A long hallway, gray and dirty, people rushing past in panic, sat in a crumbling building, like the buildings beside it and the buildings beside them. It sat in a crumbling city, desperately trying to fix itself. It sat in a country on the brink of a civil war, one that would never happen, but would always be a threat.
And in that long forgotten hallway Dr. Ryan marched with her head held high, dark shadows under her eyes, and her coat bloody. She was eighteen, ready to save the world, and too old to do it.
Medical carts flew by, and she fluttered out of the way, her heels clicking on the sticky, molding floor. The nurses who lingered by the doorways whispered to each other, pity in the eyes, but Dr. Ryan paid them no mind. She had better things to do than pity herself.
She made it to her closet that was forced into an office. She opened the door, sighing ready to take the less than white coat off, when a figure sitting at her desk snagged her eye.
The woman was out of place in the cluttered office, in the crumbling building, in the burning city. Her clothing was clean, her nails were delicately painted, and her posture perfect.
"Excuse me, but I'm afraid this office is off limits. Mrs. Nacy would love to help you at the front desk. Why don't I show you where it is?" A half smile fluttered on Dr. Ryan's lips as she gestured to the door. She would be polite, but her break had just started, and she needed to eat lunch and take a quick nap, not entertain some guest.
The woman's face was shadowed by a large hat, her outfit was pristine, the kind of outfit that you'd never see in the hospital, on the streets, on an honest worker. The hairs on Dr. Ryan's neck stood up, she straightened her back.
"Mrs? Nok wonder." The woman trailed off, shadows dancing in the background, "Love's ae gateway to mistakes."
"I'm very sorry." Dr. Ryan took half a step forward, almost crossing the room, not letting the Reivel take her by surprise, "That sounds like a very lonely way to live." Her voice was soft, her words carefully cut, but she didn't dare lay a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder. Assassins had been sent out for less.
Besides, the woman in front of Dr. Ryan didn't need assassins to terminate her. Why would the leader of the Bleeding Hearts let someone else kill her target?
"Don't be. Attachments bring chaos, which is something Iy try to avoid." The hat swiveled, and Dr. Ryan imagined a nose scrunching up beneath the shadow. The light flickered, leaving them in darkness for just a second and chills raced across her shoulders. The lights fluttered back on.
"I'm sorry, but you still can't be back here." Dr. Ryan's stomach twisted, her heart was beating faster and faster, her fingers were still. The exhaustion that held her shoulders gave way to the adrenaline that coated her fear.
The woman laughed. It was as graceful as a dancer and as deadly as she looked. "But youe, myi child, live in chaos. Welcome it. Youe are surrounded by this grime that grows like tumors. This is supposed to be ae hospital not ai playground for the sick."
Dr. Ryan's back straightened, and she gripped her notebook tighter. Someone was crying outside of the room, people were dying, and the woman still dared to mock. "Ma'am with all due respect, people come here for help. And that's what we do. We help people, no matter how dirty our facilities are."
"Ki?" She sounded amused, and Dr. Ryan inched closer to the door, to the wailing children, to the sobbing mothers, the lost who had wandered in seeking shelter from the fire. "And did they help youe?"
Shadows like fingers reached over Dr. Ryan's shoulders, their nails trailing lightly up her neck. Her heart stopped, the wild howled, rats whispered in the walls, but the woman didn't stop. She pulled a letter out of her bag, an old government paper with a stamp that taunted Dr. Ryan. "Did they help youe when youer husband was assassinated?"
Dr. Ryan stared at the red ink, blinking away the drops of blood that wandered into her nightmares, "It was a perfectly legal hit, ma'am, and I respect the law." Dr. Ryan's voice hardened, the chill of the night creeping into her tone. She took a deep breath. The fact that people could legally hire assassins to kill all those who oppose haunted her. That only the people who were affiliated with the government were safe crept into her nightmares. The bodies of legally hit adults that filled her hospital called to her. The fact that the decree that made her husbands assassination legal sat pearched in the monster's hands pulsed in her viens, "And that is none of your business."
The woman leaned closer. "Is it not?" A wicked grin crept out of the shadows, a perfect smile that promised pain. "What about that child of youers. Did youe get thee time to name it, or had it passed before youe could?" She clicked her tone in shame.
As soon as Dr. Ryan realized her jaw was trembling, she clenched it. "That falls under the 'none of your business'."
"Is it not? Then why have it so easy to find?" The woman was relaxed. Even with the clean, white trench coat, she merely melted into the shadows.
"It wasn't supposed to be." Dr. Ryan snapped, blinking back the tears that had started to form.
"Oh dear. They certainly were."
"Her name was Thea, and his was Dr. Ivory Ryan. So, if you're going to bring out the victim card to create a form of false sympathy," Dr. Ryan looked up from the paper, her eyes hardened, "use their names. They're people, not statistics." The woman smirked, and carefully placed the piece of paper back into her white briefcase.
Dr. Ryan continued, her eyes sharpening on the movement. "This is an institution that helps people, and if you can't accept that we do it with a little bit of chaos, that sounds like a problem for someone who isn't a doctor trying to help people in the middle of a petty fight you started." The words had already boiled over, her young mind had already lashed out, when she realised what she was saying. Her stomach sank, and fear crept into her joints and her mind. She softened her tone, "Now, you're in my office, and I have patients to attend to. Please leave."
The woman grinned, her fingers lightly tracing over the desk. Chills danced down Dr. Ryan's spine. "So, she can fight."
Dr. Ryan stood her ground, her eyes tracing the white hat, her mind racing. Cold soaked her body, the building too frail to keep the chilly winter winds out. "Yes, I can."
There was a pause, a moment where they both waited for the other to draw their guns. Dr. Ryan didn't let her eyes stray to where her's hid in the drawer. She couldn't make a mistake. Not with everything she fought for on the line. Not where her life's work could disappear just like her body.
A fight hung in the air, but neither inched towards it.
"If youe truly want to help people, youe would let me help youe." The woman leaned back in the chair, and Dr. Ryan froze. "Youe need supplies. Youe need sterilization."
"Yes, we do." The smile didn't reach her eyes, and Dr. Ryan tried her best to push the irritation down, "And may I ask what your point is?"
"My point? Iy can help youe."
"Why."
The woman leaned back, and paused for less than a moment, "Why what?"
Dr. Ryan tensed, "Why me. If you wanted to control the hospital, why not the dean, or anybody else. I'm brand new. Barely out of med school. Fresh blood."
The clock ticked every so carefully, as if not to disturb them, "Youi'll rise soon enough. Youi're smarter than half thee surgery room. Thei government might just sweep youi up." The woman waved her hand carefully, a mock version of the imaginary broom that the government might snatch her in.
"So you're threatened that I'll work for the people who protect me?" There was silence after Dr. Ryan's accusation. There was nothing to be heard, no doctors walking past, nothing over the barley working intercom. Nothing but darkness.
The woman laughed, cackling in the gleaming moments of light. She calmed, and the hat tilted. "To people who assigned youer husband hise death? Oh, dear me, no. Fear is not something Iy work with. Iy believe it only lets uninvited guests in."
"Like love?" Dr. Ryan couldn't help the hate that escaped her voice, but the woman seemed pleased.
"Iy see youi understand. So, let me help youi?"
Rats squeaked for attention, hiding within the hours and hours of work put into the messy binders filling the room.
"Help. Me? And what exactly is going to be the price of your help?" Dr. Ryan raised an eyebrow. Her tone was dry, but her nails dug into the palms of her hands, and she forced herself to breathe. She was young, not stupid.
"Does everything have to have ae price? What about youer help? What's the price youer patients pay?"
Dr. Ryan's patience was running thin, her break was almost over, and her stomach growled. Whatever snacks she had stashed away was now long gone. "Well, I guess my husband and my child were my price." Muffled shouts from the hallway filled the room. "And don't tell me, the price of your help would be getting your little club, Bleeding hearts to continue to blow our town to smithereens because you're mad at the government."
The woman shifted, her arms crossed, and rage radiated off her body, but Dr. Ryan couldn't care less. Her fingers and shoulders and back ached, exhaustion and rage filled her mind, and she still hadn't eaten. "My people are dying, the buildings crumbling beneath our feet because of you, and yet we're still helping each other. Our pain will always be the price of our kindness. So, now that our stances on... current events have come into the light, I'd like to respectfully ask if you'd stop your people from killing mine."
"Myi people?" It was predatory, and if Dr. Ryan had anyone left to care about, she would have been worried. But she was alone, no friends, no family to be concerned for, so she let the monster before her pounce. "Have youe lost enough dignity to part our people in youer words?"
Dr. Ryan straightened her back, and her eyes latched on to the lace that trailed over the edges of the hat, "I'd spit at you but this is hospital, and unfortunately my dignity still stands. You're a high-class citizen, slumming it in Avrgrim. And I'm an eighteen year-old widow who became a doctor in less than a year, and trying to survive in that same city. So, where's your dignity when you murder children and their parents?"
Dr. Ryan turned to leave, her break was up. She waited for the knife to land between her shoulders. It didn't. "Youer world is dirty." Dr. Ryan turned around. The woman, for the first time, sounded sincere. "Iy lost everything because of these imperfections, and so have youe. We could change thee world."
"If you haven't figured it out by now, nothing ever changes from violence, you only repress problems when you use brutality, and then end bombing cities. Remember that when you decide Avrgim isn't worth the fight."
"Avrgim's thee capital. It's worth the fight."
"You know what? One day you'll be lying in the wake of your own bloody mistakes and you'll wonder what's the price of kindness. That's it."
"Is that ai threat?"
Dr. Ryan pursed her lips, "Does it have to be?"
The woman took her hat off, her face perfect in every way. "Youe could be perfect."
"I don't need to be." She needed lunch, and a nap, and to be left alone for just a second.
And Dr. Ryan left wondering if her days were numbered.
But she knew better; they always are.