It was sometimes easy to forget, that behind every reflective screen, behind every helmet and breath, there was one of us.
We were all guilty of that crime.
"Why are those injuries not healing..?"
Mack asked, his voice shaky. The air in the pressurized insides of base would always let far more emotion filter through than the stagnant comms channels.
Real voice would allow you to peek into one's soul. It may have been an unnecessarily poetic claim, but in a sense, it was a fundamental truth.
Mack was agitated, shaken, and terrified. but ultimately trusting enough in the people around him to not let go.
Gritting my teeth, I shallowed my own problems, and put my hand on his shoulder in an attempt to ease him up. Even if it was just by a little bit...
"It'll be fine, Mar' is a tough girl- you know it."
Those few words softened his glare, which remained glued to the room behind the small reinforced window.
"This is all wrong..."
He muttered under his breath, his fists clenching the elongated pommel of the door, visibly deforming it.
I really couldn't do much to ease him. I didn't have any answers for him.
Despite being the one with the most care put on her during our long trip back, having had the most rest and the least weight. Martha's situation had only worsened...
Mar' had fainted not long after arriving at the base, on the middle of a corridor, right before her dorm.
Thankfully, even if he had kept it quiet, Mack had noticed her struggling behind us on various occasions, he had bothered to keep a good eye on her along our trip, and probably he was the only one of us that knew how bad her condition had turned.
...
Her body paled along the rhythmic pulsing of her heart, her flesh had become dangerously soft, and her eyes although now closed, had become increasingly watery. All of those were bad signals already. However, it didn't stop there.
Our journey on Cass's mule had taken far less than half an hour, yet in that short time, her condition had only evolved bleaker. Slightly shaking hands, chaotic, rapid breathing, then plain convulsions, accompanied by fever.
"Tamm, give me a sharp cutter."
Spoke an older woman, her other hand reaching for a small scissor on her rear side, her firm hands carefully nearing the girl's injuries.
Even if silence was the last thing Valeria would want after an emotional comeback, it was a necessary requirement. So despite all the bickering, she had allowed only three people inside the sealed room.
"Thanks, sweet."
Operators were rare among miners.
It was an old known, bleeding outside of the base... Well, bleeding in general was a deadly omen. It was often that those who shed blood didn't make it back.
We were a lucky bunch though. Valeria was possibly the most experienced operator this base had seen in its decades. Her knowledge of both the healing and the damaging to bodies and flesh was enigmatic, mysterious, but outstanding nonetheless.
"Tam, hold her still."
She said under her breath, asking her young student Tamm to clench her body in place, just in case the girl had another spontaneous seizure.
The clock was ticking. They were in a race... A race in which both slowing down and hesitating would mean something fatal occurred.
Without a word, Kev approached, helping by pinning down the unconscious girl's shoulders and head.
The operation table was basic, but it had all the essential equipment Valeria needed. The girl was lying on the table, the left side of her thin face remained covered in blood.
Valeria had seen injuries like this before, but never on someone so young.
"She should have regenned by now."
As a general rule, as long as there were nutrients in the body, an injury to a Miner's body, if not fatal, would heal in little time. Days, weeks at most.
Yet that was not happening... Not only was there no sign of regeneration of the thicker skin, but the bleeding had yet to completely subdue.
"Ballistic shrapnel... God, you must've been close Kev."
Somehow maintaining her unique skill to keep up the mood, Valeria took a deep breath and started to operate.
Kev chuckled under his breath but did not say anything.
Removing the shrapnel first. Stopping the bleeding next. The woman, worked quickly and efficiently, her hands moving with autonomous precision.
Either ignoring or forgetting the weight of the stares through the thick glass of the door, her mind rapidly focused, as she began cutting the excess of frozen, dead flesh around the injury.
Ice was a bitch.
Frozen injuries were the most difficult to treat, and the ones which left the worse marks. Still, there was no time to bother with warming up the area before op. She knew better than anyone that if the girl didn't start to heal soon, there was a good chance that she might not make it.
Time always slipped quicker within the operating room.
"God, Tamm, get me the sedatives."
She said, her voice calm but urgent. There were very few working sedatives in their reserves, they were sparsely sent with each replenishing drop and, were used like mad.
Still, having a debate about employing them or not was out of the question, they didn't have that time.
Tamm quickly handed her the sedative, and Valeria injected it into the girl's bloodstream.
Thankfully that batch had not expired yet. The sedative took effect quickly, forcing the girl's erratic movements to ease. With the threat of cutting something she shouldn't out of the way, her hands began moving with even greater speed and precision.
Opening the insides of her left cheek and forehead...
Clack!!
...
A sharp glint under the unforgiving, continuous firing of halogen lights. Kev's eyes followed the blasting piece of alloy along the air... Its shape...
It was the pointy end of a scalpel. Valeria halted.
"Wha-"
Her darker bronze eyes stared through blood, flesh, and skin... Her movements, her breath, her thought too... In a single instant, they all broke.
She mindlessly gave a step back, drawing distance between the operation table and her body.
"Val, what the f-"
Tamm tried asking, her voice was clueless as to what was happening, just like Val herself.
"Back up."
Kevin's hand stood between both, warning Tamm to stay back.
Deep shadows covered his face, hiding his stare and expression from everyone. It was better they didn't get to see it.
His thin eyes opened whole, a layer of sweat built on his forehead as bulging veins burned across his jaw and temple.
"What the fuck is that Kevin..?"
It was a single glance... Tamm's face seemed to visibly pale. Val asked, her voice trembling horribly, muffled by her own hands as her breath ramped up.
This was not right. Not right at all.
"This must be fucking bullshit."
He muttered under his breath, not bothering to swallow his own concern, Kev's hand pointed at the door.
"You both get out of here. NOW!!!"
Valeria and Tamm stumbled back, their eyes wider with shock. Valeria's hand trembled as she pulled off her gloves, her mind bursting with fear. The kind of devastating horror that shattered decades of understanding.
...
Mack did not hold any longer.
Swiping the door open with inhuman strength, his boots almost cracked the floor as he stepped inside the roo-
"MACK DON'T FUCK AROUND."
For once, I... We all saw it, Kevin's eyes shone with the same cold, murderous malice I had seen. Back in the wreck.
Involuntarily or not, Mack's body shook, unable to give any other step forward. His gaze remained glued to Martha's greyish, half-naked body.
"You three get out."
...
Chaos, our minds span in chaos as the shouting stopped. The three... Mack, Val, and Tamm, all hurried out of the room. They hurried, and disappeared along the corridors, not bothering to answer any of our questions.
Mack with frustration, and contempt. Val with fear, grief, and disbelief. Tamm, with nothing but terror.
The door had yet to the operation room had yet to completely close though... through the margin between sliding door and frame, a single name was heard.
"Vaam, come in. Lock the door behind."
Mine.
...
Depending on who was in control, one's imagination could be a great friend or an outstanding foe. Hope it didn't derail, lest your worst fears came true.
Clack...
The echoes of voices across the hallway shut, as the sliding door locked behind my back.
Not even then did Kevin bother to lift his gaze off Martha's injuries. He just stood there, motionlessly. Thoughtlessly.
It was as if his impenetrable will and soul had been shattered then and there. As if his grief and fears had locked him in place. Unable to move nor act.
Monotonous, unlike Kevin. That was my best description of his tone.
"You did see it better than I could..."
Slowly walking my way forwards, Kev's short gray hair and beard no longer eclipsed the girl's...
My breath. I could not breathe.
"The thing on the wreck... Tell me this isn't it."
Out of the forced-slept girl, slowly growing from her bone-white skull. Flourishing sharp, black, shards.