Dragomir - The Swamp of Maledictus | Wattys2024

Old Faces

In a birch tree in the small yard in the back of the makeshift hospital, there was a wood pigeon cooing. Right on time calling the morning.

The first beams of sunlight flooded into the room, where soldiers lay asleep, many of whom were not severely wounded and only needed some small medical assistance and simply a bed.

Avery was lying on her back, arms under her head, eyes towards the window in front of her. She was used to watching the stars, the coming of the moon, and the rising of the sun ever since she had been in this hospital back in Adreliron, because in the past days she hadn't been able to walk too much due to a bullet wound she had taken to her leg. Yet days had already passed, and today, Avery knew, her release was planned.

Thus, she hadn't slept the whole night and had spent the restless hours with her favourite and the only thing she could do: watching the stars in the same way she had always done so in her childhood, whereas often having used her father's binoculars.

Some sighing went through the makeshift hospital along the silent rustling of the bedclothes. Avery bit her lip, feeling the excitement rise in her body, making her legs feel tingly. She wanted to go, leave this place, and move free again. These days she had spent here had been horribly hard on her soul. She couldn't be confined for long, and this felt to her like a confinement. Yet with every minute she knew, time would come along. Soldiers would wake up, and soon enough, the dayshift nurses would enter the room.

Suddenly, as if Avery had manifested it, the squeaking sound of the hospital door rung through the room. Immediately she sat up, leaning on her elbow, eyes towards the end of the room. There she spotted between the heads of some now-woken patients none other than the chief nurse. Avery's heart skipped a beat.

It was time.

Yet, behind the nurse, another person appeared. One, who was wearing brightly white clothes, and she knew it must've been a high-field doctor. Maybe even a chief.

The nurse and the uniformed field doctor were slowly walking through the room. With every of their steps, some more men awoke. Many of which barely managed to open their eyes.

Avery held her gaze at the man and the nurse. Where would they walk to? They walked towards her!

But a feeling of dread kept hold of her excitement. Especially in the very same moment, Avery spotted the markings on the uniformed doctor's arm. The markings of the chief field doctor. The one man, whom no one truly saw, as he was awfully busy. . The one man, whom no one truly saw, as he was awfully busy. Now, why was he here this morning?

With a frown on her face, she well noticed the nurse's and the doctor's glance towards Avery. They were walking to her bed; there was no doubt. Questions rose in her mind whilst she turned herself slowly towards the edge of the bed, sitting with her legs hanging off the edge—a silent ache in her wounded one.

Once the nurse and doctor came to a halt at Avery's bed, the woman, whom she had experienced to be a very hard-working and kind person, turned to her.

»Awake as always, I see. But right in time, so. You have a visitor., the chief nurse, Magdalene, said.

»Please, do be so kind and let us talk for a while. Time is passing, and I'd like to have a chat with her before most men have awoken. «, the chief doctor interrupted yet did so with a soft tone, one that had not a single harsh note in it.

Chief nurse Magdalene blushed, gave a short nod towards Avery, and rushed off. A while, to Avery's discomfort, silence remained, and she dared not to speak first. It was in that brief time that a tingling sensation in the back of her mind made her feel as if she had already seen this man. Sometimes, somewhere. But she couldn't pinpoint it.