//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Misery // by Normal //------------------------------// The newborn infant #48P9I43P died on the morning of the second of June, year 1000 at 6:07. He was only three days old at time of expiration. Lately the average life span of a foal, in this bleak time, was mere fifty-six hours. Mares no longer even named their children at birth. I examined the small body almost absently, vaguely aware of an anxious and obviously new med intern. However, it was the nurses that were important to me currently. A good team of them stood in a rough half circle around me, and a good half of them themselves had bellies heavy with foal. I knew one of them to be well into her tenth month. Nevertheless, right now none of that mattered to them or me. As a doctor, it was the dead infant in front of me that mattered, nothing else. All of my team was busy, horns a glow beneath hazmat suits meant merely as show, recording the details of both the brief life and death of said foal. All this despite the grief ridden howls of the mother, be they muffled as they were through the walls. Barely of age, this was her first foal, and thus it served as her first dead child. "Core temperature one hundred-two point three at birth," said a nurse to my left, scrolling through the thermometer readout. Her voice was tinny through the mask of her suit, like a young foal’s toy. Yet another nurse was carefully transcribing these numbers on a pad of yellow paper. "One hundred-one degrees at two days," the first nurse continued. "One hundred-two point five at four o'clock this morning. One hundred- thirteen point oh-one at time of death." In these pale green shadows, they moved softly through the room, each painted a ghastly visage. "Just let me hold him," cried the grieving mother. Her voice cracked and broke right down the middle. "Please, just let me hold him!" The nurses all ignored her pained cries. This was the third birth this week, and the third death; it was more important to record the death, to learn from it - to prevent, if not the next one, then the one after that, or the hundredth, or the thousandth. To find a way, somehow, to help even a single foal survive. "Heart rate?" asked another nurse. The medical intern, whose job it was to monitor the heart rate did not reply. I looked up and her expression was glazed over in the telltale signs of a young mare caught up in a daydream. "Heart rate?" asked the nurse again, her voice laced with firmness. It was Nurse Hardy, head nurse of the maternity ward. With a shake of her pink mane, the intern clears the film from her eyes and appeared to recollect her thoughts in a short span. "Heart rate steady until four this morning, spiking from ninety-two to one hundred- twelve beats per minute. Heart rate at five o'clock was one hundred twenty three. Heart rate at six-oh-six was...sixty-four." Another wail rose up in the lull. "My figures confirm," piped up another nurse. Nurse Hardy wrote the numbers down, scowling none the less at the seemingly inattentive intern. "You need to stay focused," she said gruffly. "There are a lot of medical interns who would give their right eye for your spot here." She simply gave a meek nod; if a verbal response was given, it was not at an audible level. I handed off the limp pinto body to a nurse and pulled off my mask. I feel as dead inside as that child is. I have lost track of the number of infantile bodies even in this past month I have examined, all being clean of anything that could pinpoint the disease. The only new thing to show up in the past month has been that particular medical intern. "I think that's all we can learn for now. Get this cleaned up, and prepare to do full blood work." With heavy hooves, I walk over to a plastic chair amidst the sudden flurry of action. Lately this job has gotten so tedious, dead foal after dead foal. Some days I question my field of choice, when I started at least every one in three, maybe one in five survived. Now? I cannot remember the last time I got to hand off a filly or colt to an overjoyed mother. I peer down at the window in the wall and consider this forgotten mother. Sitting there crying and alone, I have seen it a hundred times and will see it a hundred more. I pull my hooves in as two ponies pass by me, Nurse Hardy herself and alongside her that quiet intern. From what I overheard, it sounds as though the intern is being quizzed over the importance of being here. Rightly so, if that mare didn't shape up I was going to have to consider reassigning her despite her credentials. "What does the spike in temperature tell us?" "The virus tipped over the saturation point. It had replicated itself enough to overwhelm her respiratory system, and the heart started overreaching to try to compensate." I found myself nodding along with Nurse Hardy as she started her next question. "One of these days the researchers will find a pattern in this data and use it to synthesize a cure. The only way they're going to do that is if we...?" "Track the course of the disease through every foal the best we can, and learn from our mistakes." "Finding a cure is going to depend on the data in your hooves." Nurse Hardy nodded at the stack of papers nestled neatly under the yellow wings of the intern. "Fail to record it, and this child died for nothing." With that, Nurse Hardy turned her back on the intern and began to walk away. I watched with curiosity as something chewed away at the intern's mind. She is rather obvious about it with shifting hooves and her habit of lip biting. "Excuse me, um, that is if you don't mind that is, but if the doctor's done with the body, could the mother hold it? Just for a minute?" The kid has the brains, but too often I think she lets her heart get in the way. Nurse Hardy threw me a glance over her shoulder and with a slight nod and a shrug of my own shoulders I communicate my answer to her. After all, once the body, the host, is dead, the virus dies out within the hour. It should be safe. Nurse Hardy waves a hoof at a dun colored nurse, Sandy. "Unwrap the child," said Nurse Hardy. "Her mother is going to hold her." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ It had been a rather bittersweet moment watching the two reunite, the tight hug of the mother mixed with the limp form of the corpse. I did not stay long though. I could not stay long. Even if I had wished to watch the emotionally driven pony hug tight the dead baby, I had business elsewhere. With hooves heavy I lift my body made lead by the thoughts of past foals. Foals who hadn't made it. Foals just like this one. But I am unable to dwell on such matters now. I had an appointment with the Princess of the land.