Responses to reviews (a nifty idea I got from a Sonic fanfic!)
StefBP: Dude… thank you very much for your review. For quite a while, I thought this fanfic would go absolutely nowhere. Yeah, New Blood is practically my favorite Trauma Center game at the moment. I'm actually still trying to get through it (I'm at the first surgery with Brachion… the ultimate patience test). Thanks!
On with the story!
I was caught up in the resulting rush and panic. We were told to return to the cafeteria, so with an obedience that broke my heart, I trudged back into the room.
Even there, I did not budge from a spot right beside the door closest to where paramedics were trying to revive Emily. Putting my ear up to the door, I tried my absolute hardest to pick up every word that they were saying.
"Her heart rate is perfectly normal," one reported. "But it's beating irregularly."
Obviously, that twinge of plain fear for my friend surged from my perfectly-working heart.
"The victim was apparently groaning in pain before she collapsed," reported the other paramedic. "I say… maybe a surprise cyst or something?"
("Victims of most forms of the pathogen will keel over in pain before being knocked out cold by its invisible hand," that paper on the wall had said. "A strange, yet powerful little machine, this disease is…")
Chills raced down my spine, and for a second, I was a frozen, ice-cold girl. The memory made me close my eyes tight, grit my teeth, and cringe within that same second. My life was threatened the day that memory was even made.
Could this have been Emily's next hand in life?
It was all my fault if so. Procrastination, or the fear for my own life? I felt as if it was both. My past caught up with another. A phenomenon I had been too in-denial to accept as true…
The guy in the sewer wanted to wipe out the entire world with this… this secret. He had to start with my friend, apparently…
I thought I knew my world entirely too well. I had envisioned doctors across the globe making the discovery before it could get out of hand. For the organism itself to be listed as another of those scientific discoveries that would be featured in programs to wrap up the year.
I could only imagine it. "…Then, there was Stigma, a deadly pathogen that could kill anyone it wants to with its microscopic hands, but was discovered in an earthworm and eradicated from the world in the same day!" An earthworm instead of a human being… Well, life would be just as mundane as before…
("This pathogen," said the paper in the sewer. "is called Stigma.")
Stigma. What a catchy name, actually. Certainly one to remember.
The bell rang for our next class as I had just finished a hastily-put-together lunch. Tossing it in the trash, I made a beeline path to where Emily's stretcher was.
I practically could have broken through the door, and not even an infinity of glass shards could cause me more pain than the imminent result of forging oblivion any longer. Perhaps, I couldn't trust my world to cure any diseases with the pushing of a button, but mayhap the click of a trigger could prevent the consequences that were clearly described to me… on that August afternoon?
It was January now, and if nobody was going to save the world, I would.
"Excuse me… sir?!" I panted as I stopped in front of one of the paramedics. "I believe I know what happened to Emily, here!"
The man was a buff one, with a mustache that spelled anything but the tolerance for bullcrap. The other guy looked exactly the same, but with simple peach-fuzz and eyes that stared daggers.
No duh was this where my second obstacle would form.
They thought I was insane…
"Leave, miss," the mustachioed one growled. "We can't meddle around!"
They lifted the stretcher and prepared to dash into an eagerly waiting ambulance.
"But-" I attempted.
"We'll take care of it," the other one snarled. "Get to class!"
At that, they took off at lightning speed and were in the ambulance within a few seconds. I took a step forward, but then, the doors shut, and the ambulance started.
I… did have to get to class. That vehicle would force other vehicles to pull over to the side. What good would my feet do me?
I sighed shakily, feeling the trauma start to set in. What if I was wrong?
Whatever the answer would be, I had to turn around and walk back toward my schooling area.
Turning my back… That's what I would have done just five months ago. I probably would have been intrigued by my findings down in that sewer and written down what I remembered. But it would soon have been forgotten, like the time I was sitting outside and documented what I thought to be a drive-by gunshot.
I was almost killed for… this Stigma. I could almost feel as if a ghost was trying to recreate that same scene here, in the hallway of a high school. Threatening to end not me, but another innocent life. Of course, Stigma would be scarred into my mind along with a sheet of line paper.
I had to shake it off. Surely, my mother would let me visit Emily later, right?
I had to. I'd have walked there, through subzero freezing, if that's what it took.
Question for the reader: Which strain of Stigma intrigues you the most?