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.
A great start to a story, keep up this quality and the rest should be just as good.
2701098
I intend to, don't worry. I'm so glad you enjoy it~
Interesting idea... There are a few problems, though, some nitpicky, some that bugged me quite a bit. Mostly in the writing itself, rather than the story.
You keep switching between the past and present tense. It starts off in past tense, and then right at "the intern clears the film [...]" it switches for the first time. Then with the nurses, it's past tense again. Then it switches back to present when the intern "gives a meek nod," and it stays that way for a while. Then at the divider it switches. Then again, for the final time, at "I wait," it goes back to present tense, and stays there for the last few lines. It was really annoying, and kind of made it difficult to parse what was going on in the chapter. But, on the bright side, it's fixed easily enough.
There are also a couple of incomplete sentences lying around. "Though they were muffled slightly through the walls," for example, is not a coherent sentence, and would work much better if tied into the preceding sentence (it is a subordinate clause, after all). A careful and deliberately placed incomplete sentence can add some nice oomph, but this, and a few others in the story, do not.
You say that the intern kid has brains, but you don't show it. Just from this little opening, the way she's characterized, the problem seems to be much more that she doesn't have enough brains than that she has too much heart.
"Entering its vast and well light confinement did not make my hooves feel relief, if anything this room was longer then many of the halls within the brick walls of this castle. And it was all the way at the end that sat the throne fine enough to seat Her Highness." Oh man, this is gonna be a long walk. I think this sentence would be better if you fixed "light" and "then," and got rid of "within the brick walls of this castle." What happens next? "In a surprisingly short span of time I find myself seated." Aw, bummer. Why'd we have a whole big thing about how long the room was, then? How was he surprised by the pace at which he walked, anyway?
A lot of the sentences aren't phrased very well, especially towards the end. "Though I know what I see I turn to the ceiling," and "I've seen it many times in past visits and each time it both amazes me, leaving me with the sense of a child's wonderment" in particular stand out in my mind.
There are also one or two cases of oddly dramatic and abstract metaphors... like "In the pale green shadows of a land of the dead, they moved softly through the room" in particular. "Pale green shadows" alone creates a nice, haunting, somber feel. "Shadows of a land of the dead" sounds to me like a mashup of "walking through the valley of the shadow of death" and a zombie movie. It's just... weird, and doesn't really add to the atmosphere 'cause the whole death thing has already been established. And the shadows. And land isn't really pertinent to the metaphor.
I'd also feel a bit like there are two different stories being juggled here, the Luna one and the foals dying of some horrible virus (that they apparently pick up immediately, in a sterile environment?... Obviously they didn't get it from the mother, 'cause the doctors were concerned about the mother getting it from the baby). I guess they're probably related?... It'd be nice if the relationship, should it exist, were hinted at to some degree. The virus only seeming to affect foals kinda puts a damper on my initial assumption that Luna got the virus.
Anyway, those are my two cents. Feel free to take it with as much salt as you like. It seems like a pretty cool story! =D I hope something interesting happens with Flut--I mean, the intern.
2701641
Wow, thank you for the in depth review! I guess this is what I get for not running it by my editor before hand. I'll try to fix the thing like the metaphors, tenses and incomplete sentences as much as I can this afternoon.
And yes there is a connection between Luna and the disease.
And I did have more dialouge in mind between the intern and Nurse Hardy that would have a gleam of that intelligence show. I'll see if after I edit I still have time I will add it.
Also I must have simply forgotten to add it or didnt make it clear enough but I was going to make the disease one that once its host, the victim, passed on, it would no longer have its playground off which to feed and would die in rapid order. Under thirty minutes....yeah I'm going to edit tomorrow for sure.
Anyways the reason they didn't think of handing the foal back to the mom wasn't so muh they were worried about disease spreading, but they are so used to basically dumping the body they forgot. I'll try to make that more obvious maybe have a flutter anger scene when at first they brush off the idea, hm?
I hope once I make these changes that this story will be worthy of a fav from you~
2701773 Oh, don't worry about making it more clear that the virus quickly died off after the host died. I got that, I just wasn't quite sure how the foals became hosts in the first place... Given that it's a sterile environment, and none of the adults apparently have the virus (although I guess I don't know that for sure... hmmm)! I suppose I was just kind of thinking aloud there.
I'll definitely check this out again once it's updated. =)
2701814
None of the adults that are living in that scene as far as we know have the disease. Exactly!
I can't wait to start describing things like open sores and necrosis.
Not bad. I see you know a thing or two about medical procedures.
2704452
I just got certified as a CNA roughly two weeks ago. I should hope so.
2704467 Oh, really?
2704480
Yes, really. Why would I lie? Most people don't even know what a CNA is...
It was offered through my high school and where I live it is a prerequisite to taking the nursing program.
2704493 I never said you were lying...
Anyways, that's pretty cool.
Well, followed a request to critique from various places.
So, off we go!
Welp. Didn't take long to capitalize on that dark tag!
Really though, I don't have too much to add in terms of constructive criticism. Which is practically an event. SnowWhiteDesert already touched on the slightly spotty use of tenses, which does tend to happen with a lot of present-tense works.
It sets up the story well enough. It has a bit of a prologuey feel to it, with a lot of exposition provided. Thankfully it doesn't feel particularly ham-handed with that, as can often be the case. And it's nice and short, which is a virtue for expository chapters. However, because of that very introductory feel, I'd try to get a second chapter in sooner rather than later. Essentially we've been given a hint or outline of the story, but without any of the meat of it yet. That's not ideal for securely hooking readers. Though teasing us with alicorns helps!
Still, I do like the idea. And one of the reasons I like darkfics is that they give you leeway to explore more 'real world' problems like plagues. I wouldn't object to seeing it from a medical viewpoint, if that's how it's going to be. It'd be something new, to my experience. So, I guess my interest is piqued. I'll keep an eye on the story to see what's in store.
Well, I'm here to help on some ... editing stuff.
NUMBER ONE
___
The newborn infant #48P9I43P died on the morning of June 2nd, 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.
___
Try to keep numerals consistent. What I mean is either use all numbers, or spell it all out. The second of June as opposed to June 2nd, or 56 hours as opposed to fifty-six hours
NUMBER TWO
___
"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."
___
This ain't a mistake, but I'd like to point something out. The last sentence hit nailed it. If you're trying to build the main character as a must-find-cure-at-all-cause-even-deaths, then it worked.
IN CONCLUSION
___
Interesting concept. I usually skip stories with 'Dark' on it, because it involves death and, let's be frank, dying isn't what I came to fimfic for to read about lol. However, this reminded me partially of the malaria outbreak before vaccination, and I guess this is just a spin-off to it, so it isn't TOO dark.
Pacing is well established. Good job. However, I do have one complain. This disease came up about 1000 years ago (given that the current year you state is at year 1000, and now its 2012/2013 depending on when you want to write canon from), but there seems to be no hint as to how that time 1000 years was. Unless you picture it similar to current times, then you've made a conclusion that life hadn't evolved much for dem ponies.
Overall, this chapter doesn't hook me on too much. It's good, but if 10 was 'YOU NEED TO WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER NAO!', you're looking at a 7/10 at best.
Honestly, this is pretty good so far. I don't really have anything to say in terms of criticism, good job! I look forward to seeing more of this story in the future.
Well, after reading this, it seems pretty good, though I have a few problems with it. Most of them have to do with grammar; I didn't see any spelling mistakes, but at least three to four times, you switched from past to present tense, only to switch right back. This could easily be solved by finding an editor to look this over, and while I can't help you, there are a few groups around the site where you could probably find one. Just search around in the groups section and you should be fine. As for everything else...
The writing is decent, and maybe even a bit above, but there are some places where it fell flat. Over all, the writing style did give a creepy and somber vibe to this, but it also gave off a bit of emotional detachment. In the beginning, that was necessary; this pony was a doctor, in the middle of his duty -- there's going to be a little purple prose and a bit less emotion, because the pony is doing his job, and he has to put his heart away for a few minutes in order to get it done. After that though, when the doctor was taken out of that state, it stayed relatively the same. It was helped by the fact that you explained his thoughts, but you're telling a bit more than showing with your writing. Just a short sentence telling how the doctor sighed sadly, running a hoof through his mane would have helped.
Over all though, this is pretty good and deserves a like from me. Just keep looking for an editor and show a little more, and you'll have something fantastic.
Stay awesome and keep writing!
~OfTheIronwilled
2710500
Yeah, I have someone willing to help me edit the tenses stuff however they are busy until maybe the weekend. That's always been something I have had a problem with. Though it doesn't always happen, I don't know why.
partials...