Rogue

7

~William~

The first thing I hear is the sound of feet shuffling around quietly, scrub legs rubbing together. The scent of blood and disinfectant enters my nose, making me wrinkle it a little. I can feel stuffing under both hands from rips in something, probably a mattress. My mouth is dry. Finally, my eyes open, blurring at first but becoming clearer.

   I'm in one of the tents for the wounded. All of the beds are full, the grumbles, moans, and groans of injured soldiers making their way to my ears. My body is aching, and everything burns. My face, my arms, my legs, my chest, my back, my feet. I blink hard a few times, hoping that the pain will go away soon.

   One of the nurses comes over, a woman in her thirties with blonde hair and dark eyes. Her scrubs are splattered with blood, and her face is haggard and worn, making her appear to be about fifteen years older than she is. When she sees me, though, she gives me a tight-lipped but genuine smile, holding up a small syringe. I don't know what's in it, but I know that it's probably some type of numbing medicine. She takes my arm gently in a cold hand and splays it out, the needle immediately shooting out to meet my vein. I can feel the cool liquid entering my bloodstream, and after a few moments, I feel nothing at all. "There you go, sweetheart," the nurse murmurs before turning and walking over to the next patient, another burn victim with his entire face wrapped in white bandages. As the nurse speaks to him, his hand squeezes hers lightly, and I can hear him whispering something. The nurse nods slowly and lays the syringe down, picking up another one. This one is filled with pure black liquid, some that I recognize as Letumex. She slowly allows the needle to find his vein and pushes the Letumex into his veins. He exhales slowly, and then his arm goes limp, dangling off of the bed. She moves it gently back onto the mattress before going over to the next patient.

   "Will." Elliot's voice drags my eyes away from the nurse and towards the front. He's standing in front of my bed, a worried expression on his face. When I look at him, he heads over to the right side of the bed. "I was worried about you. I was scared that you were going to die. I know what the computer said, but still. You've been out for three days."

   "How are the numbers?" I ask hesitantly. I normally wouldn't ask him such a question, but I need to know. I need to know if the Sick have claimed many more of us. I need to know if we're still doing alright.

   "We pulled through," he says. "There were two hundred and ninety-five of our men lost, about a hundred and fifty less than last time." He delivers the news in a grim tone. He doesn't like saying things like "we pulled through" or "we only lost so many men this time" because each loss means something to him. Though he doesn't know many of our squadron (heck, even I only know about fifteen of them), he still feels each loss deeply, more deeply than me. I can't help it, and I know that he can't, either. It's sad that they're gone, I'll admit that. But it doesn't affect me like it does Elliot. When we have a free day, he always has all of the names of the deceased collected and holds a one-man vigil for them, lighting a few fires and saying a few words. Sometimes I join him, other times I just watch and let him have his space.

   When I begin to feel like this, I feel like I'm already in the Sick squadron. They don't feel much of anything when one of their own falls. And that scares me.

   "How are you feeling?" asks Elliot, obviously trying to change the subject. He looks down, and I know that he's nervous, and that there's something that he's not telling me. But I can't push him. I tried to once, and it didn't end well. So I'll just give him some time, and he'll tell me if he wants to let me know.

   "Well, I don't feel anything at all right now. The nurse just came around with some medicine, so I should be just fine for the next few hours." The bad thing about this is that I won't be able to stand or anything like that in that amount of time. The medicine has a really crappy side effect that screws with your head and makes your head spin and ties your stomach in knots if you stand for half of a second. I attempted it once and fell into the tray that held the syringes and other various glass materials. Needless to say, there was blood all over the floor and I had to stay for a while longer.