He felt a cold, wetness on his body, covering him like a heavy blanket of mud. A shot of panic ran through his core, but his body was struggling to respond. He felt the pin prickles of strain through his nerves as he tried to wiggle his fingers.

"...they doing?"

"...walking..."

"...never should ever...go get…"

"A gun?!"

Eien jerked himself up and heard a screech. Nostrils flaring, he breathed heavily, snorting up a noseful of something thick and wet. Hacking, he rubbed at his eyes, smearing the goop into his sockets.

"Gragh argh!" he cried, trying to stand. He stumbled, grabbing at something to try to hold himself up. More screams erupted. Not from him.

What the fuck was this shit?

"Sir, stop! Sit down! Sit still!" came a stern voice from his left. He stopped, trembling, the world still black. His ears rang with unusual noises, clanging and talking. He felt at something cool and hard and slowly lowered himself to the floor. The pins and needles in his body were gone and replaced with a hot fuel of anxiety.

A cool, wet cloth touched his face, and he pulled away, shivering.

"Shh. It's okay now. Just relax." The large ball of anxiety morphed into full blown panic.

"Don't touch me!" he screamed, slapping the hand away, "Don't you dare fucking touch me!" He pushed himself backwards, bumping into something. Another clash. Something fell.

Where was his gun? Where was he? What the hell?

"Eien!" 

He stopped scrambling.

"Ai?" He turned his head to the sound, pulling himself together.

"Wait there." He crouched down, heart still beating like a gun on a roll.

"Is...is he crazy? What...what? Hey, wait!"

Footsteps.

Eien felt a hand on his shoulder. Then he felt something drop in front of him. He picked it up.

It was a soft fabric. He rubbed his eyes hastily, trying to get all the gloppy stuff out. 

"Ah….thanks, Ai…" he said, pushing himself to stand. The greenish white goop clumped up and looked like snot stuck to the towel.

He seemed to be in a large open room that contained several rows of beds, tables with tubing, liquids, and machines of various sizes. The walls were a stark white and contrasted with a weird blue ceiling that seemed to emanate a gentle light across the whole room.

A few beds were occupied, but most of them were empty, neatly made up with white sheets to match the walls. Several people dressed in white stood close together. They had matching hats and jackets with a red emblem sewn on front jacket pockets.

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A bed had tipped over close to him with the snot-colored goo dripping from sheets onto the floor. Everyone was staring at him.

And there was Aino.

She was covered in greenish white goo, staring with her stone bitch-face. Her normally white hair was still dirty from the road with fly-away strands glinting in the weird blue light. The goop had mixed with some of the dirt ran brown and black in places. She was wearing a robe with slippers, and the mere thought of the SQOD in slippers made Eien almost laugh. What the other conscripts would have said if they had seen her now! What would Bair have said…

Ah, but they were dead.

"I'm sorry for my reaction. I was just surprised," he said, feeling a bit of heat hit his cheeks. He wiped off his hands as best as he could and put the towel the cart he had found in his blindness.

"Well...no matter. Please, sit back down and take a minute," an older lady dressed in uniform replied, gesturing to a bed, "The poison will circulate for up to a day, so it is best to rest now."

“Y-yes, ma’am.”

He sat down on a clean bed. Some of the other workers started cleaning up the goop mess he had made and were remaking the bed. Aino stood near him, wordless. Eien played with the edge of his own robe.

The lady returned with a small cart she had pulled from the edge of the room. She was petite and dark skinned. Her black hair puffed up at the back of her head and peeped out above her hat. Wrinkles appeared at the contours of her face as she smiled at him.

“I am Nurse Dagmar of the house of Lem. I work here, at the hospital in Morshe. What’s your name?” Her voice was like that of the river, calming and deep.

“Eien…just…Eien, ma’am.”

“Well, Mr. Eien, we will take good care of you while you stay with us. I am going to check your vitals now.”

She reached for his wrist. He let her take it.

“You looked awful, coming in here all puffed up from those flies. What were you doing out in the fly fields?” He looked at Aino. She stared back at him unnervingly.

Nurse Dagmar set his hand down and wrote something down in a file on her cart.

"Uh...we got a little lost," he replied, watching carefully as she pulled out some kind of clamp attached to a whirring and glowing machine.

“Uhh…what is that?” he asked, stiffening.

“It’s a scanner. Hold still for a second while I put this in your ear.” He glanced at Aino. Did she go through the same thing?

He heard a gentle hum, something seemed to thrum through him, and then Nurse Dagmar pulled out the probe.

“All done,” she said, “Let me look at your eyes.” He looked at her. She looked at him as if searching for something. Then she let go and wrote something in the file again.

"So um…where are we? Where is our…stuff" he asked, hesitant to give her more information than she needed. No way was he going back to the burning shit city of Beldam.

"You are at the hospital in Morsche. Tally, the director’s daughter, actually, was the one who found you two suffering from the fly poison just outside the city. Your things are stored behind the desk and will be verified for safety reasons. We will discharge you tomorrow morning, as the poison will be out of your system, and you should be all better. The bathroom is over there, and if you want anything to eat, Jell, there, will help you.” She indicated a man standing next to a bed with an older woman, handing her a bowl of something.

“Leave the antiseptic anti-venom poultice on your skin. We can wash it off once the venom is no longer in your system. I will be back to check on you in about an hour with a doctor. Okay?"

“Okay…thank you, ma’am,” he replied. She smiled genuinely at him and rolled away with her cart to another bed with a man making strange snorting sounds in his sleep.

He turned his attention to his literally fearless leader.

“Aino, are you…okay?” he asked, wondering how she responded to the nurse’s prods and attentions.

She stood still with her arms across her front and feet shoulder width apart.

“Um, so, I know you might not…want me to ask this, but…What the hell? Don’t you have like…um, you know. Why couldn’t you just…uhh…”

He wanted to talk, but he was suddenly very aware of everyone in the room. There were people everywhere. People were lying down, talking, watching them, standing, walking. They could be good or bad. He did not really understand or know where they were. Was it safe?

And what the hell! Didn’t she had some kind of wind power to get rid of those bugs? Why the hell would she let them get bit? Did she want them to die?

Aino sat down next to him and rested her hands on her lap.

Turning her head mechanically to face him, she said, "Get food."

His stomach growled.

And he nodded quickly, “Yes, ma’am.”