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 Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 9:57 am
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 10:12 am
Quote: bad moon rising--1700 wednesday may 18The time is 1700 hours, and a man has just turned into a ******** monster right before your eyes. Or rather, not before your eyes, but close enough that you probably could've seen him become a monster if something hadn't gotten in your way.
That's not the problem, though. The problem is the cordon of state police outside the library: who knows why. There are bleeding people in here, dead people, but until the scene is provably secure not one of the law enforcement personnel can enter. You could've left in the first rush of panic, but you didn't.
Why didn't you leave?
...And that's when the part of her brain that's actually a proper medical student, the part that has the steady hands and knows the bones and nerves and the dead things like they're second nature, finally kicks in. Even though she doesn't have any tools with her, there's enough supplies here they should be able to make splints and stabilize the wounded until proper first responders can get here.
Someone's got to have called 911, right? Because that spray --
There's a girl (Ashton's seen her around, pale, brunette; a few years younger, just out of highschool, interested in history and literature but with a memory so bad she's constantly jotting down notes) stumbling over, face paler than her normal moontan to a ghostly degree (unhealthy) - she's spattered with blood. It might be hers. It not be. "Are you hurt," Ashton questions, voice level, and the girl just -- stares like she's seeing a thousand ghosts right inside her eyes -- and raises her hand, turns it around -okay, s**t, the back of her hand is covered with a long laceration and she's shaking like a leaf because the way the skin peels like that is more than a little unsettling to most people -
Ashton gets to work with what she has, and doesn't even contemplate trying to leave. There are injured.
She's a doctor. (She will be.) This is her job.
[318 words]
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 4:12 am
Quote: blood and guts--1830 wednesday may 18The time is 1830 hours, and the first of the casualties has arrived from the crew clearing hte upstairs. Oh, there have been civilians, two of them. There's been the woman now sitting near-catatonic near the stairs, cradling a bloody bundle and tended by a nursing student. But this one. This one is really ******** up, and the men and women tending him speak only in hushed whispers.
The police still haven't let you out.
How are you doing? Are you okay?
Ashton does the best she can with what she has. She puts a hand on the girl's shoulder and guides her towards medical arrangements; she cleans the wound, finds fabric -- and moves on. Sweet little Lily, so perfect, so polite (and so annoying and pathetic and letting people roll over her every which way like she's an object) - she is not the only one wounded here. She is not the only one bleeding, and scared, and panicked. Now, Ashton has no psychological training - she won't even try in that aspect, but -
He's not exactly an incompetent when it comes to medicine. Maybe he only has two years on the clock so far, but that's plus a bachelor's in fine arts (regardless of how Goddamn Worthless that in and of itself is) - Ashton knows how to do his job. He's picked it up. He watches.
She joins the medical pit crew and turns her compassionate mind off. It's not hard. It's hard to keep it awake in the first place, really; Ashton is not given to compassion for any human being. Ashton is much more given to being effective. They're practically betrothed. That is, Ashton has given their hand in marriage to the concept of 'being an effective and efficient person'. And keep the wounded hydrated, pack their wounds, stem the bleeding - a man comes down from the upper levels looking like he's been mauled by a bear, and that alone and in itself is far more suspicious than anything so far. The thing is -- those aren't stab wounds. (At least, they don't look like it.) Those are claw marks. Those are eviscerations. And you don't get those from a stray encounter with a random knifeman. And hypertrichosis....ha! That's worth a laugh.
But --
A picture is starting to come together here.
And Ashton doesn't think she likes the way it fits. [356 words]
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 4:13 am
Quote: waiting--1830 wednesday may 18The police are slow to believe the efforts of the negotiating team. Insisting that help is required has no impact on the negotiator from the state troopers, and the CDC requires evidence of hypertrichosis before it'll clear the area from suspicion of being a biological attack site.
You're getting by, but how? What keeps your mind off things, if anything does?
There's no reason for crazy fursuiters ('crazy', Ashton thinks absentmindedly with a raised eyebrow as she cleans out someone's lacerations, is only the appropriate term for those with enough money to spend on their hobby) to be wandering around with blades for fingers. That's the sort of terrible idea you'd see in a terribly-financed B-movie -- a shitty knockoff of Nightmare on Elm Street (he hands a wadded up cloth to someone else, keeps an open eye out for other patients, keeps working) made for Furaffinity or whatever; what's next, the mayor's corpse showing up in a fur bikini with her throat cut?
(REWIND, REWIND, DON'T THINK ABOUT THAT; Ashton respects the mayor but would like to not think about her naked. It's the same policy as not contemplating the President naked. That starts going into some really uncomfortable places, and Ashton's honestly completely happy not realizing any desire to ******** Santa Claus if there is any. Besides, this is really not the time to think about anyone naked -- and their hands don't waver, but if they did...well. Someone might die. Every minute is precious.)
But then there's no more patients. Not over here. There's a five-minute lull of quiet and people are sobbing, people are screaming - Ashton pulls out his phone and calls his mother. As soon as she picks up, before she says anything: "There was an attack at the job faire. Possible disease outbreak. I'm going to be home exceedingly late." She's crying. (Their mother always cries. She's so needy.) "I'm not hurt, but they won't send paramedics in until it's proven safe." Hang up. Turn off.
Ashton dusts off their hands and moves on to trying to clean up some of the debris, to make safer resting places.
Werewolves. Hopefully that's not the truth, but Ashton has very little confidence in other answers being valid right now.[373 words]
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Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 6:06 pm
Quote: victory 1--1930 wednesday may 18Somehow, the police have been convinced that they are better served helping than waiting for news. There are paramedics swarming the first floor, people being carried away to ambulances and triaged in the concourse.
You survived.
How does that make you feel?
"Thank you. Are we allowed to leave yet?" is what she actually says, lipgloss precise, smiling still like she'd never entertain a single solo thought.
(What he says doesn't matter. She doesn't leave until the paramedics shoo her out, because people are hurt and bleeding and -- no she can't do what they can but she has to do something she can't just STAND THERE --
Ashton Carver walks out of the ruined job faire, her nails crusted in blood, and washes her hands for ten minutes straight to make sure she's uncontaminated as best she can before she walks out of the McDonalds bathroom and buys two cheeseburgers and a large fry. She needs the food hedonism right now.
She slips into her house quiet as anything, doesn't dream that night, and pointedly ignores her mother's cries and worried noises because she's fine.
Really. She is.
She didn't feel much of anything, there, except the desire to work. So what's so troubling about that?[263 words]
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Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 8:19 pm
Quote: victory 2: finale-- 2000 wednesday may 18Someday, the police, your family, someone will ask you: what ******** happened in there?
There will be news stories to direct them to, of course, but they're asking for different reasons. They want to see the look on your face. Record the facts. Hear the trembling in your voice.
What will you tell them?
She lies through her teeth, is what she does. She never saw any bodies -- she was right at the outside of the scene, she was getting a drink from one of the drivethroughs, she was trapped outside at the cordon with worry until the police came in - and nobody's going to say he's wrong, nobody's going to prove any differently, because Ashton didn't make a scene and Ashton wasn't anything about it except reliable in their tending-to.
(Ashton is very good at lying this way, really. It's so much less trouble if people think you didn't see anything. Nobody asks too many questions. Nobody gets into places where you are anything less than poised and prepared.)
She saw no sprays of blood. She saw nothing in-person. Ashton Carver didn't see a ******** saw so much, so much they think about, and they worry about the fact nothing in them twisted at the sight. Even as a doctor, as an artist, the blood and gore and the light leaving people's eyes -- that should trigger some sort of emotion, shouldn't it? But it doesn't. And it's easier to accept, for people, if -- well. If Ashton wasn't connected like that.
The bystander effect is in full force (and god, his ex, she wasn't there because she doesn't even live here she's off getting a business degree or whatever but he can't help but see her on the ground with her throat ripped open like it's happening in technicolor. That's normal, right? That's probably not normal.) and Ashton is having every single part of it.[291 words]
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