mutated

chapter eighteen: mercy, i need healing

Please remind me to never let any of the boys try and heal me.

Or even bandage me.

I'll probably just get even more injured.

Let me wind the tape a bit back, so everyone knows what exactly happened. This all started when the week of First Aid started. This was the last of four weeks of training. Parkour had disastrous results at the beginning, but slowly, we managed to catch up and actually excel at parkour. Many of us were still pretty sure we wouldn't want to attempt doing parkour.

Me, I wouldn't mind trying it out. If I fell, at least I had my telekinesis to save me.

The second week was physical training, with the illustrious Agent Buzzard. Even though we had already gone through the basics, Chase made it his personal pleasure in torturing us with longer and more grueling workouts. He paired us so that one would obviously have an advantage, whether it was strength or speed so that the weaker one would have to toughen up. Not a bad strategy, I had to admit, but it wasn't fun being paired with Elliot and being flung across the room.

Into a wall.

Why was it always a wall?

The examinations were different now, and it wasn't like this huge final test, but more a test at the end of the week to mark our improvement. I scored 4th on the parkour exam, behind Alpha, Elliot, and Camellia, and for the physical examination, I scored 3rd. Elliot was 1st this time, with Alpha being second. Fück them.

Thankfully, swordplay was in my favor, due to my extra training with Lily at night (yes, they started again, definitely not helping my insomnia), and after utterly humiliating Alpha once again, I emerged first from that.

Pretty sure Alpha is super salty about that.

And this week, it was a basic first aid course with Mercy. Angela. Whatever.

Looking through the booklet she gave us, I glanced at my partners, Alyssa and Camellia. Camellia was trying to wrap Lyss's 'hurt hand', while I readied a triangular cloth to put on her as a sling for her arm as it 'healed'. The boys, on the other hand, weren't doing so great.

Adrian and Anson had the assignment of learning how to bandage up a head injury. Poor Anson was the patient, and he had his head wrapped up in a turban, with a messy knot at the front. Mercy walked over, blonder curls bouncing, before wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Would you mind being a bit more... neat?"

Adrian grumbled, and Anson sighed in relief, eagerly ripping off the loose cloth and shaking his hair free. Alyssa repressed a laugh, but Camellia didn't bother hiding her hysteria. Adrian face-palmed, and unraveled the cloth, before starting to wrap Anson's 'wound' again.

Martin was the patient for Elliot, and although Elliot may be strong, he wasn't very good at utilizing that strength in the art of first aid. He was supposed to bind Martin's 'broken arm' to his body, but the sling was so loose I was pretty sure I could stick my entire head through it. Then, instead of securing a horizontal strap across his chest, he only put a securing strap around the arm.

"If your strap is only on your patient's arm, how will it be secure?" Mercy walked over, arms crossed. She poked and tugged at the sling, and sighed again. "Sloppy work. The strap is tight, but over the wrong area, and it's pressing on to his fracture, which may end in more damage to the broken bone. Tell me, Mr Chow, what is the theory to First Aid?"

"To maintain life, to prevent further damage, and to encourage recovery," Elliot grumbled.

"Correct. Now, do it again."

After a week of 10 hours a day of first-aid (honestly, who knew that a Heimlich maneuver was actually pretty hard to learn the 100% accurate version?), we 'graduated' the First Aid Course, hence passing all four exams for our inauguration in the next rank.