Topic: Deja Vu

Luna Eva

Date: 2007-11-29 02:59 EST
On the floor of her room, Eva had emptied the entire contents of her medical bag. Drugs ran down the left, organized by purpose. Antibiotics, analgesics, coagulants, anticoagulants. On the right side supplies were piled. Bandages, casting, IV changes, disposable hypodermics, plastic gloves, hemostats. Eva was cataloging a list of what she had, and making a list of what she'd need to buy.

Eva knelt at the edge of the rug, a clipboard resting on her knee. She was low on a lot of supplies. Eva sighed. She didn't have the money to replace and refill everything she needed. After the explosion in the Marketplace, some of her emergency medical supplies were running woefully low. And medical supplies, drugs in particular, did not come cheap on the black market. Eva pushed a hand through her hair.

What could she do' Even Tucker had said it that night - they needed her there. And what was she going to do' Charge them all for her services? I realize you've just barely survived an explosion of some sort, but that will be three hundred coin for the stitches. Ridiculous. Eva had to face facts. She was going broke.

Eva set the clipboard aside and dropped her head in her hands. She needed a job. Or a loan.

Thunk. Crack.

This time the explosion sounded from farther away, her windows rattling only slightly. Only this time she could recognize the sound. Eva raised her head from her hands and looked towards the windows. Across the Marketplace there was rising smoke. Another explosion.

Eva lurched forward and pulled her medical bag beside her. She dragged her arm across the neat organization of her supplies, making a messy pile of it all, and dumped it into the bag, every last item, thrown in haphazardly. She zipped her bag while she ran down the stairs. As her door slammed behind her, she prayed she had enough supplies left to make it through the day.

Luna Eva

Date: 2007-11-30 03:31 EST
There wasn't time to think. There was only time to act. The wounded were plenty, more, it seemed to Eva, then the first time. She moved from patient to patient, until she'd run out of bandages, and tore her own shirt to staunch the flow of blood. She shared what supplies she had with others, until there was near nothing left. What was left of her supplies rattled around in her medical bag as she moved on to the next patient. Mostly useless.

The more seriously wounded had been taken to hospitals and clinics. This time, Eva didn't stay away. What was the worst they could do to her" Arrest her" Charge her? Practicing medicine without a license. She'd survived that charge before. She'd been through worse. And if she could help more innocents, it was worth it.

At the hospital, she'd changed into scrubs. Her clothes were a mess, and it was easier for those working there to identify who could be called upon for help. She was moving down the hallway, towards the next patient. A young boy, a teenager maybe, white as a sheet, his parents at his bedside. His shirt had been cut open, as if some emergency personnel had started to treat him. His pale white chest was clean and clear. There wasn't a mark on him. But Eva could tell by looking at him that he was dead. As she moved close, the father lurched towards her.

"He won't wake up. He'd fallen right after the explosion and I carried him here."

"You shouldn't have moved him! I told you!" The mother was near hysterical in her outburst.

"He's not injured, Margaux! Look at him! He looks perfect!" The father turned to Eva now, pleading. "We just need to get him to wake up."

Eva nodded moving forward. "Let me see what I can do." From around her neck, she took her stethoscope, making a show of kneeling beside the boy and pressing it to his silent chest.

She'd seen it only once before. Working in the emergency room, years ago. A steam pipe had burst, and though the boy standing beside it had been out of the range of the scalding spray, the concussion of the explosion burst his lungs in his chest. Eva remembered the x-ray. Like a white angel spread its wings over the boy's chest. Not a mark on him. Just a white angel.

The boy in front of her had died the same way. Eva got back to her feet, and looked up at both parents.

"I'm sorry. He's not asleep - "

The mother started crying before she could even finish, turning to bang a hand on her husband's chest. "You shouldn't have moved him!"

"- your son is dead. There's nothing I can do."

"No please..." The father pleaded with Eva while his wife continued to beat on his chest and cry against him, but Eva just shook her head.

"Stay with him. Someone will be by soon to collect him."

At the end of the bed, Eva hung a small black tag.

Luna Eva

Date: 2007-12-05 20:04 EST
The second day after the explosion, Eva stood in a hospital supply room, her winter coat pulled over blue scrubs, her medical bag open and empty between her feet, and her hands shaking by her sides. The grated gate, that normally kept the emergency room supplies safe, was ajar. During all the confusion, supplies were being used up so quickly, it had become too difficult to keep unlocking the gate when something needed to be replenished. So it was open.

Eva scanned the small vials of drugs. Even here, at the hospital, they were running low. But unlike her supplies, they'd be replenished soon. No one was going to come by and refill Eva's medical bag, unless she did it herself. And didn't she deserve it?

In the last three weeks, Eva had spent all of her supplies working at the Marketplace after explosions. She had nothing left. And for her, medical supplies were like money, they were like cash. With the proper supplies, she could keep working and buying what she needed. But spending supplies, without taking in any money, the way she'd been doing, it was breaking her.

This was the only option. She didn't need much to keep going. Just a few items here and there. They'd barely be missed. They'd be written off as having been misplaced during the chaos. No one would know.

Eva raised a hand and picked up a packet of ten disposable syringes. Her hand shook, and the plastic cracked beneath her fingers. There'd been a time, not so long ago, when she'd been in a place like this looking to get high. A time when she'd been so desperate, she tore open the packet right in the supply room, ripped the vial off the shelf, and plunged the needle into her arm. Eva could still remember the way it felt. Like having pure light running through her veins. Like nothing could touch her. Painless. And empty.

Eva looked at the packet in her hands. Just one of each item. No one would ever know. No one would hurt.

Eva cursed. She kicked her empty medical bag aside, and cursed again. She shoved the packet of syringes back on the shelf. She kicked the gate, making it rattle on its hinges, and she cursed again, and again.

She used to steal drugs just to get high. Now she couldn't even bring herself to steal drugs for her livelihood. Eva shouldered her empty medical bag, pushed out of the room into the brighter light of the hallway, and tried to figure out which was worse.