Departure for the hospital, after midnight.
After leaving the underground parking lot, the car stops at the bridge.
Yusuke opened the window and saw the permit on the lookout, also from behind. It was written by Makura.
Makura, who rode into the van with Lunshi, wrapped himself around a blanket in the back seat and hid himself.
I deceive those who trust me, in those words.
I was aware of that.
Taking Lunshi to the hospital for surgery is left as a note in the infirmary. It would be a noise if we were to be late to go back, but it wouldn't mean we were missing. Makura's discretionary move loses credibility, but it cannot replace the child's life.
If I can't go back...
Makura stopped thinking more than that.
In the late moon, when I was in Lunshi's care, I took my brother away just because I wanted to see how he was doing a little bit. I didn't show a single piece of suspicion about this one, only the word "thank you" came back.
I'm trying to take the child I left behind to the dead.
(Are you sure this is good...?
A stray floats.
I can't even see how nervous Yusuke is holding the handle.
After entering downtown, Makura woke up softly and looked out the window.
Makura was blinded by how the city looked once again. This was the first time I got out of City Hall after a flood of zombies.
Under the faint moonlight, the ruined streets continue. The van slowly advances down the driveway with a tree-lined lane on both sides. A number of cars were abandoned on the shoulder of the road and the window of the store was broken. The sidewalk is littered with garbage and the vending machines are littered with motorcycles and semi-destructed.
I didn't think it was a sight for Japan.
Makura held her breath at the sight of the slow-flowing sight outside the window. On the second floor of the building, I saw a shadow. I'm showing some moves that make me want to look at this one.
"Mr. Takemura..."
Calling with a faint voice.
In the back mirror, Yusuke's gaze moves. I glance at the person this one points at and immediately turn my gaze back.
"Don't worry about it. You can't come from there."
"... Zombies, what is it? Not the survivors..."
"Come on? It doesn't matter now either way"
To the words, Makura silenced.
There are other places where the atmosphere is at stake, keep going as you increase your speed.
Eventually, I saw a building I was used to seeing. It's an obstetrician and gynecologist's hospital, held by Makura's father.
"Is there somewhere you can park your car in a place that's hard to see from around?
"... I think the entrance to the emergency vehicle is safer than the front. I'll go in from the left."
After parking the car on the property, Yusuke took the pipe spear and the light and stepped out of the car.
"Put in contact every thirty minutes. Never go outside. Call me if anything happens."
That's what I said and left my small radio behind.
He also received a lecture on how to use it and has also tested his communications, but still anxious, Makura stared at the radio with all her heart.
Outside the car is quiet.
Winter cold air crawls up from the foot of my boot. Clawing the collar of his coat, Makura exhaled white.
The patient's lungs are covered with a weak analgesic. Sometimes he was losing strength, and Lunch slept on a simple stretcher, wrapped around a blanket. While fixing that mess, Makura waits for the hour without a scratch.
The passage of time was slow. I thought it had been almost an hour, and the first contact came.
"... this is Takemura. Is everything all right?
"Yes...... so far"
From behind, I heard something blunt. Swing reflexively.
I got eyes on the shadow in the building.
The distance is far, but a man snaps into the windowsill upstairs, staring at this one.
My hair grew all hairy.
You noticed this move, and you started knocking on the window so the man could bust out. The elbow hits, the glass breaks, and the crushing noise sounds.
I crouch on the floor, think of the radio, and make a call.
"What's up?
"Through the window on the ground floor, I'm trying to get out here..."
"What's the distance? Look at that. It's left or right."
"In about fifty meters, on the left... maybe, in the break room"
'Don't move. Don't go out there.'
The radio can be removed.
The gap between the broken windows was small, and the man crawled out of it. Failure to pass through the body, damaged by glass fragments left in the frame, causes the flesh on the face to be shredded off. The skin of the arm peels and reveals muscle fibers. The flowing black blood pollutes the frame.
The man doesn't look like he feels any pain, distorts his face into hatred, and tries to crawl out here.
Makura grabbed the spear on the floor and gripped it. I don't even think I can use it, but I wanted something to make it work.
The glass breaks and the gap widens slightly. When his hand hit the window frame, suddenly, the man's posture collapsed. His upper body swayed as if he had even been paid for his legs, and the man had opened his mouth wide, freezing his expression.
Behind the man, in the dark, was Yusuke. Grabbing the man's head with his left hand, a trick twisting his right hand behind his head.
The body of the man who stopped the movement slipped to the side, and the knife was pulled out using its gravity. A blade wet in blood reflects the moonlight and shines only for a moment.
Yusuke immediately pulled back after looking at this one.
Voices flow from the radio.
'The ground floor is more or less over. I'm going up.'
There was no way to wait for a response, and the radio was silent.
"... Ha, ha..."
The breath I was pressing returned and my rough breath leaked.
Let go of your hand from the spear.
In the early days of the city hall, there was also a battle with zombies trying to break into the building. We were all dealing with it in desperate shape, in the same human form, with angry and screaming voices.
No one has ever seen a zombie die so quietly.
(I regret it...)
There's just such reckless behavior to be mentioned, Makura thought.
(Really, what kind of person...)
I've hardly heard anything about you. I don't see how I'm opening my mind around you in the first place. Still, I could count on it in this situation.
Time runs out, being contacted several times.
of a dead city, in deep silence.
Makura was blurring around, watching Luji from time to time.
I noticed myself sweating cold.
My palpitations get worse.
It seemed that the body had reacted to something before reason.
(What...?
Soon, in sight, in the middle of the open parking lot, there was a small chunk.
About the size of a cat. That looked like an illusion of an eye or a strange move.
Your heart beats faster.
I recognize you somewhere.
Makura noticed discomfort as she tried to operate the radio with her trembling fingers.
There's no shadow in it as much as in the parking lot.
Illuminated by the moon and floating blurry above the asphalt was the infant's phantom.
Realizing who it was, Makura slowly released her trembling fingers from the radio.
(That's... that's different)
That's something different from the zombies we had earlier.
Close your eyes gently so as to deny it in your sight.
Makura beats faster and faster in the dark.
Zombies can't break the walls of this car, they can't go inside, Yusuke said.
But that...
(No. That thing doesn't exist...)
distract consciousness and strive to blank thoughts.
This is not the first time.
Sometimes before, when I was walking alone in the dark city hallway, I could see it all the time. He kept his eyes open and was frozen on the spot all the time until other humans took the streets.
I can make a decision as a doctor.
Extreme insomnia and fatigue bring, hallucinations.
Those words didn't even give me a break.
I'm going crazy.
That was scarier than anything.
When I slowly opened my eyes, it was closer than it had just been.
"Hi..."
A fine scream leaks.
That was the first time it came close.
Until now, all I had to do was ask for this one out of the dark.
Driven by the urge to open the car door and escape far away.
I'm enduring that now because I have a child patient next door.
The radio made a noise to the lid. A noise-mixed voice flows.
"..., uh, this is Takemura. I'm done with one. Get ready to leave. '
"Huh..."
Pressing the send button and trying to say something, the next moment I realized that that awkward shadow was disappearing from my sight.
Unmanned parking is spreading.
Illuminated by the moonlight, the asphalt just glows slightly darker.
Looking left and right, there's nothing.
The unusual signs were foggy.
……
Fingers fall off the button.
Something that has lost its way pushes up the inner pressure of the mind. Explore the pockets of the coat with trembling hands and remove the pill case. I rolled the tablet inside flat in my hand and tried to swallow it without water, so I returned it to me.
…………
Stare at the medicine.
Slowly he rounded his palm and grabbed the tablet.
I have surgery coming up.
You can't blunt your head.
Breathe out small, Makura returned the pill case.
◇
The emergency generator in the machine room was out of fuel.
I guess I switched to home-generated power when the power went out and kept it running. A moment went by, but thanks to the light oil found in the stockpile, I managed to replenish it.
Makura restarts the cubicle type box while looking at the emergency procedure manual.
Depending on how much power you use, it should work for twelve hours. Coolant may be more of a problem. If the tank runs out of water and the fever can no longer be suppressed, it should stop abnormally.
A low vibrating sound of the generator sounds and the lights come in the hospital.
Makura breathed relief.
At the initiative of the Disaster Preparedness Committee, who also handed over engineers dedicated to the hospital, he only received training once before. If it had been a malfunction, it would have gone out of hand.
Even so, an emergency power supply produces only about half the normal power. Suppliers are also limited. Priority is given to operating rooms and laboratories, neonatal rooms and ventilators, equipment necessary for life support, etc. The corridor, which is not so important, remains dark by the way.
After I got up from the basement, I first performed an inspection on the ground floor. With echo and abdominal lentogen, typical appendix hypertrophy could be confirmed, so further examination was cut up.
Yusuke held down the door of the elevator, which was only moving one car, and Makura's stretcher swept down next to it.
My appearance in the mirror on the front looked terribly tired.
Lying on the stretcher, Ryuji is anxiously letting his gaze wander.
Pressing the button to the third floor where the operating room was located, the floor slowly began to rise. Makura opened her mouth as she watched the shifting floor display.
"Up there, nobody, wasn't there?... the survivors."
…………
Makura hastily continued her words to Yusuke, who was silent with a difficult face.
"I also have my father's house next door. Maybe he's over there."
"... oh, I guess so"
Makura felt her face in shame at the nagging words. He's trying to distract himself from reality, as if he were a heartless child.
There are no signs of people nearby.
Ever since I arrived here, I've been thinly aware of that.
"I'll go check on your father's house later, though. Lunch first, okay?
"... Yes. Excuse me."
Makura relaxed and said.
Three operating rooms, collectively as operating units, are independent of the ward. Obstetrics also has delivery rooms, so aside from cesarean sections, gynaecology used them mainly.
I felt a faint air flow as I crept through the large door.
Enter the dressing room, take off your coat and change into a spare white coat.
Yusuke saw it,
"Uh... don't get dressed just now. I'm inside, okay?
"The positive pressure is also working, so if you haven't touched the equipment...... When I'm ready for surgery, I'll disinfect the area and change into surgical clothes again."
Light air pressure has been applied to the operating room from time to time to prevent outside air from entering. To prevent the entry of viruses, bacteria and small dust.
"Is there anything I can do to help you get ready?
"No... I just need an assistant during surgery. After I've been sanitized, I won't be able to touch anything but the field of surgery, so I don't have enough hands."
"Okay. I'm just gonna check around."
"Confirm?
"I left the locked room behind, so I'm gonna crush it there. Don't get distracted if you get distracted during surgery. Don't go in there too weird either."
"... Yes"
Makura nodded, unable to say anything, to Yusuke, who said it would crush him easily.
◇
Makura felt depressed while collecting what she needed in the equipment room.
Lunshi needs to be given general anesthesia because he is still a child. It is difficult for a child to endure being messed with by the body in a conscious state. Being raped during surgery can be catastrophic.
But if you stop breathing with general anesthesia, it is always necessary for the anesthesiologist to follow and manage the vitals, but this time you have to do it alone.
Under general anesthesia, the various functions of the body are reduced. Aside from breathing, medications needed to be used to keep pace with fluctuations in blood pressure and pulse and to control patients.
Just thinking about it, such as having an open abdominal surgery on your own while giving your child general anesthesia, makes me cold sweat.
(Still, I need to...)
There is also the hand of anaesthesia of the lower abdomen combined with a sedative to make it a pseudo-general anaesthesia without stopping breathing, but that one will require advanced management skills.
If the sedative is too strong, it stops breathing, and if it's too shallow and physical, the surgery will be ruined. Especially the other guy is a kid.
It was excessive in Makura's hands to keep her breathing spontaneously while losing consciousness and maintaining the anaesthetic depth necessary for surgery. Recovery is also difficult when you fail on your own, and it's like a crossing.
Makura breathed heavily.
Which is risky.
I can't come this far and say every cry. Much better than City Hall.
(And...)
Makura laid her eyes down.
I have a responsibility as a doctor, but Yusuke doesn't.
For the sake of the children of others, that action, which goes so far, must be rewarded.
I thought so.
◇
Yusuke, who came back after three floors of control, will be called to the O.R. to explain the monitors and equipment.
Seals are affixed to areas indicating pulse, blood pressure, temperature, respiratory count, and oxygen concentration for clarity. It is Yusuke's job to monitor them.
Place a seal of name on the syringe in the syringe of the prepared drug and place it in the cart. Set a small pump for sustained infusion with an anesthetic syringe and connect the route.
From the medical gas piping, make sure oxygen and laughter are supplied and check the operation of the anesthesia vaporizer.
The blood products in the hospital are out of cold, so I have a blood transfusion pack that I kept in the City Hall refrigerator. Conformity checked. The amount is small, but the infusion is abundant instead, so I was going to make it there in time. I want blood transfusions to be a last resort.
Give Yusuke, who was checking the equipment, a manual for nurses with an operating room as a reference material. At first he opened inside with interest, but immediately frowned.
"I have no idea..."
"Basically, I'll do it all here. If you can remember how the surgery works, even blurry."
The surgeon often asks the nurse to give him the name of what he needs to keep his eyes open from the surgery field, but this time he can't afford that luxury.
While preparing the operating room, I needed to replace various items for children, such as oxygen concentrometers, anesthesia circuits, and masks on the mouth. However, there were few things on the third floor that could be used for a five-year-old or so, and I was going to pick them up to an underground warehouse.
Leaving a shallow sleeping lump with pre-medication, tightening the door, and leaving the surgery department in a hurry. Makura herself had to go because there were many things Yusuke could not judge.
Makura flutters into wonders as Yusuke and I descend in the elevator.
I went around anesthesiology when I was a resident, but this is the first time I've had pediatric anesthesia. I get anxiety.
(... or spontaneous breathing without intubation, if the mask alone maintains anesthesia...)
I can skip complicated procedures.
Strays arise.
However, for masks only, vomiting is feared.
Usually, when a foreign body enters the airway, the body reacts and exhales, but the reaction disappears under anesthesia.
If gastric acid-mixed diarrhea leads straight to the lungs, it causes asphyxiating pneumonia, which can be fatal. Therefore, prior hunger strike is mandatory when performing anesthesia...
(The solid diet should have been quite a while ago, but if it's peritonitis, it's also digesting quite slowly...)
If you are a small child of your body, you are also at great risk when you stop breathing. This time we do it alone, so we should still have had a full attitude.
Arriving underground, Yusuke unlocks the warehouse. Makura also entered the room after checking the safety of the one street.
Clamp the shelves lined up in the room and load the cart with what you need. Just in case, as I collected various items, including spares, I ran out of vacancies.
"It was in the hallway. Kurt, I'll get it."
Go outside the room and walk over to the cart that was left on the way. My eyes went to the name tag I was on top of, trying to get the sneaky white coat out of the way. There was a familiar face photograph.
It was my father's white coat.
Unexpectedly stop moving.
…………
Approximately, I took it.
With both hands, I'll spread it in front of you.
At the hem, it had a slight brown stain.
……
It's about my father. That day of confusion would have been running to help the injured. You couldn't even afford to protect yourself.
After staring at the white coat for a while, he carefully folded and behaved.
I cut a precinct to my heart, pulled my cart and tried to get back to my room, stopping my leg.
I felt like someone called me.
Stick to your ears.
(Voice...?
You can hear it in the back, in the dark hallway.
"... who is it?
All I could hear was a very small voice, blurry as the wind.
(Tinnitus...... no. Calling me...?
As you are invited, push the cart and step into the dark.
As I moved away from the light, the voices that were echoing the snoring became a little clearer.
(Who...?
Suddenly, he was called from right around the corner.
"- Ya, whisper!?
What I heard by the door was a nostalgic voice.
Makura stiffened her body to surprise and opened her eyes.
Then he returns to me and rushes. The door didn't open. Makura puts her hands on the door and calls out loud.
"Father!? Are you all right?
"Oh, oh...... You're really whispering...... I've been stuck here for a long time. Are you gonna be okay?
"Yeah, I... Good... really..."
I was attacked by a sense of relief that made my whole body lose strength. This makes everything better. If it's my father and I, the surgery's fine first. I can save my life.
"I'll open it now!
The door of the drawer was heavily tied between the railings of the wall. I try to peel it into the dark clouds but it doesn't loosen up, I take scissors from the cart tray that was nearby and pull it off forcefully.
When everything unraveled, I opened the door.
In the slightest light leaking from behind, I saw my father's face. He was like my father, blue-blue, but as before.
"Father..."
……
We try to hold each other silently, along the way, shocked from the side.
For a moment, I didn't know what happened.
My vision spins and I get slammed to the floor.
"Oh, I..."
Covering the body that struck him, it was Yusuke, overlapping his father, who entered Makura's eyes, waking himself up. For the first time then, Yusuke knocked me out.
"What..."
Trying to ask, Makura was stunned.
A knife was piercing my father's, under his chin. The blood that spills every time that body cramps is polluting Yusuke's hand everywhere.
I found it fatal at first sight.
"Hey..."
The voices that speak are speechless.
Yusuke releases his hand from the knife. The body left was slapped on the floor, like a puppet with a broken thread.
Makura approaches to crawl with her missing hips and glances desperately at her father's face.
"Oh, oh..."
The knife that stabbed him directly under his chin had reached his brain. The eye focus is melting and looking up at the ceiling in the void.
Makura held its head on her lap and shook Yusuke back.
"Ku, are you crazy...? Why, this... terrible..."
Tears spill from both eyes.
They killed too many zombies, and they stopped hesitating to kill people. No, I already killed people in the supermarket in the first place...
Yusuke had creased between his eyebrows and stared at this one with a glittering eye.
"You... what does that look like?"
"Huh...?
Yusuke waves the light.
The way I was hiding around in the dark floated in the circle of light.
Traces of dry blood were creeping everywhere. The dried meat shards are also rolling.
And on Makura's lap, there was a half-broken skull on it.
The left half of his face was shattered to crush his cheekbones. Half-exposed in his mouth, a silver blade passes through its center. My left eye was about to spill out of my orbit, and my shoulder clavicle was half flying out. The knife didn't have to be stabbed, it was a complete body.
"... Huh!
Shake it off reflexively and back off the floor.
The more my heart aches, the faster I strike the bell.
That body was moving until just now.
Zombies.
Zombies.
"Okay, but until just now... talk...!
"... you're the only one who was talking"
"Chi... because just now..."
Makura makes her gaze wander, as she asks for help.
Ahead, I found a plate called Spiritual Animal Room.
……
My father's voice rises.
In this room.
Locked up.
For a long time.
A door that was tightly tied.
A gentle smile overrides the figure of the Father in his heart, a sight hidden behind his consciousness.
What was in my eyes when I opened the door.
The truth is.
"Ah..."
Consciousness detaches from the brain.
My vision has dimmed.
◇
How long has it taken?
Soon, in front of me, a white wall was showing.
It's the third floor.
He was lying on the stretcher, blanketed.
I also feel like I've been regaining consciousness for a long time, but that was the first time my vision tied the focus.
Wake yourself up in a cursory move and explore your pockets. I couldn't find what I was looking for, and speaking of which, I thought I changed into white.
That's in the coat.
Get up and head to the dressing room.
Remove the pill case from the locker's coat and punch the contents in the palm of your hand. In an attempt to swallow a breath, he was grabbed by an arm stretched from the right, his wrist. A bouncing tablet spills out of my palm.
"... not too much, it"
……
Makura looked up at the face of the man who looked at him without expression.
"I sympathize with you, and I was a detour. I knew it was a little weird. You shouldn't have taken your eyes off me. It's just that time is not boundless. Can you do that later?"
……
Makura drops her gaze and shuts up. When Yusuke's hand left, he slowly leaned against the wall and sat down to collapse.
Yusuke looks down silently. It's a worthy gaze.
I didn't even care.
After a while of silence, my voice came down.
"... Can't you?
To the words, Makura leaked a faint laugh.
"Are you leaving it to the mad doctor? Take care of that girl. You'll die. I don't believe in myself anymore."
Yusuke pushes silence.
Then I opened my mouth.
"There's no one else"
"... right. Really. I run out of it...... They're all gone."
…………
"Neither will we, not far away...... right?
"If you're going to operate on Lunch, I'll do you one favor for everything. Whatever. Exchange terms."
"Then help me"
……
"Help me out of here"
Yusuke stood there without saying anything, but eventually returned the shock and left silently.
Makura didn't move for a while, but she caught a whimper creeping up and nodded her face in her arms.