The Hospital

[rainbowmods]

The hospital is sterile and sprawling, its hallways and patient rooms painted a glaring white. The floor is made of something hard and shining, and the lights are that peculiar kind of flourescent that makes everyone look ill.

The first floor consists of the lobby (painted a sickly green), an emergency room, and several surgery suites, all stocked with cutting-edge, even futuristic, technology and supplies. There is a cafeteria, though the buffet line is empty; the only consumables seem to be stocked in a line of vending machines along one wall. There are no stairs, only elevators, to the upper floors, which all consist of patient rooms: made beds, glazed windows, dying flowers, and the hard plastic orange chairs that are a constant in hospitals.

The whole building smells like antiseptic and death.


((Please mark your healthcare professionals as such, and enjoy!))

Comments

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

That didn't explain the glass--unless, of course, the floor was glass. The thought made Brenda shake her head slightly. Glass floors. Yes, that was a sane and safe idea. "My name's Brenda," she said instead of passing judgment. "What's yours?"

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

"I'm Isshiri," he said. "It's nice to meet you." He didn't think she quite understood what had happened about the floor, but at least she wasn't asking weird questions about what he had been looking for there. Which was kind of stupid, but he'd just read that story about a magic talking sword and it was hidden in the closed wing of the palace in Asendar, which was forever and forever away and there might have been something in his palace, too.

Which, in hindsight, was sort of embarrassing--he was eight, not four like Kira, he should have known better.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

Brenda smiled down at him. "I like your name, Isshiri. So you live in a palace? Does that make you a prince?" She slapped the button to open the doors to the ER and continued through.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

He flushed a little. It was still true, even though Mamma had carefully explained that he couldn't inherit even if everyone else died which he really didn't want them to anyway, so it felt weird calling himself a prince. "Yeah. My mamma's the King's niece. I like your name, too."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"That must be pretty cool," she said. "Do you have brothers or sisters? Come on, this room over here." She directed him to a treatment room.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

"Uh-huh," he said, following her in without complaint. "My big sister Nolani and my little sister Kirana. Plus our cousin Riluke, she grew up with us." Riluke couldn't inherit either, but for a different reason that he didn't quite understand. Which was definitely a good thing. He resisted the urge to reach down and touch his pretend leg.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"How old are you?" Brenda asked. "Can you get on that bed for me? Just sit on the edge." She turned to wash her hands and glove.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

Isshiri climbed up onto the bed, grateful she'd turned her back so she didn't see how awkward it was for him. "I'm eight." There was paper along the bed, which seemed sort of wasteful--paper took forever to make, and it was probably going to get all bloody and torn from people sitting on it. Even reed-paper probably shouldn't be used like this, and this felt much nicer than that.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

That made two eight-year-olds today who had done something they shouldn't, but eight-year-olds were not exactly known for their levelheadedness and rational thinking. It also meant he probably wouldn't know if he had any medication allergies, so she'd take the least-problematic routes there. "I'm going to get the glass out of your cuts, then clean them, okay?" she said, turning to him.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

He nodded. "Can I help, or do you have to do it all yourself?" Sometimes doctors and nurses and people had weird rules about that.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"I have to do it myself. My gloves are clean, and I'm going to use tools to get the glass out so neither of us gets cut," she explained. "I just need you to sit as still as you can."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

He sighed. "I can do that, I guess," he said. He hated sitting still. Being able to help would have made it less annoying.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"You're right in between the ages of my younger kids," Brenda said to distract him. She pulled the stool over and sat down, tweezers in hand, to start picking out the glass. "Zach is six, and Karen is eleven. Their older brother and sister are sixteen."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

That sounded vaguely familiar, but Isshiri couldn't quite place it. "My big sister's twelve," he offered. "Her name's Nolani. I already said that, sorry."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"That's okay. How old's Kirana?" She was nearly positive that was his little sister's name, anyway. "Tell me if this starts to hurt too much, all right?"

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

"I will," he promised. "She's four. She's really smart, though. Smarter'n either me or 'Lani, probably, except she's little and it's hard to tell. She likes to play hide and seek."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"Not with you while you were exploring, I hope?" Brenda asked. As she pulled out slivers of glass, she collected them on a bit of gauze on the bed beside Isshiri. "Or she got out faster than you?"

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

He shook his head. "Nope. Like I said, Kira's smart." He grinned. "Smart enough not to 'splore boarded-up places."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

Brenda laughed. "Sounds like you might need to take a lesson or two from her," she teased gently.

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

"Prob'ly," he agreed. "But I might find a real magic sword sometimes, and I think it's worth falling a couple times to get the fun stuff."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"What would you do with a magic sword?" Brenda asked. "Slay an evil dragon?"

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

Isshiri wrinkled his nose. "I'd go on adventures," he corrected, then pondered a moment. "Which might have dragons in 'em, but I'd rather fly a dragon than kill him."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"That's a very sensible approach to dragons," she agreed. "They'd probably rather you fly them than slay them, too. Where would you go on adventures to?"

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[shadowsong26]

"Everywhere," he said, eagerly. "I wanna see all of the world, even the parts people don't know about yet."

Re: Patient: Isshiri

[brenda_young]

"Tell me about where you're from," Brenda suggests. This is going to be a while, between picking out the glass and getting all his various wounds clean, and if he has something to talk about, it should make sitting still more bearable.