On a bed off to one side lies a young girl, unconscious. Since being brought here by Dr Mid-Nite, Greta's vitals have slowly lowered closer and closer to the instrumentation's warning levels. Despite the oxygen mask over her face her breathing is labored, and has slowed for the last several minutes.
Without warning the monitor next to Greta begins beeping it's shrill note, and the frail blonde on the bed begins to convulse. A second later the monitor is dragged to the floor by her spasms, where it continues to give voice to Greta's distress. Greta herself adds to the noise, choking noises combining with wet rasps as her body continues trying to breathe in spite of the seizure.
Lyle's at her side in a moment, checking over the monitors. He pulls a subdermal injector from the small pouch he's carrying, giving Greta some anti-convulsive medication to ease the seizure.
"Brainy, we're going to lose this one." His voice is tinged with sadness, but layered with a controlled, clinical tone.
Greta's seizures quickly subside as she comes to rest askew on the bed, one foot dangling off the side. Her breathing returns to it's labored pace, but the monitor continues to show the degeneration of her body, which has already been weakened by one bout of flu less than a week before this. Her breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure would all be setting off the monitor if it hadn't been silenced by Fauna, and the steady descent of the readouts give mute testimony to the plague's speed.
Zauriel can't comprehend the monitor read-outs, but he doesn't need them to know that the girl is dying. He goes to her side, but fears the worst even as he wills her heart to beat and her lungs to fill. The damage is extensive and requires a more delicate touch than simply knitting torn flesh and shattered bone and the disease fights him for ever fiber that he tries to heal.
Lyle, prepare that variant of the antitoxin comprehensive spread releaser you developed. We're going to try it.
That would be the same drug that two weeks ago he referred to as "the pharmaceutical equivalent of a hacksaw." The fact that he's willing to try it speaks loads - to Lyle, anyway.
Even beneath the ministrations of Heaven's emissary of love and the greatest minds of a far-flung millenia, Greta Hayes continues to fade. The healing of Zauriel is able only to stop the progress of the disease, leaving Greta to the damage done to her brain and body tissues by the fever, and even as Lyle approaches at a run the heart monitor beeps slower. Finally Greta's nervous system, bolstered first by Lyle and then by Zauriel begins it's final breakdown, disrupting her heart and sending it into full fibrillation.
Each jolt of electricity makes Greta's body jump, but beyond that is unable to reset the rhythm of her heart. Gradually the fibrillation slows, and as the line on the heart monitor goes flat, Brainiac will notice that when he presses down with the paddles, they are no longer stopping at her skin, but are beginning to sink through her body as if it were made of smoke.
Greta's form becomes more indistinct, seeming to lose it's substance even as it loses the soul within it. At last the child, who could be mistaken for sleeping if not for the complete stillness of her chest, is a cloud lying where Greta herself had lain a moment ago. It holds its form for a few moments, and then wavers. A breeze, possibly no more than the exhalation of one of her would-be saviors, ripples the form and it's gone, dispelled throughout the room and into invisibility. With it departs the soul that was once known as Greta Hayes.
Selina puts a hand to her mouth as if to hold in the reaction she's having to watching this. Her eyes narrow some as she tries to figure out where to channel her reaction. She shivers, swallowing hard, before making her way over to Mary.
And like, in the Dominion, she finds her strength, though she can't know how she manages. The Amish have a saying that sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes God lets the storm rage and instead calms His children.
Work first, cry later. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
Don't even fucking THINK of what the Commune looks like now.
"I'll...Any other child who could use this bed?"
She will break later. She will cry later. She will doubt herself, and have nightmares and tell this story to Gar and Donna later.
Without warning the monitor next to Greta begins beeping it's shrill note, and the frail blonde on the bed begins to convulse. A second later the monitor is dragged to the floor by her spasms, where it continues to give voice to Greta's distress. Greta herself adds to the noise, choking noises combining with wet rasps as her body continues trying to breathe in spite of the seizure.
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She's racing over, trying to make sure that nothing falls on her or gets pulled from the wall.
She knows first aid and folk medicine, but this is far beyond her.
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"Brainy, we're going to lose this one." His voice is tinged with sadness, but layered with a controlled, clinical tone.
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Selina swallows and does her best to stay out of the way.
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That would be the same drug that two weeks ago he referred to as "the pharmaceutical equivalent of a hacksaw." The fact that he's willing to try it speaks loads - to Lyle, anyway.
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PADDLES! Prep 20 cc's of adrenalin! NOW!
He rubs the defibrillator pads together.
CLEAR!
Zap. No heartbeat. Again.
CLEAR!
Zap.
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She's been shellshocked into silence.
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He wipes his brow and looks at Lyle.
Call it.
He walks away a bit around a corner, and then the clatter and crash of glass containers being knocked to the ground angrily can be heard.
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Nevertheless, he makes the notations in his personal datapad. Time and cause of death.
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All over again.
And like, in the Dominion, she finds her strength, though she can't know how she manages. The Amish have a saying that sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes God lets the storm rage and instead calms His children.
Work first, cry later.
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
Don't even fucking THINK of what the Commune looks like now.
"I'll...Any other child who could use this bed?"
She will break later. She will cry later. She will doubt herself, and have nightmares and tell this story to Gar and Donna later.
Now, there are chores to be done.
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