Day 9 prompt - Scent: Blood or decay (300 words)
The Japanese had been lucky again in Okinawa, even though at the cost of one of their own. And that marked the third time Maryland returned to Bremerton, to the regrets of the good folks there. Not that it stopped them from jokingly telling her that the third time's indeed the charm and calling her the Bloody Mary. She must've been a mess. Even more so compared to the aftermath of Pearl Harbor—though she actually came out relatively unscathed from there—and Saipan.
And now, as she lay on the bed, Maryland wished she could hold her breath without choking or suffocating. The morphine had utterly numbed the pain receptors within her broken body, but they did nothing to shut her sense of smell. The scent of blood clung to her nose like a stubborn stain—acrid, raw, and festering, smelling like rusted metal and somehow also like dead fish. She couldn't decide which one was worse.
It felt ironic that at the height of combat, with adrenaline rushing through her, she couldn't even smell or notice them seeping through the whites of her uniform or the following rising heat within. She didn't realize how much she had been wounded until that one hit her, and she began losing consciousness.
Not that she loathed the scent of blood. She was a fighter. She knew that to be one meant that you could be torn open anytime, no matter how careful or strong you were.
At least the blood was hers, not her fellows and sisters, who were still out there fighting. If she were to hear they shared the same misfortune as her, or worse—now that she would really hate.
She would hate it even more than the inevitable boredom her stay there would bring.
Perhaps this time, they would allow her to check out early, as soon as she could at least move more freely instead of having to wait for full recovery?
In any case, for now, she could only silently ask her sisters and friends to wait for her.
