Slugterran Saviours

Chapter 37

Author's Note: ya girl is alive after exams but barely! sorry if the writing isnt great, took a long break and its hard to get motivated to write these days and i'm gonna be really busy this november, though nanowrimo is up and going so maybe that'll cancel out i guess. by the way i'll be working on replacing every "johnny" with "lancaster" because the dude i based him on is racist and toxic and believe reverse racism is a thing

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF SELF HARM, MENTION OF INDIRECT DISCRIMINATION AGAINST A MINORITY GROUP

The clock struck two in the morning.

And at an hour that was normally peaceful, an hour normally filled with tranquility and peace, there was chaos rushing to new battlefields, the front line fighters changing from slingers to doctors and surgeons, battling against time to save lives. The tapping of feet and efforts to hush voices were background noise as harmed civilians and prisoners screamed in varying degrees of agonizing pain. Defenders who could still sling and volunteers roamed in and out of all parts of the hospital, bringing in supplies and transporting patients to other nearby hospitals, defending the hospitals from sieges led by Ataro's loyal men who wanted to prevent the fall of his empire. Receptionists and security slingers frantically sent out millions of APB's and calls to other caverns with hospitals as Bonnie Springs essentially became a fortress, no one going in and out without permission from slingers guarding the borders. Therapists and nurses comforted families of the deceased, injured patients, many families awaiting the casualty list with the names of every deceased individual from the fight that happened in Slag Rock Cavern. Waiting rooms were filled with family members and friends, lovers and colleagues, sons and daughters, all anxiously waiting for a doctor to enter one of the cramped wards to see their loved one, people squeezed onto benches outside operation rooms, sitting on the floors against the walls alongside exhausted nurses who barely had time to take a breath before they were pulled back into the chaos that went on. No one place was in complete silence and peace. No one mind was in complete silence and peace.

And Martin Storm was no exception.

He was at one of the top levels of the hospital, so there weren't any families that were there because it was hard to get disabled patients to the upper floors, so Martin sat alone on a bench, clutching the corners of the light green shock blanket he was given less than a few hours ago, waiting for his son to come out of the operation room. His sister had come to see him, thankful tears in both pairs of eyes as they hugged each other, their father crying as he was reunited with his son. The three of them waited anxiously alongside him for a few hours, before he ushered them to leave, for it was late in the night and the hospital was prone to attack from Ataro's followers and the last thing he would ever want is for them to get hurt in case an invasion happened on Bonnie Springs Hospital, telling them of the soul-crushing grief he would feel if he lost anyone else. They reluctantly left after his begging, leaving Martin all alone in the sea of people, in his thoughts.

Leaving him terrified.

He turned to his left, seeing a lonely man weeping on the bench, a charred toy lying on his lap and a ring on his index finger, a familiar doctor walking swiftly away from him, fighting the tears in his own eyes as he went back to work, trying to plaster on a reassuring face for the patients he treated. Martin's chest ached with pity before he saw the forms lying on the floor, but his heart plummeted to the floor once he saw the purple paper the man had dropped. Purple was the colour of the forms needed to be filled for hospital staff to prepare the body for a funeral, one form per deceased person, coloured purple to tell others the person was grieving.

And two lay on the floor, one with a picture of a woman, and the other for a little girl, the perfect mix of the woman and the man, who's hands shook as his thumb traced her image.