✓ | 𝟐 | 𝐐𝐔𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐀 ━ Alice Cullen

𝖛𝖎𝖎𝖎. A fever

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓:
A fever
(1920)

TYPHUS FEVER.

It is a disease of filth. It is common only where lice are common because the lice that carry typhus fever are common in large aggregations of persons who do not bathe or change clothes with any regularity and are forced by circumstances to live in close quarters.

The lice cling to the seams of clothing, in cuffs, hems, and any other space that supplies them a modicum of hiding. They move from one person to another, more or less at random.

Simple acts, such the accidental brushing against, temporary loan of clothing, or simple proximity, especially at night, can lead to a migration from one person to another.

Lice will make a mass exodus from a person when death overtakes their host, and the rapidly cooling body forces them to find a more hospitable environment.

"Burn the sheets or any clothing that was exposed by the patients, change it to new ones, and clean the cells," Cordelia hears the head Nurse, Nurse Susie, order and adds, "Cordelia and Ginny, you two are in charge of the parlor."

The two continued to the parlor room, where two other nurses were finishing setting the needed tools, putting on a cloth mask, tying it in a lazy ribbon, clipping her hair up with gloves already worn, and putting on the white coat that covers her from shoulder to toe.

"Line 'em up," Ginny tells the other nurse, with the person scurrying away from the room, then came back with patients lining at the door.

Cordelia stands behind a parlor chair with an electric razor in hand. "Single line now, yeah?"

With that, they continued shaving the girls and women's hairs, one by one.

"You're finished." Cordelia taps the shoulder of the woman sitting on a chair with a now newly shaved head. The woman lifts her hand, caressing her head, and sighs as she stands up from her seat.

Mary Alice sits on the chair rather happily as she swings her feet that are hanging on the chair, not reaching the floor because of her small figure.

"You ready?" Cordelia politely asks, and Alice turns her head around to face her and smiles with a nod of her head, and looks away.

Turning the razor on, Cordelia carefully and gently shaved the left side of Alice's head, now leaving a shaved area.

"A shaved head, is it in fashion nowadays?" Alice asks with a blissful tone, and Cordelia chuckles and answers, "Might as well be."

"Cell 507," Alice whispers to herself, yet with Cordelia's enhanced hearing, she heard her clearly.

Turns the razor off. "What is it, Mary Alice?" Cordelia asks, and Alice shakes her head rapidly, "Fever, chills, headache, rapid breathing, rash."

"A person in cell 507 is going to die," Alice bluntly says, and Cordelia walks around the chair and faces her, with Alice a dazed look upon her small features.

Cordelia purses her lips, death. She knows that humans cannot escape death, especially when it comes to diseases caused by bacteria. They haven't found the right treatment for them, and that alone is a risk of a patient dying.

Cordelia then continued to shave Alice's head.

•| ⊱✿⊰ |•

THE PATIENT IN CELL 507 DIED.

Alice was right.

The staff decided it was best to separate the patients from the ones who were severely infected by the fever to without.

So, Cordelia takes a break from the catastrophe happening inside the hospital, and the only thing she can think of that can take her mind out of the pending mess is to paint the rest of the day off.

She adored painting gardens. She remembered in her human life, or what is left in her memories, that is, her mother always loved gardening, always changing the appearance of their back garden, either growing flowers or planting fruits like different kinds of berries, cherry tomatoes, peaches.

The specific flower that she favored her mother planted was Marigold, that only bloomed in the summer and fall months.

Marigold, with its vivid orange color like the sun at its highest peak, reminded her of how life used to be simple, carefree, and serene.

Not that she blamed her adoptive father figure, Mansion, for changing her. She was glad that he saved her, yet, she longed for the feeling of not knowing the unknown, the risks, for once she liked the feeling of discovery, of not being in a frozen state, of never moving forward.

Finishing her painting with a divine smile upon her graceful features, a pleased sigh escapes her thin lips.

Oh, to be human again.