simon_doctor | (no subject)

A soldier with blood pouring from a gash down his arm struggles against two other men in the same uniform as they try to pull him into the room, screaming at them -- what is this place, who are you people, I don't know you, where's my mother? -- in a disturbingly childlike voice. Another, stretched on a cot nearby, sobs aloud with the pain of his crushed arm; his companion, sitting at the foot of the cot with his head in his hands, curses steadily under his breath, low and fervent as a prayer.

Underneath the chaos, over the chaos, all through the temple, a single clear voice chants a line of unfamiliar syllables over and over and over.

If the prayer's doing anyone any good, it's not apparent to Simon.

There's not enough bed space. Not enough bandages, not enough water, not enough equipment, not enough medication, not enough medical personnel. Not enough time.

When the fourth patient's heart stops almost under his fingers, as he's trying to put together the shattered mess of rib and collarbone and punctured lung, he loses precious seconds trying to find someone who can perform artificial respiration while he does the chest compressions. The people nearest him stare at him uncomprehendingly, and explanation will take more time than the patient has, so he takes it alone, alternating respiration and compression, losing count of how many times he's alternated.

Until there's a hand on his sleeve, and a tentative voice. "Tam? Tam, leave it, he's done -- there's others --"

He's done. Simon looks up numbly, scanning the walls. There's no timepiece. How is he supposed to call the time of death if there's no timepiece?

There's something else he's supposed to do, something particular to this situation, Yuna briefed them on the way in -- yes. "Someone please call a summoner," he says, still numb, and starts toward the next pallet.

Patient death occurred at approximately two and a half hours after sunset, local time. Dr. Simon Tam, primary physician.

Four more times over the long night, someone has to tell him to stop. Move aside for the last rites, go help the living and let the priests take care of the dead.

He loses count of everything else -- how many broken bones, how many mangled limbs, how many burns; how many times that droning chant repeats between one patient and the next; how many times he manages to restart a stopped heart -- but not that. By the time dawn filters in through the stained glass, it's repeating in an idiot drone of its own in the back of his mind: Five. Five of them. There were five.

And it's nagging at him, a small pointless annoyance like a loose thread, that he couldn't accurately log the time of death for any of them.