WHO: Hynia Kadowaki WHAT: Preparations are set for the Mimic Queen's invasion. WHERE: Balamb Garden Clinic WHEN: Evening of Thursday, June 25. WARNINGS: N/A
“Kim, can you take a look at this?”
Kim had just been disposing his gloves in the sanitary bin when Kadowaki had summoned him over to her desk with a little wave. She was looking at her laptop as if she was reading the most curious medical article in recent history but upon hunching over to better see the screen, he noticed that what she was looking at was an e-mail to Balamb’s health division. Oh, and also an endlessly spinning icon.
His investigations began and ended promptly. “Ahh, you’re not connected to the network.”
“And when did that happen?”
“Just now.” Both eyes looked up to another intern who’d stopped on her way to the clinic doors to look at her phone. She waved the error screen to anyone who cared to look. “I was chatting with my boyfriend when it went down.”
“Well, see if you can find someone to fix this,” Kadowaki said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She said goodbye to everyone and left, the charm key chains connected to her backpack’s zippers jingling for every foot that landed on the floor. Everyone else responded in kind, if they weren’t too distracted by their administrative and medical work.
Or staring at the floor as if there was a monstrous cat circling their feet.
“Grace?” Kadowaki inquired of the young girl frozen solid on her seat next to the open filing cabinet. “Grace, is there anything wrong?”
The Al-Bhed gasped shyly awake and shook her head at Kim and Kadowaki watching her. “No wrong. No wrong…” she whispered. She went back to sorting through the paperwork on her lap.
Kadowaki and Kim exchanged a glance before she reclaimed her mouse. “Thank you, Kim. If you’re done with your task, I need someone to clean up the x-ray room.”
“Yes, Ma’am!” He was off.
Hours passed and the light of the day dimmed. It came to a point where several cadets thought they’d try to be smart and pretend they all simultaneously suffered a stomach ache just so they could commandeer the clinic’s electrical sockets and charge their phones. Kadowaki sent them out with little effort and a dismissive wave. Outside her clinic, shadows painted the walls all around them and if Kadowaki just closed her eyes and pretended, she could swear she was back in her mother’s kitchen half a lifetime ago, preparing poultice for the cause by candle light when the enemy would kill the whole town’s power source, likely before an operation.
She whirled around with a sigh, marching back to her desk. “Well, I’d hate to leave you all here in the middle of darkness but since I’m not getting any work done, I might as well go home.” That all changed when the piercing cry of a woman tore the fabric of silence open and made room for the roars of men and a chorus of screams. The hurried feet of her curious medics, a song that played only during emergency situations, threatened to suffocate her but she knew better than to give in to her fear.
“All hands on deck, we’ve got an emergency situation!” In a second, the clinic burst to life and transformed itself into a war room. “Clear the desks and bring out the sheets! Mika, get me 1,000 curative bottles of each kind. Kyle, start the call tree, we need everyone in the clinic now!”
The infirmary was racked with the sound of furniture smacking onto each other. Chairs were rearranged to one side of the wall, filing cabinets slammed shut and overturned to be draped in white, an effort that required three people and three seconds at most. Kadowaki grabbed for gauzes and strips to stuff her pockets full while she navigated around rushing bodies and boxes being carried overhead. “All rooms must be opened and reserved for critical conditions! Everything that needs a key must be unlocked. Grace, what are you still doing there?!”
Grace was frozen in the middle of the corridor, looking every bit like a statue out of place as the other medics squeezed past her in and out. Under the harsh light of the infirmary, she looked feeble and skinny and white…
In fact, ghostly white and almost transparent! When Kadowaki asked her, “Grace, what’s going on with you?” she gasped to life sharply again and gaped at the doctor.
After muttering some form of an apology, the young cadette spun and darted down the x-ray room with incredible speed.
“What-- Grace! What are you doing?!” Kadowaki was running after her before anyone could stop her and when someone did find a way to make her…
It was with the splatter of silky white substance to her face, flying from a hidden corner of the narrow space.
By the time the first of the injury had come charging through the darkness with pleas of help, Kadowaki and her team of masked medics would bring them in with a satisfied nod.