hassan sit down at a table in the corner and was eager to talk to him. He was fond of Mohammad, a quiet young man who had been sectioned a few weeks ago after taking an overdose. A neighbour had found him and he had no living friends or family, and because of that, Stelios felt rather protective of him. He wanted to help him in any way that he could, even though there was little he could do other than prescribe medicine and book appointments with therapists, but it didn't seem to be enough.
Mohammad seemed almost dead behind his eyes, and every tiny, daily task was a struggle for him, even getting out of bed. He had been admitted to the psychiatric ward so they could keep watch on him, and he didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave. Then again, he'd not been around other people much since his mother died. It was her death that had kick started his spiral of depression.
It was talking to people like Mohammad that made Stelios want to go into psychiatrics, whilst talking to Angelique made him want to go into radiography, and talking to Dr Davies made him want to go into surgery.
And talking to Dr Kirkland made him want to run away and join the circus.
Still, he had a whole year as a junior doctor to decide what field he wanted to go into, although psychiatrics was somewhat in the lead.
"Hey, how are you?" he greeted as he sat down.
"Could be better," Mohammad admitted, giving a tired smile. Dark rings hung under his eyes and he poked at a plate of pasta half-heartedly with a fork.
"Of course."
"Nice to see you're getting a chance to sit down," Mohammad commented, "bet you've been running around all day without a break."
"Same old," Stelios shrugged, "still, this hospital isn't going to run itself."
"Of course," Mohammad looked around, "there's quite a few people here. I can't help but wonder about their lives."
"I try not to."
"Yet I'm willing to guess you know all their stories, huh?"
"Hardly," Stelios replied, continuing to eat, "and if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Patient confidentiality and all."
"Oh go on," Mohammad gave a small smile, "I won't tell anyone."
There was a lonely edge to his voice that pulled at Stelios' heart strings and he found himself complying against his better judgement, leaning closer and hoping one of his fellow doctors didn't overhear them.
"Okay, I don't know too much, but you see the man with his elderly father?" Mohammad glanced behind him and nodded, "well, that's Cheng, and what happened to his father, Yao, was pretty damn bad."
"What happened?"
Stelios covered his mouth with a hand, "ugh, the poor guy has had arthritis for years now and he was moved into an old people's home. And Cheng kept trying to visit but his job makes him go on all these business trips."
"Yes?" Mohammad glanced at the duo nervously.
"Then he had to go to Macau for a few months for a work thing, and when he came back he went to visit Yao."
"And?"
"He seemed in pain, and when he took him to hospital we found these awful bedsores."
"Bedsores?" Mohammad's eyes widened.
"Yeah, proper bad ones that you only get after weeks in bed without being turned. They were freaking neglecting him!"
Mohammad covered his mouth. "Hasn't anyone done anything?"
"Cheng complained but it's not done much good," Stelios shrugged, "but at least Mr Wang's on the mend."
"I see…"
"Um," Stelios looked around the room, "who else do I know here? Oh, see those two brothers?"
"Yeah?" Mohammad looked over at Alin and Andrei.
"Well, the little one broke his arm trying to fly. Jumped out of a tree, apparently. The other brother was in tears when he phoned for an ambulance, so much so that the kid had to comfort him despite having the fracture."
"That's pretty brave," Mohammad commented.
"Yeah. Lucky he's getting better too."
"I see," Mohammad glanced over Stelios' shoulder at Elise, still sipping her coffee. "Who's that?"
Stelios followed his gaze and shrugged. "No idea."
"New?"
"Probably. Or from a ward I never visited." He looked at the couple sat at the table next to her and winced. "The Edelsteins. Now those two have an interesting story."
"Go on."
"Well, all I know is that the pair are having some marital problems. Soon to be divorced and barely speaking to each other. That is, until their kid, Franz, got pneumonia."
"Well that's hardly a big deal," Mohammad commented.
"That's what the GP thought at first, and prescribed some antibiotics, like you're supposed to. But then he got really sick, like, scary sick. His parents brought him in after he passed out and the doctors found out he'd gotten septicaemia too. Been in hospital ever since whilst we pump antibiotics into him."
"And will he get better?" asked Mohammad quietly.
"Who knows? I hope so…" Stelios glanced back at Franz's parents. They weren't looking at each other. Roderich sat wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, hands trembling. Érzsebét was staring off into the distance with teary eyes, not noticing her husband's occasional glances in her direction.
"I hope they manage to work things out," he commented, "they're still not talking much, but I bet when they do, things will get better between them."
"Then Franz will get better and they can be a family," Mohammad finished, voice tinted with emotion that caused Stelios to look back at him, staring for a long moment.
"And how are you?" he asked.
"Struggling," Mohammad admitted. "I don't know why you're all bothering, to be honest."
"Because you're our patient and we want to help you? Because you're a person in need?"
Mohammad didn't reply.
"Hey," Stelios tried again, "no one said it was gonna be easy. These things take time, right?"
"But what if I don't want help?"
"Well then as your doctor, I'm ordering you to get help."
"You don't even work on my ward! Not really anyway." Mohammad stuck out his tongue.
"Yes, but I went through medical school. Besides, you're my friend and it kills me to see you like this."
Mohammad just sighed.
…
Arjun could feel a headache coming on.
He touched the scratches on his cheek and winced, pain shooting through his face. On the other side of the room, Monique was whimpering and crying softly as Dr Davies tried to stitch her up. Arjun tried not to notice how every time they would stitch her up, the stitches would dissolve in seconds.
The other patients were just as bad, groaning and complaining about the heat and bright light. Arjun wasn't sure what they meant, until he glanced up and hissed at the intense overhead light. Had it always been this bright? Why wasn't Hunapo aware?
Arjun was at on the edge of a hospital bed in a rather crowded side-room as Dr Davies rushed between injured people, trying their best to patch them up, though it seemed nothing worked.
Arjun's headache had worsened now, and he ran a hand through his hair, hissing in pain.
"Oh not you too," Dr Davies sighed, still trying to close up the gaping hole in Monique's face and throwing a pack of paracetamol in their colleague's direction. "Take that and wait 'til I get to you."
Arjun didn't get a chance to reply, because at that moment, Monique lunged forward and bit into Dr Davies' arm, electric-blue eyes brimming with malice.
