My home village did not even have a hospital; the only things we had readily accessible were liquor, potatoes, and wheat. I had seen hospitals that were basically run out of abandoned buildings. This place seemed like a luxury if you were to find yourself falling ill.
The second floor was no different from the first, though there were extra rooms and beds up here due to the offices being on the first floor. Nurses fluttered about from room to room, carrying bowls, towels, and other tools as they rushed about. Among the chaos, they still managed to throw a glance our way every now and then.
As I entered the room, one nurse in particular stood out. The uniform was a mousy-colored, long-sleeved dress with a white smock and hat. While others wore a standard uniform with theirhair tucked into a neat bun, Edith wore a hair scarf as a modest addition.
Edith was tending to some poor clammy soul with a yellow tint to his flesh. When she looked up, she grew nearly as pale as her patient, and she quickly pretended that she had not seen me.
Leaving the side of the nurse escorting me, I stopped across the bed from Edith.
“Are you not going to greet the new doctor?”
She startled, a wild, angry blush across her cheeks when she saw me. “You are not arealdoctor.”
“I most certainly am.”
“Liar.”
“I promise you that I’ve done more amputations than years you have been alive.”
“That does not make you a doctor.”
“The hundred collective years of schooling or apprenticing would say otherwise.”
“Fine,” she grumbled, wringing out the wet towel she was wiping the man with over a bowl. “Are you here to help or for fun?”
“Could I say both?”
“Did Silas tell you to keep an eye on me?”
“Yes, but I am genuinely curious to know what you girls do with the Vipera fluid?—”
“Keep your voice down,” she snapped, glancing over her shoulder at the other nurses in the corner of the room, one of whom was tending to an old woman who had bedsores from her immobility.
“Vipera fluid,” I repeated in a whisper, teasingly looking over my shoulder to mimic her.
“Don’t be so childish,” she scolded.
“Isn’t using venom a bit risky?” I watched her gather her care items on the rolling cart. “Since there are so many deaths, would you not start having a corrupted every day?”
“The venom does not turn them if we keep it under a certain amount. Just enough to take their pain away.”
“I see . . . and this is Alina’s discovery?”
“Yes.”
“How many did you kill in order to get that number?”
“Enough. That is how many.”
“That is the first I have heard of it. What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“What else do you use it for?” I asked as she wheeled the cart out of the room, and I followed by her side.
“The venom is for pain. We use the saliva on wounds for healing and numbing,” she explained, keeping her voice quiet as we passed a group of nurses.
“What about the blood?”
