The night nurse pushed back the privacy curtain and checked on the pair behind it—just two more from the airship that had landed earlier that day and dumped off a literal ship-load of wounded people. Since they had come in the nurses and doctors had been patching up a number of alarmingly injured patients and the hospital cleric had been tending to broken minds and hearts. Finally at this late hour though everyone was asleep, patients slotted into beds, family and connected parties staying near-by and sleeping on chairs or the floor, and the rest sent off to a near-by boarding house. Well this pair, a nachtjaeger who had been seriously injured and some woman who wouldn’t leave his side, seemed to be resting as comfortably as could be expected. Time to move on to the next one. The curtain slid back into place almost silently but the slight scrape of wheels on the floor startled Bridget awake. Frantically she looked around and in the dimmed lights set into the walls she recognized the familiar, safe forms of the bed and the man asleep in it. Sighing she slumped down in her chair and scrubbed her flesh hand down her face. She’d washed her face and got the worst of the blood out of her mechanical hand but there was nothing that could be done for her ruined skirt and blouse. Such a silly self-pitying thought. She shook her head and glanced anxiously at Dirk. He was still asleep…that was a relief. He needed it—the good Lord in Heaven knew that he needed it. Slumping down in the chair, she closed her eyes but had no wish to try to sleep again. The first time had been by accident and it had been a horrible mistake. Camp 173 had been a nightmare but it had been a warzone—it had been soldiers fighting each other. That was what soldiers did. This…this was something completely different. Eisenberg had been a town—just people living normal, happy lives. Children going to a school that was just like her school…shopkeepers selling goods in shops much like she shopped in…and they’d left them all to die. She’d left them to die. Logic told her that there was no way she could have even tried—she was in an elevator and then straight to an airship and then flew over it all. She was nowhere near it except looking at it from over head—and she strongly doubted that the images of Soroush’s hell on earth being unloosed on that innocent town would ever leave her mind. She’d go to her grave with it seared into her memory. The fresh wave of sorrow welled up and a lump rose in her throat—frantically she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep quiet. She needed air and she needed it now…quickly she glanced at Dirk again. She didn’t want to leave him though—she hadn’t wanted to leave him at the elevator but he’d thrown her into it. Just thinking he was dead had killed her inside….but she’d had to live. If he wanted her to live so badly she had too…so she and the Lieutenant had killed the airship pilot. She’d killed someone—oh Saints in Heaven she’d killed someone. She didn’t think it was murder…not in the way that just breaking into someone’s room and bashing their head in was. The pilot was seeking to kill them so they’d just killed him first. Both she and Newcastle had been firing though—they would never know who had shot the deadly bullet. Maybe they both had. That was one secret that could stay a secret…one less ghost to carry around in her head. Her need for air grew into a sudden need to throw up and she shot to her feet. He wouldn’t vanish into the air if she left for five minutes. Shoving the curtain aside she stumbled into the main walkway and startled the night nurse—but the capable woman quickly led her to the washroom and rubbed her back soothingly as she threw up into a basin. As she finished the nurse asked her a few polite questions about her health but she assured the woman that it was just nerves. Finally the nurse just led her to a window, found her a chair and promised that she’d bring some water along in a few minutes. With the nurse gone Bridget slumped down in the seat and buried her head against her knees, wrapping her arms around her neck in a protective position. So much death…so much senseless death just so that one narcissistic lunatic could play God. The sheer numbers were too much to think about but familiar faces kept floating in her mind—faces that had been personal deaths in this man’s plan. Lieutenant Kelvin, though she’d disliked the man, had been the first man in her personal acquaintance to fall while saving them all on the Jason. Then so much more personally had been one of her first friends in St. Louis, Benjamin Wells. Every day she saw his craftsmanship mark on her arm and it felt like a ghost that was following her through life. After that came Reagan bearing the news that her mother had died of HRF. Now Sian and Ensign Purvis—Sian had always been so kind to her and now the Fulmene had come to her end there with her body buried under so much rubble and Purvis with her. She’d just celebrated his birthday with the Cochranes and Bounces and Mavelle…and oh heavens poor Mavelle…she must be suffering so much right now. Sian gone…Purvis gone…Viola nearly dying…as soon as Dirk woke up she was going to find the girl and talk with her. A sob welled up and she buried it in her knees. They came hard and fast now, her shoulders shaking as she tried to stifle the cries into her filthy skirt. Even with that evil, evil man dead and condemned to the darkest, filthiest pits of Hell his handiwork still was scarring their minds and their bodies. Her shoulder socket began to ache from the position she had twisted it into but she made no effort to move. A sore arm was nothing compared to everything else that the others were suffering. At least she was alive to feel it. That was more then so many innocent souls could say right now. (if anyone would like to reply please jump in! Or send me a message and we can plot^^)
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 04:23:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015