[day 44] infirmary: attn biro, marran, others [f]
Halling sat, exhausted, on the floor in the infirmary. He'd been saying prayers over the dead for what felt like days now. So many -- too many -- had died. Wraith feedings, injuries, starving while stranded and unable to find help. It was a horror the like of which he had never seen in his life.
Cullings on Athos had never been like this. Always they would be able to find survivors before they starved. The city was so big and the population so small that the task of finding the missing was beyond imagination. The smell of death was everywhere, and strongest here in the place of healing, where the most seriously wounded were taken. It was a terrible sign. The scent of incense, at least, covered some of the worst of it.
As much as Halling wished to maintain his hope, the deaths had left him hollow. He had been given the responsibility of leading their people in Teyla's absence, and the sad truth was that she might never make her way back to the City of the Ancestors. She had been on the mainland when the city rose, and there was no other Ring on that world that they had discovered. Even if the mainland party had survived, there was no way Halling knew of to retrieve them.
He wished David were still among them, but was comforted by the fact that Jinto and most of the other children had not been Taken or killed. Life, at least, had a chance to continue.
Cullings on Athos had never been like this. Always they would be able to find survivors before they starved. The city was so big and the population so small that the task of finding the missing was beyond imagination. The smell of death was everywhere, and strongest here in the place of healing, where the most seriously wounded were taken. It was a terrible sign. The scent of incense, at least, covered some of the worst of it.
As much as Halling wished to maintain his hope, the deaths had left him hollow. He had been given the responsibility of leading their people in Teyla's absence, and the sad truth was that she might never make her way back to the City of the Ancestors. She had been on the mainland when the city rose, and there was no other Ring on that world that they had discovered. Even if the mainland party had survived, there was no way Halling knew of to retrieve them.
He wished David were still among them, but was comforted by the fact that Jinto and most of the other children had not been Taken or killed. Life, at least, had a chance to continue.