Pockets of Infection

Posted on Sat 30th Sep, 2023 @ 11:49am by Makila i'Hartelhai & Arik Telsamvi

562 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: O' the Cardiff Rose
Location: Faction Territory, Brown Sector
Timeline: MD 4 2100

Makila sobbed with the mental exertion the effort of taking so many people from the squalor of their homes to the clinic in such terrible conditions had wrought in her. Bowing her head to hide the freely flowing tears was not enough and she covered her face in grimy hands. The thought of what she was smearing her face with didn't even register to her as she was filthy and needed decontamination anyway. How could they have let it get this bad?

Why were they so Stubborn? Why had this faction leader decided that they would take their chances against the virus instead of getting vacccinated. The elderly didn't stand a chance without it, and when she felt at the throat of another grey blue woman whose breath had stilled before she had finished with her last patient she was completely overcome.

"Healer?" Arik's tiny voice interrupted her misery. "We need you. Are...I mean...Forgive me." Instead of continuing to speak, Arik clasped her around the shoulders and shielded her from the death in the room with his thin body.

Makila was startled by the boys gesture of pure empathy, and the warmth of esteem he held her in couldn't be avoided in such close contact. It was a balm to her soul, that brother-like love and protection that he was bathing her soul in and he wasn't even aware. He aided her to her feet, and brushed her tears away with his knuckles. "No more tears now, we need your eyes unclouded."

A male that looked healthy and relatively hale tried to hide from the view of the people dead and attempted to turn away from her teary gaze. It took a long look, and then a second look until she recognized the face trying to hide from her but unable to lose face by leaving, the faction leader of most of the dead. Fury overcame her anguish and she stalked towards him with a positively murderous look in her eyes. It morphed into disgust when all she could see and sense from him was fear. A fist in his jacket was enough to send him back into the wall of the room as he tried to evade her and her rage. Before she knew it she was shouting at him. "You could have prevented ALL of this. " She swept her arm over the white covered faces. "All of it! But no, you had to pretend you were superior! This is ENTIRELY your fault! Every death, every drop of blood on your hands! Every sick child fighting for breath. Every. Single. One. How DARE you refuse them the vaccine?! You abandoned them to die, you arrogant piece of..." she snarled a curse that was so vile in Rihan that the Romulan in the room helping her blanched. She spat at his feet, in a manner typical of the factions. It was a high insult and she was surprised to see him do nothing. The faction leader didn't even move from where she'd shoved him against the wall.

The half romulan pulled herself together with a force of will that was visible to everyone in the room, and ended with her shaking her curls back out of her face and raising her chin.

Arik was looking at her with a wary respect.

"Lead me, Arik. This trash can take itself out."

 

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