The Seraph’s Grace Hospital was usually always busy. Not because people were dropping like flies in Molina but because it doubled as a healthcare facility and as a place of learning. As one of the leading hospitals in Desdemalta on cancer research and pathology, they hold a high reputation as a standard for how a hospital should carry themselves. Their revolving doors and brightly lit lobby see patients, scholars, and students alike all coming and going. The luxurious hospital hosts a wide variety of specialists more than capable of delivering whatever care patients need. Some even travel all the way across the country just to come here and be seen for their problems. One of these specialists has found a home within the hospital’s Surgical clinic. There he removes himself from the grandeurs of reputation and found peace in the simplicity of just being able to focus on patient care.
In a room down the hall, a door opens and a tall man of dark complexion comes walking out removing his bloody gloves and depositing them in a nearby biohazard trash can. He sports a stocky frame and a bright smile on his face after having just removed a tumor from a child’s stomach. The man adjusted his circular framed glasses and realigned the maroon and gold headscarf around his head. His black locs that usually would be hanging at his shoulders are being held out of his face, the thick black spaghetti strands now sit comfortably wrapped up in soft cloth. As he then removes his bloody gown a Nurse’s voice calls to him from down the hallway, “Dr. Frost!”
The surgeon, Dr. Caelin Frost, looks up and answers, “Ah, Betty. What can I help you with?”
The nurse, Betty, catches up with Caelin, “How did the surgery go?” She inquires, a curious shine in her eyes.
Caelin responds, “Great actually. I was just going to tell mom and dad to treat their daughter to ice cream when she wakes up, doctor’s orders.” He chuckles at his own joke. “But I get the feeling there’s something else you need.”
Betty nods, “It’s the director. He wants to speak with you.”
Caelin pouts and grumbles, “I don’t think I did anything wrong. Well, I did eat a candy bar and didn’t share. Maybe he’s mad about that.”
Betty sighs, “I doubt that, but you shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
Caelin adjust his shirt, heads to the main section of the hospital, and up a few flights of stairs until he reaches the big red doors in the middle of the hall that leads to his bosses office. When Caelin steps in he’s met with a number of trophies and degrees plastered on the walls in glass cases. A slender wood table sitting on top of red carpeting makes its home in the middle of the room where the director is sitting at the end closest to the large window that floods the room with sunlight. His gray hairs catching the light of the sun and framing his already stressed out face.
He looks up from the tablet he was reading and exclaims, “Caelin, good to see you. Close the door for me.”
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Caelin does so and asks, “What can I do for you, Director Devonde?”
The Director motioned for Caelin to take a seat before he responded, “Have you thought of my offer?”
Caelin leans forward then says with a kind of apologetic smile, “I have and again I have to decline. I understand you want to see me take higher responsibilities in this hospital but I like where I’m at. I have my team and I love my patients. Besides, if I leave I think Betty would have a meltdown.”
Director Devonde lets out a deep and exhausted sigh. He’d been trying to get Caelin to advance to the higher ranks where he belongs but can’t understand for the life of him why he would rather stay working with the poor and less fortunate. Such beginner level work was beneath a man with his skill set. So he’s been trying to convince Caelin to leave it all behind. Caelin, being as stubborn as he is, has refused to budge no matter what Devonde tries to offer. Helping those that truly needed it instead of doing good just for the sake of looking good for the cameras and news articles was not his style. It was one of the many things about Seraph’s Grace that he loathed deeply.
Then Caelin asked, “Director. Be honest. If the cameras and public reputation went away, would you still trust the doctors here to give their best level of care?”
The Director was silent.
Caelin continued, “That's why I stay where I'm at. It's where I'm needed, not where i’m wanted to be seen. It keeps me humble. Now if there’s nothing else, I have an old lady with rashes to treat, and she brought cookies. I can ask Betty to bring you some when she has the chance.”
Caelin left the office and returned to his home base in General Surgery and Family practice. As annoyed as he was about Director Devonde’s constant badgering, he knew that the near endless pushes were coming from a genuine place of concern that he had for him. Nonetheless, it didn’t make the whole thing any less annoying. As he walked in, the floor was in an uproar. Nurses, student volunteers, and fellow doctors scrambled gathering supplies. They seemed to be more in a panic than usual. Caelin weaved through the flustered masses until he was able to find one of the nurses assigned to his team for the day.
Caelin asked her, “What happened?”
The nurse replied, “A patient in a lab coat came falling in here covered in strange violet bubbles all over his skin and yelling about how hell is coming to Molina. Nobody has any clue what these growths are but it’s spreading all over the hospital now. Departments are running out of beds for the sick. One of the doctors cut into one of the bubbles and it leaked this weird black liquid then glowing spores floated out. Soon after, people started collapsing and growing the same violet pustules.” She then rummaged through a box near her and pulled out a gas mask and told him, “Here, wear these. The other doctors think that whatever’s going on is airborne. But also be careful touching anything on them.”
Then Caelin asked, “Where’s Betty?”
The nurse looked down to the ground with a grave look and replied, “Betty caught this weird disease too. She’s in bed 4.”
Fast as lightning, Caelin had donned surgical gloves and a gown and was on his way to bed 4. Betty laid in her bed groaning in pain. Violet pus bubbles grew out of her skin as if they exploded out suddenly, breaking the skin and damaging any nearby muscle and bone in their emergence. Fragments of warped, sharp bone jutted out from the skin next to the Violet masses and looked like they were writhing. The black liquid that was mentioned earlier was all Over the table and the floor. It coated the surfaces in jet black liquid and wafted the smell of ammonia in the air.
Caelin approached slowly, the nurse was right. No one has ever seen something like this.
The nurse he was speaking to joined him at his side and informed, “This isn’t some kind of sickness. The bodies of the sick are mutating, changing rapidly. Like their entire anatomy is being forcibly changed. Some call it a curse but most of us are calling them Malignant Violitomas, for the violet coloring and the way they grow out of the skin.
Caelin snapped out of his shock and focused himself on what’s in front of him. Cutting the tumors off would only spread the infection or kill the host and Antihistamines were out of the question at this point. At this point in time, Caelin was at a loss. This was beyond his skills as a healer. This was more of a job for a Virologist to tell him what he’s supposed to do about this.
But Betty would have to wait.
Screams suddenly began reverberating through the department as histeria broke the already tense air. The screams grew from panicking to blood curdling as another screech added to the chaos, a scream that Caelin was sure was more creature than human.
