The Animal Hospital - Part One

Instructions

THIRTY FIVE Two blue badges. Oreo Kinkman and Rosa Kovajo. Two patients I'll have to treat as soon as the little television that has only ever and probably only will ever display two things. Check In Patients, or Treat Remaining Patients, and then a tiny green number below telling me how many. Shift 35. It doesn't sound like a lot, I guess, but its longer than you'd think when you don't go anywhere between shifts. I can't leave here. Believe me, I've tried. Every time a patient walks through those doors, there's a chance they're a creature that will tear me to shreds. I don't know how I got here. There's a vague memory somewhere that I signed something. But I thought I'd remember it clearer. I guess not. Check the camera, check the photo, check for slouching, eyes, teeth --- check, check, check. This one doesn't have anything against him. Joey Sanchez. A deer-like creature. Check In Patients: 1 A cat walks in through the door. Her eyes are normal, actually present, and her mouth looks fine. I check the camera. A distorted hellspawn stares at me. I don't know how they do that anymore. Maybe I never did. I close the shutters, lock the door. The coffee machine is refilled, so I drink a coffee until I hear her leaving, fury in her voice as she mutters all the way out the door. I reopen the shutters, and stare out the window while I wait. There's no visible chaos. But maybe that's what the Corporation wants. Nothing visible. Maybe I don't want to leave this place. Maybe there's nothing better out there. A creature I've come to know as Ratthew enters the lobby, and comes to the check in. Ratthew is always good. Ratthew does not want to kill me. Stamp the forms, take the photo, register, print the badge, give it to him. Treat Remaining Patients - 8 One in every room. I decide to get the harder ones over with, rooms 6-8. Six is an x-ray, seven is a heart scan, and eight is the surgery. 45 seconds or there's a death. Dr. Harlow warned me very early, maybe shift two or three, that if the hospital records 3 deaths, it's over. Quite ominous. I'm unsure of what will become of me should three deaths occur, although, that's a question I'm okay with leaving unanswered. Six has Low Sugar, Bleeding, and Canadian. I don't understand the Canadian one very well. Perhaps its a tribe, or a disease. I think it may be a country though. Whatever a country is nowadays. Two Maple Syrups and a Bandage. I tense as they leave. You never know when an anomaly may start acting like one. In room seven, I enter, and three words flash behind my eyes. DON'T LOOK UP I stare at the floor as I treat the patient, Dry Eyes and Fever. Eye Drops and Thermo for them. Room Eight is quite the horror, as I said before. The patient could die if I'm not quick enough, and even if they survive, they might just attack me and open their wide jaws which hinge at the neck like a distorted hell beast and try to kill me. This one does not. I complete the surgery, and the patient recovers, mutters something both incoherent and dark, then leaves. Now, Rooms 1-5. Take the DNA, Process, finalize results, treat the patient. I used to remember every patient. It blurs now. Herbs Eye Drops Medkit Maple Syrup IV Drops Maple Syrup Bandages Thermo Thermo Bandages Medkit Medicine Herbs Eye Drops Eye Drops and I'm finished. More words flash behind my eyes. THE DOCTOR IS ARRIVING. I've survived another shift. For now.