Classification: This piece contains Adult Themes, and is author-rated M for Mature Audiences. You may find it prudent to stop eating and/or drinking before reading. Don't say I didn't warn you.
It didn't take them long to spot the casualty. Slumped unconscious in a wheelchair, blood stained its dirty white clothing. An orderly ran out into the cold night air and grabbed the wheelchair handles. Grunting with the exertion, he pushed the wheelchair into the ER, not forgetting to kick out the brakes.
A doctor strode forward. Diagnosis was rapid. A portable metal detector chirped. <Foreign object lodged in the patient's abdomen,> the doctor observed, her voice a bastion of calm in the chaos of the ER. <Let OR know we're coming. Oh, wait, I forgot. Get me fifty ccs of dimetaphosphate, because I'm a doctor, and I have to maintain the stereotype, despite being French and everything. STAT!>
All Brad can see is white. Smooth, polished white, stretching to infinity.
He cannot move his limbs. He cannot turn his head. If he has a body, he isn't aware of it.
I think... I think I'm dead. I think I died there, under the rubble, and now I'm awaiting my sentence.
Christ, he thinks, not realising the irony. I'm an atheist. Don't they flay us eternally or something?
Sensation returns to his head. He realises he's staring 'up', according to his inner ear. He strains, and he succeeds in rolling his head to the side.
The room - for a room he is in - comes into focus. It is cold, and Spartan, and decidely military in feel. A door hisses open.
His breath catches in his throat. A million conflicting thoughts wage war over his mortal mind.
Dorset Konnair is standing in the doorway.
Wearing a black leather corset and matching thong.
Oh Lord, he thinks again, this time noticing the irony. I really am dead. He tries to rise, and realises that he cannot. He is bound hand and foot to the bed on which he lies.
She strides towards him, her graceful legs setting his soul afire with every step. She reaches him, and straddles him purposefully.
She stares into his eyes.
There is a hissing noise, and she brings a lightsabre up above her head. It is not a normal sabre - the blade is coloured black, and seems to absorb light, not shed it. She twirls it and thrusts it downwards, deep into his belly, vapourising stomach and masses of coiled intestine.
He screams.
The patient awoke with a scream. The doctor was startled but didn't stop cutting into his flesh.
<Up the dosage on the anaesthetic!> she ordered briskly. The object was only moments from retrieval. How had he broken through the dose? He should have been comatose.
The patient groaned in pain, but quietened when the drugs began flowing into his system. He mouthed a word, in English. "Alive."
"Yes," she confirmed, in the same language. "You're alive." She carefully pulled the object out of his body. Covered in gore, it was barely recognisable, but the distinctive shape was unmistakable.
This anglophone had barely survived a gunshot.
With the immediate threat to his health removed, the doctor began considering the case. When they'd cut off the white plasticky fabric covering the wounded area, she'd noticed an unusual patch sealing the wound. Once she'd removed the clear plastic patch, she'd had to deal with a foul-smelling pinkish gunk. Washing it clear, she'd then had to carefully remove some concrete that had found its way into the wound. Only then had she finally been able to remove the bullet itself.
She hoped the wound wouldn't become infected. That was the only threat now; the internal organs seemed remarkably healthy considering that a lead slug had just torn a bloody channel through the patient's abdomen.
An orderly called for a doctor, and she turned her back on the patient. She was needed in the ER.
She walked out, ready to save more lives.