Forsaken

War etched itself in my mind.

Fragments of what this world used to be were nothing short of a dream I liked to relive.

Humans, vampires, and beasts enslaved to the moon haunted each other, which gave me nothing short of headaches I didn’t need.

Yet, the silence that echoed was equal to the backwash of atrocities they left in my city.

I ran my finger along the edge of the counter, glancing at it to confirm there wasn’t a molecule of dust that could harm anyone.

I liked my operating room to be sterile.

I want my back to be treated with care if it were on this table, so it should be in pristine condition.

Yet, it was quiet today.

No Death.

No traumas.

And no monsters knocking on my city’s door. The silence shrouded the city loudly enough that perhaps I was the only one who could’ve heard it.

A little over four hundred years ago, any woman with a similar standing to mine would have given up her firstborn for a moment of silence. Time and peace held the same value, and neither was present without the other. The Blood War wiped 80% of humanity from the face of the earth.

Dreams had collapsed before they were even thought of.

Mothers had to bury sons.

And many fathers died before seeing their children walk.

That was the price we had to pay for our foolishness, let alone the fact that we were weak.

Fighting the army of undead, or slaves to the blood moon, was deemed to be impossible for humanity. There was no route we could have taken to live in harmony.

Some say a radical group of religious men started the vampire uprising, deeming our elimination fruitful as they multiplied.

The cruel thing about humans? If it weren’t for our ambition to conquer anything that seemed out of our control, then just maybe we would still be alive.

The United States as a whole collapsed; cities turned into blood-stained relics housing the poor souls that were condemned to the undead’s rage. States were turned into armories fueled by the hatred for the undead.

But eventually they all turned to dust.

Except my colony, Texas.

Our prideful group of people stood at the face of absolution, waiting for those bastards to come and bleed us dry, but not without them risking their own demise.

We were well armed, turning lead bullets into silver and silver into wood. We were able to fight them just enough.

Just enough that we were able to create our own sovereignty. Rumors spill today about how awful our state used to be: slavery and unseen mass murders taking place without reason, but that no longer existed.

Racism was no longer a construct that kept us from our neighbors.

Sexism was obsolete, as everyone held some position of power, not unmerited, but by a sheer force of will.

Our objective was simple: fight and die, and live to procreate. We refused to let the damning of the world take our generations from us, and to that I agreed.

And I’d like to assume that’s why I enjoyed cutting.

I never wondered what I was classified as. Are you a glass-half-full kind of girl or a glass-half-empty? I knew in my soul that taking someone from a place of despair, taking a small artery not visible to the eyes of the average person, and sewing it to closure, stopping the bleeding of a ruptured carotid artery, I knew taking people apart and putting them back together gave me a level of satisfaction that only an addict could comprehend.

Maybe I was a psychopath.

A monster.

But I was sure as hell the machine you wanted to fix you while you were on the verge of imminent death.

But I couldn’t help but wonder, maybe this was my pathetic attempt at fixing myself?

“Lucretia!”

I flinched, whipping my head to the entrance of my operating room, only to see John.

“What?” I called back, thumping my head on the cabinet behind me.

“I’ need you to prep, we have a patient coming down to cardio in a matter of minutes”

I blinked rapidly. “It’s 10 am, John” I said, my voice was laced with shock.

“I don’t think blood suckers think about the proper time to kill”

“I heard the guy is in pretty bad shape.” He said, pulling the bright blue linens across my metal operating table.

I nodded my head, grabbing the silver box that held my surgical tools from the drawer next to me. I kicked the drawer shut with my foot as I walked to the standing tray, carefully placing each tool on it.

“You need to stop working so much.”

I paused, rolling my eyes as he spoke.

“Well, what else am I going to do?” I said, as I wiped a small speck of dust from my standing tray.

“You’re the one that got me kicked off the force.” I stated, I turned to face John’s bright red face.

“You’re better at saving lives than taking them.”

“And with Joel, and Ambrose’s Dea—”

“Stop,” I said, gripping the sides of the standing tray.

“Don’t speak about them.”

John exhaled for a moment; he tilted his head to the side as though I had proved a point.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Lucretia.” He said, dropping the linen and walking to face me.

“But after what happened to your parents, did you really expect me to let someone with a death wish fight for us?”

“We did it in the past,” I retorted.

“Yeah, and how’d that work out for the rest of them?”

I exhaled; annoyance seeped through my body as the memories of my parents flooded my body.

I grabbed a box of gloves, carefully placing them at the baseboard of my operating table.

“Soon we won’t need soldiers.”

“Is that so?” I laughed sarcastically.

“Yes.”

“I heard a rumor that the military governance found some sort of weapon that can wipe all of the vampires out.” John finished, stopping me in my tracks.

“What kind of weapon?”

“I dunno,” John mumbled, grabbing the yellow-misted chemical to spray the lights.

“Then how do they know?”

“I don’t know, Lucretia. I’m not a fucking seer.” He said, dropping the bottle of chemicals on the ground.

I laughed to myself, theories, and dreams and hopes they wanted to feed us. Like when wooden bullets were destined to be the end-all-be-all vampire killer; everyone was excited.

Until we learned that all they did was slow them down— the ones we needed to kill anyway.

“I’ll believe it when I see it”

John chuckled, throwing the rag at my scrubs, as his pager began to beep erratically.

“Scrub in- I’ll send June.” He said, before exiting my operating room.

I walked to the sterilizing room, letting the automatic double doors blow a cool blend of oxygen in my face. Turning the sinks, I grabbed a large orange bar of soap. It was the same chemicals we used to clean the operating room walls.

Sterile.

Not a speck of bacteria.

I scrubbed my arms viciously as I looked out the glass window.

“A new weapon, huh?” I whispered to myself. I played out every scenario in which I would win without the blood soldiers.

I’m no seer, but our odds aren’t exactly high.

I operated on three children in the past two days. Each of them were under the age of 6, bright eyed and innocent—but badly battered. Normally, when I see an adult patient, there’s no wave of urgency to truly save them, just to fix them back up as good as new.

But for children? Each time a child is on my table, fear would take control of my body. Fear determined every single move I made because they didn’t deserve it. But they did deserve to be cared for by someone that understood what it was like.

To be parentless.

Alone in the world.

But at mercy to the people that found you.

Only one of those children survived; only one of them is damned to live as an orphan, waiting in fear for death. Whereas the other two? They bled out. They died due to excessive anticoagulation.

What kind of monster would go after a child? How soulless do you need to be to even consider harming a child?

That’s why I enlisted.

So that I could kill them all, burn them all, and watch them eat their own as they begged for their lives. If they put me back on the field, if they let me walk with just a stake, I would show those bastards what rage truly was.

How hate would feel if it stabbed them in the heart.

I rinsed my hands off, patting my arms dry, and I got dressed for my surgery. I glanced out the window once more to see my surgical assistant, June, and my anesthesiologist prepping my patient.

Cool air brushed across my face as the automatic door to the operating room opened. I noticed the anesthesiologist taping his hands on the Valium valve, instantly pissing me off.

“Hands up, everyone, we won’t be breaking sterilization for our soldiers. Not today, not ever.” Everyone quickly raised their hands; the anesthesiologist lowered his eyes as I spoke, making it abundantly clear that he knew I had targeted him.

“June, introduce me to our patient.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” She said, hurrying to grab his chart as she cleared her throat.

“Daniel Manthers, 35 years old, with no previous history of blood or heart disorders.” She paused before exhaling.

“The ENT predicts that he suffers from internal bleeding, as well as a large cardiac tamponade signaling combustion,” she finished.

“Did you just say, ’predict?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” June said, her voice firm as she spoke.

“These EMTS need to get their shit together,” I mumbled, only to see nods as I spoke.

I pursed my lips together as I looked at Daniel. He was pale, and yet his chest had a lopsided view. I carefully traced my fingers along his left pectoral muscle. I felt a large bump with the texture of gelatin as I ran my fingers alongside it.

“They were right.”

“Page, general surgery—if he has internal bleeding, cracking his chest won’t make it easier,” I said, turning to face a nurse as she nodded.

“10-blade,” I said, only for June to hand me the scalpel as I measured his chest with my fingers.

“Making an initial incision,” I said, and I dug the scalpel into his chest, not making more than a three-inch incision. Blood flowed as my scalpel dug deeper. A deep crimson red flooded his pale chest as I dragged it alongside his wound.

“Handkerchief”

“Yes, Ma’am,” June said, trading me the handkerchief for the scalpel as I wiped traces of blood across his chest.

I heard the double doors fly in as I reached back for the scalpel, continuing to open his chest first.

“You don’t think you could’ve waited before opening his chest?”

I looked up, only to see Fenrir staring at me as I worked.

“Would you rather he suffered a longer death with a tamponade bursting?”

“Or would you rather me drain it so I can give you the opportunity to fix him?” I said coldly, meeting Fenrir’s eyes.

“Of course not.”

“Very well, Dr. Evans.” I said, promptly looking at June.

“10-gauge needle, please,” I said, only for her to meet my request and immediately hand it to me. I quickly took the needle, gently inserting it into the deep incision I had created.

Now this was the difficult part, to get the perfect angle. To hear the click.

I drove the needle as deep as I could, waiting to hear the sound of his pericardial sac click, but it never happened.

“Jeeze, this guy’s heart is up in there, huh?” I heard Fenrir say. His eyes were looking into mine as I drove it deeper. As annoying as Fenrir is, he was right; this wasn’t normal.

I took a leap of faith, swallowing the forming lump in my throat as I forced the needle down further to finally hear the click.

I laughed.

“Hand me the cardiac catheter, please.” I said to June, plunging the needle deeper as blood started to rise in the needle.

Blood soothed me; it was the only human thing I had known left. The only thing I know is that we would have an abundance of, unfortunately.

“Here you go ma’—”

The sound of the heart monitor beeping erratically filled my ears; fear plastered itself along June and Evans’s faces as Daniel began to crash.

“His BP is 67 of 88.”

“She’s right, you need to do something.” Fenrir said, his eyes were pleading with mine as I held the needle in my hand.

A smile formed on my lips as the rush began to fill my body.

“Fuck it. Give me the saw,” I commanded, snatching the saw from June as I kept the needle perfectly in place.

“Dr. Evans, I’ll need your hands here.” I said, turning on the small saw as the sounds of razors turning filled my ears. I quickly inserted the saw into the incision. Fenris caught wind of what I was doing, so he held the needle in place as I drilled through Daniel’s chest.

“I need to cut through his ribs, see the pericardium and drain it visually.”

I watched as the saw aggressively tore through his body, blood and specs of bones mashed themselves along my robe as I made it past his ribs.

“Chest clamp, now!” I commanded, and June wasted no time tossing it in my hand. I opened the clamp, placing it between his ribs as he continued to code.

“56 over 72,” I heard June say, her fear seeping through her voice as I quickly turned the knob to the clamp, hacking it open as I forced his ribs to show me his heart.

“Beautiful,” I said aloud; his heart was beating full force as the pericardial sac did him no justice.

“Dr. Evans, please hold this side of the clamp,” I asked, only for him to oblige.

I could tell he was smiling through his face mask. His eyes were squinting as he looked at me, barely attentive to the man dying on the table in front of us.

That’s why I hated working with him. He was like a happy puppy looking at its owner chasing a ball he desperately wanted.

He always found his way on my surgeries; he always found his way to check on my patients.

He was obsessed, and not in the hot way, but the kind that made you want to shrink and cease to exist.

I rolled my eyes as I looked at him, annoyance taking over my body as images of us together flooded my brain.

I loved him at one point; I think at one point I would’ve died for him.

Now the question my friends like to ask is, was that before I found him average in bed? Or was it after?

Before, unfortunately.

I loved Fenrir so much that I lay in bed like a starfish, praying to God to give me the strength to stay awake from how boring fucking him was.

Especially when he pretended to be rough, it drove me fucking crazy.

I grabbed the needle, pushing it in further to puncture his pericardial sac. I didn’t need to ask, but June already had the cardiac catheter waiting for me. I grabbed it, locking it onto the needle as Daniel’s blood started to drain.

A sense of relief washed over me as his blood pressure started to rise.

“Great job, Dr. Scarsblin,” Fenrir said; his eyes were practically smiling at me as I spoke.

I cleared my throat.

“Thank you, Dr. Evans.”

“Please proceed with the pulmonary artery; I’ll be taking my leave,” I said curtly, turning to leave the operating room.

I quickly threw my gown in the nearest trash can, along with my gloves, and took a turn to go to the back of the hospital.

I sat at the foot of the alleyway door, lighting a Marlboro before sticking it between my lips.

One thing that I’ll always be amazed at is how humanity kept its vices post-extinction. Cigarettes, sex, drugs, and self-destruction.

It was purely amazing how we could be one of the most destructive groups in the history of civilization, and we still have time to smoke or fuck an ex.

We should’ve lived like animals, fighting to the death, but instead we got a first degree law book that’s one page long.

Don’t Steal— Everything is owned by everyone, so stealing is just idiotic.

Don’t kill your own kind— I don’t need to explain that

Don’t fuck your neighbor’s wife— I don’t think anyone follows that with the amount of affairs we have here.

Never let a creature live

Sounds easy enough, right? Until it isn’t. Our hospital used to be grand, but for whatever reason, the undead left factions of lycans alive, and every time they found where we hid our old or wounded, they wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to destroy it. Now? We operate out of an abandoned factory, simple enough and unsterile enough that no one would think to house the injured here. Why else would they be neat freaks?

A cool breeze rushed past my face and ruffled my hair as the small hairs on the nape of my neck began to stand.

It was silent, deafening almost.

I wondered for a moment if I could just enjoy it. Maybe just for a second. The devil wouldn’t be able to creep and catch me with such short notice.

The air grew chillier as I pulled my arms closer to my chest. The hairs on my arms began to raise as the wind rattled against itself.

I whipped my head around as the sound of a trash shaking caught my attention. I stood up, turning the doorknob behind me as my body started to panic.

But it wouldn’t open.

My heart started to beat out of my chest as the wind grew louder. Before I could process anything, my feet moved faster than my mind could comprehend, pushing forward one foot after another as I ran through the alleyway.

I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head as I lost my balance, falling and badgering my head on the dumpster as I made my fall.

My vision was a blurry mixture of darkness and light as I gathered myself.

Tears started to form in my eyes, and I touched my head, only to feel the warm sensation of what I could assume was blood.

I blinked rapidly, hoping to fully bring back my vision as I looked at my fingers, covered in my blood.

“Help!” I heard someone holler; my lips started to quiver as I barely had a grasp on my own reality.

“I need a doctor! Help.” I heard someone yell, and I stumbled up, using the dumpster as a weight to hold myself up.

I walked in the middle of the alleyway, hoping to find a clear vision.

“Hello!” I yelled, only to be met with the sight of a man, a figure carrying another person in his arms.

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yes!” I said, quickly running towards the man as my lungs began to burn.

I rubbed my eyes, hoping that my vision would finally be clear as I began to get dizzy.

“I am!” I yelled back.

I wiped my eyes as I felt a powerful gust of wind nearly knock me off my feet.

I opened my eyes, taking a few steps back as fear crawled up my spine.

The man was pale, holding a man even paler but covered in blood from head to toe.

“Please, help him!” The man cried out, his voice was sincere, as I took a better look at the poor wounded guy.

He was obviously dead; his skin had no color, his eyes were lifeless, but most importantly, he had been shot in the head.

“I’m sorry, but you need to call the police.” I stammered, looking at the lifeless man’s injuries. I looked at his chest, getting close enough that I could slice some form of aftershave.

His chest was pulsating.

I looked up at the man carrying him. His eyes shifted from helplessness to pure darkness as I realized.

I took a few steps back, my body still aching from the blow I had taken earlier

“Impossible…”

I gasped, holding my hand to my mouth as nausea began to form. I reached out my hand, touching the lifeless body’s fingertips—I pulled my hand back as the feeling of his ice-cold fingertips hit me.

“His blood was fresh; there’s no way—” I stopped myself, watching the man take a step towards me.

“No!” I yelled, backing up as I nearly tripped on my own two feet.

“I—Urh”

“I’m not equipped to handle this; find someone else.” I said frantically, my eyes scanning the man’s body as his heart continued to pulse.

The man’s eyes grew darker; cephalic veins grew across his face as though a symphony of roots were plastering themselves on his face.

“God!” I screamed; I turned to run, only to trip and fall once more. I backed up, turning to face the vampire as I scooted backward. I grabbed my wooden dagger from my boot, moving it into position; if he attacked me, at least I’d go down fighting.

“Don’t step any closer.”

“I’ll do what I want.” He sneered; his voice was as curled as venom.

My lungs began to fill with rotten air as I failed to pace myself; my body began to shudder as my throat closed. Anxiety rushed across my entire body as I took a single breath.

“They’ll kill me for this.”

“I’d kill myself for helping you,” I stammered.

“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” the vampire said.

“Your choice, but make it quick.”