Baltimore City Morgue

[deadgirl]

It hurts... ohhh, my arm hurts... GOD IN HEAVEN HELP ME!! mommy? mommy? where are you.... someone needs to turn on the light. it's too dark in here. padre nuestro que estás en los cielos...santificado sea tu nombre... am I in hell? why am I not in heaven? can anyone hear me!?!

Her eyes opened suddenly, but to no avail. Though she could hear voices, everything around her was black. Perhaps she'd lost her sight.

Everyone sounded miserable, injured... had there been an explosion, were they covered in rubble? Lifting her hands, she explored her body. She felt fine, nothing hurt, nothing seemed cut or even bruised. Reaching up, her hands clanged into the metal inches above her face. She hadn't expected it there, and froze in sudden panic.

Kicking a leg up, her knee hit the same metal above it. She was in a box of some sort. Why was she in a box?

"HELLO!" She called, hearing her voice echo in the tight space.

My name is Mary Stevenson! Someone get me out of here!

"Mary??" She said out loud. She didn't know Mary, but was she in one of these boxes too? Or was that voice not coming... from outside...

She had to get out of here. Out of the darkness. She didn't know what was going on.

"HELP ME!!" She screamed, flailing, her arms pounding over her head, on the sides, anywhere she could touch. She kicked as hard as she could, feeling the box she was in rattle and protest. With a particularly strong kick she felt the metal give way, and light spilled into the box from near her feet.

She went silent, but the voices continued on.

Help me escape! I cannot move! Who are you? What is that noise?

She was frightened beyond words, but found herself responding. I don't know... I'm sorry, I don't know...

Suddenly she heard voices and this time, they weren't inside her mind. Shadows shifted in the light near her feet.

"It may have been residual energy from a few days ago?"

"Are you sure the temperature is low enough? It may just have been gases."

"Christ. That foot is still moving."

"Hello!!" She screeched, kicking and banging again. "Help me, don't leave me in here!"

"Oh my god, she's really alive!"

"She might be a zombie still! Get the guards, get the doctor!!"

Her body was jerked forward as the morgue drawer was opened, and the faces of two assistants looked down at her, wide-eyed and terrified. They weren't the only ones.

She sat up quickly, pushing past them. A young woman screamed.

No! Listen to me! My name is Dennis, I need help!

"I CAN'T HELP YOU!!" She screamed at the top of her voice, grabbing at her hair and seething. In the light of the morgue she could see her clothing, stained from neck to knees with dried blood. She spun around, trying to figure out where she was.

"Where am I?!" She whined, looking to the assistants, one of whom had passed out on the floor. The other, a nice looking young man in a white lab coat, shook his head. "Baltimore City Morgue..." he stammered. "Please," he drew nearer, light headed with fear but trying to do what was right. "Please, you need medical attention." He pointed to the gurney near the door. "Lay down." He rushed her backwards, trying not to look at the red orbs of her eyes, trying to see past the greenish tone of her skin. He'd seen a lot of decedents, but they were exactly that- decedents. DEAD.

This one seemed at least half alive.

She laid back, shaking with panic. "Why am I in the morgue..." she barely whispered, looking around her with new horror. The door banged open and the doctor rushed in, guards and a few other medical staff following quickly after. "Why am I here!!" She said, trying to sit up as she realized what that meant, but wasn't quite able to get her mind around it.

"You were dead," the assistant blurted in shock.

"Dammit Jeff shut your mouth! We don't need a lawsuit on our hands!" The doctor snapped, pressing the girl back to the bed insistently. "It's alright ma'am, just lay back. We're going to check your vital signs and make sure you're okay. Calm down ma'am."

"DEAD!!" She shrieked, fighting the doctor as she tried to stand up again.

Oh no! No we're not dead! I'm in the morgue? Mommy!! Christ Almighty SAVE ME!!!!!

As the voices in her head joined her, the staff surrounded the gurney and pressed her down, hands on her arms and legs. She wailed as if she were being stabbed, her mind splintering over circumstances no human being should ever have to endure. In fact it was possible no other ever had.

"Get her pulse, hold her still dammit!"

"Ma'am you must calm down! We're trying to help! Hold her DOWN I said!"

"I can't find it Doctor- it must be very weak-"

"She's one of them."

"LET ME GO!!!!"

"Strap her down!!!"

Get me out of here... am I dead? Mommy? Mommy? Oh god, oh GOD....

[deadgirl]

"But we can't keep her here," Jeff explained to the admissions clerk at St James Hospital, the phone jammed under his chin as he looked over the girl's records. "This isn't a medical facility." He could still hear her screaming in the other room. She hadn't stopped in the four hours it had been since they first discovered her. Well, alright, sometimes she paused to talk to herself, or sob hysterically, but mostly it was screaming. They hadn't found a sedative on hand that would calm her. The Doctor figured it had something to do with her being a mutant.

Of course it couldn't be confirmed that she was, but what else was he going to say?

"We can transfer her by ambulance into the E.R. No, she seems to be... well to be truthful she has no pulse and from what we can see... no blood left in her body." There was silence on the other end as he grimaced, know just how the clerk's head must be spinning. "I know, I know. Do you see the problem? We don't know what to do with her either."

"Yes. Yes. They've told me they'll be looking for her there. They'll run tests. I'm pretty sure she'll end up at... yes, exactly. If you could get the approval on that we can send her over. Call me back here. Yes. Okay goodbye."

Jeff hung up the phone and made his way over to the door slowly, dreading going inside. The girl was disturbing to listen to, wailing as if she were being torn apart from within. It didn't make him keen to look at her while she did so.

+++

"PLEEEEEEASE!! Let me go, let me goooooooh..." Her voice careened through the room without ceasing, no pause for breath or fatigue stopping her from her protests.

A sob broke her dry throat, and she closed her red eyes again, pulling at the restraints for the hundredth time. She couldn't feel the leather cutting into her white flesh, mottled beneath the surface with a sickly green that made her look almost marbeline. She couldn't see the wounds either, her forehead, neck and shoulders strapped down tightly to the gurney.

The voices had quieted a bit in the last few hours; realizing their fate the new dead cried softly, recited prayers or stayed silent in the hopes they were only dreaming. Older dead were there as well, lingering in every surface of the city's welcome lobby for the newly deceased. At least those who died horrific, public deaths anyway.

"Someone! Jeff! Doctor Rawlins!" She screeched, her voice roughly shifting between pleading and rage. "I don't want to beeeeeee here....!!" An outburst of anger stiffened her body, she jerked like a fish thrown from water, the metal gurney clanging and shifting on its wheels across the floor. She screamed incoherently, with a volume that issued out into the front hall, nearly out of the building. It was stressing everyone out, and more than one employee had vomited in the batroom. Amongst them now was proof of the hidden fear of all who worked with the dead; that those they cut into, eviscerated, pieced back together, stuffed with cotton, toetagged, clothed, and painted weren't entirely dead... and the cloudy orbs they covered with withering eyelids could look right back at them as they went about their day.

+++

An hour and a half later, the dead girl(as she'd been named even by those who knew by her file her name was Moonbeam Broderick) was wheeled out to the ambulance parked by the back door.

Already reporters were waiting. Not many however; it seems whoever had the brilliant idea of leaking the situation to the media hadn't let more than a station or two in on it. They crowded the crew as they opened the double doors, pulling her gurney along with.

"Is it true someone thought to be dead has survived the events at NovaTeX?"

"No comment! Let us by!"

"Is this the girl? Hello! What's your name-"

The man stopped short as her ruby red eyes tilted in his direction. "HELP MEEEEEE!!!" She screeched, locking her body up in renewed resistance against the restraints. "Someone help me!!" Her teeth ground into themselves as she nearly growled, spitting and flailing with what little motion she could garner against the thick leather straps.

"Mary Mother of God."

"LET US THROUGH!!!"

The reporters backed off in an almost stunned silence as the dead girl's stretcher was pushed into the ambulence, the doors shut quickly. Doctor Rawlins walked up to them and held up his hands as the ambulance sped off out of the parking lot.

"Was she truly dead?"
"What is the cause of her appearance Doctor?"
"Do you think she'll sue?"
"Are you concerned about a malpractice suit Doctor!"

"Please, please..." he got them to stop long enough to respond. "I'm sorry but I cannot release any further information at this time, and neither can my staff. Patient confidentiality requires us to practice a little discretion in the matter. If you will all please vacate the premises and allow the staff to go about their business. Thank you."

Their questions persisted even as he turned and went through the doors. Inside, the morgue seemed to return to its accustomed silence rather quickly. Still, something inside him was unsettled. He'd never seen anything like it before, and he hoped never to again.

Pausing by the cold room door, he couldn't bring himself to go in. He continued on to his office, patting the desk clerk's counter as he passed.

"I'm headed home. Skeleton staff tonight, keep someone by the phone and in receiving. The rest of you, take the afternoon off."

[Trask]

The unmarked truck rolled up into the emergency only access and squealed to a stop. The driver knocked on the tiny window between the cab and the cargo hold in the rear. Then he popped open the door and jumped out. Almost immediately an orderly rushed out of the hospital door gesticulating wildly.

"You can't park that there!" He protested at the men driver already heading to the back of the vehicle. "That's for emergencies, can't you read?" He pointed to the large yellow lettering plastered across the area.

The driver turned and pulled a leather wallet from inside his coat and flipped it open in the mans face.

"I would call this an emergency, wouldn't you?"

The orderly didn't read the entire identity card. He didn't have to. The government and department stamp emblazoned clearly across the picture was more than enough to grant this man authority to park where he damn well pleased.

"Yes sir, sorry sir, wasn't expecting you so soon."

The driver gave the man a small smile.

"No harm done, we will need help with some of the equipment though if you could take care of that."

"Right away sir," the orderly hurried away to procure more assistance.

The driver continued around to the rear of the truck, twisted the catch and let the slatted shutter slide up and out of the way.

"Trouble Mr. Lago?" Simmons asked as he jumped down onto the concrete.

"Not at all sir," the driver replied, "in fact they're going to help us in with the gear.

Simmons gave the man a bright smile, "great!" He waved the other three members of the science team down and dropped the ramp that extended from the back of the vehicle.

He'd spent an uncomfortable few hours reading and re-reading the report that Secretary Trask had faxed to him and felt pretty prepared for what lay ahead. He already had a few innocuous tests in mind that would establish some facts straight off.

And it was good to get out of Washington for awhile. Simmons didn't get out much.

Presently the orderly returned with five men in tow.

"Excellent, excellent!" The scientist beamed, "now if you men could start moving this equipment in we'll get set up and start doing what we need to do."

He paused.

"Where have you got her?"

The hospital workers looked uneasily at each other before one of them piped up.

"Psyche ward, she was ... disturbing the patients."

Simmons nodded slowly, looking like a man deep in thought, "well, I suppose she would really," he gave the orderly another bright smile, "good thinking that man!"

Twenty minutes later the equipment was set up neatly outside the door of one of the psyche ward cells. Simmons could here muttering and occasionally weeping, and very occasionally a muted, blood curdling shriek from within. He glanced at Mr. Lago and quirked an eyebrow.

"One small step for man," he said and opened the door.

What waited within was something that unsettled every member of the little science team. All except Simmons anyway. He was held by a sort of morbid fascination.

"What ... what's wrong with her?" Mr. Lago breathed.

"First impression?" Simmons said quietly, "I'd say she's dead wouldn't you?"

"Well ... yeah ... but she ISN'T!"

"Calm yourself John, remember we have a job to do here."

The other man nodded and started wheeling some of the apparatus in.

Simmons meanwhile approached the girl restrained on the bed at the back of the room. She strained against the leather bands that held her, causing further injury to her already damaged flesh.

He stopped next to her and looked down at her with a conciliatory smile, the sort that was reserved for children that had grazed their knees. Not that he had any children.

"Hello Moonbeam," he said, the fantastic name completely at odds with the appearance of the creature on the bed. "My name is Mr. Simmons, how do you feel?"

[deadgirl]

Her eyes were a bit wide as the new face wandered over. Six hours had been enough time to warp her psyche, survival instinct forcing her conscious mind to believe nothing around her was truly real.

The gentle smile he gave her may have been condescending, but it was a smile. The first she'd seen... well, ever.

"Moonbeam..." she said in a hoarse, whispery voice, no attachment to the name evident in her voice.

Looking around the room, eyes rolling a bit crazily, she laughed.

"Fine, I'm fine, I'm fine..." Emotional anguish poured over her features, and she clanked the restraints again, almost as if just to tell herself they were still there.

"No one will let me die..." she whispered, looking back up at him now with an expression that begged him to relieve her.

[Trask]

Simmons pursed his lips and nodded gently in understanding. Not that he did of course, but it was always best to offer a sympathetic gesture. She was still rattling against the restraints and though he would have liked to have released them to get a better look at how she moved it seemed a little foolish at this point in time.

Instead he sat down, perching himself on the edge of the bed.

"Moonbeam Harris-Broderick," he repeated, adding the surname, "that's your name, do you remember?"

She looked awful.

He glanced over his shoulder to where John and the others were setting up the equipment. None of them looked comfortable, the junior, Daniels, looked almost as green as the girl.

"Well I don't know about dying," he said softly, "but we are here to see if we can help you, do you want us to help you?"

[deadgirl]

Moonbeam Harris-Broderick.

She looked around the room again, her vantage cut short by the strap over her forehead. If she had tears to cry, her eyes would be filled with them. Instead they were red orbs of glassy agony. Her fingers curled around the wrist restraints, holding onto the world even as she begged for death.

"I don't know that name..." she said softly, afraid to trust the man but lulled towards calm by his even, tepid manner. "I don't know that name." It seemed kind of a silly name, as if he'd made it up. It wasn't her. He was mistaken, but it didn't matter. Whoever she was, whatever she was, she couldn't stay in these straps forever.

She would have to trust him.

Nodding stiffly against the neck restraint, she grimaced, an ugly expression on a once beautiful face. "Please help me. I don't want to..." What. Die? Live? She wasn't sure. She only knew she didn't want to be here. "Please don't call me Moonbeam. That's not my name." She was almost revulsed by the idea of it, as if it gave this nightmare some sanity. As if it made her story linear rather than a scramble of sensations and memories and emotions. She almost preferred that to making sense of what was happening.

Licking her dry lips, she sobbed dryly. "Oh god help me."

[Trask]

"Alright," he said, still keeping his tone gentle, "I'm going to take some of these straps off ok? Just a couple to make you more comfortable for now."

With slow, almost tender movements he unbuckled the restraints around her head and neck and loosened the one around her waist.

"That's better. Now then," he paused, she had said not to call her by her name, "my friends and I are going to do a few tests, nothing to worry about, just little things, so that we can work out how to help you."

He nodded to John who wheeled up a device that looked like a video camera crossed with a monitor.

"Are you hungry or thirsty at all?"

[deadgirl]

Watching him remove the straps, she felt a little frightened, as if she had come to trust the restraints she'd been fighting. She kept her eyes on him as the machinery was wheeled over, second by second growing more calm as she fixated on him, the shore on the horizon to her castaway ship.

She knew she should be hungry, but didn't feel it. She knew she should be thirsty, but didn't seem so. Running her tongue along the roof of her mouth, she nodded. She should eat something... it seemed a comfortable idea. Doing something other than laying here sounded very nice indeed.

"Where did I come from?" She said, not having asked the question to anyone else. No one really would have had an answer- most of the people she'd encountered since waking in the morgue were too frightened by her to offer much.

[Trask]

"Daniels," he addressed the ill-looking junior, "go see if you can rustle us up a glass of water and a sandwich would you?"

The young scientist nodded and gratefully fled the room in search of food and refreshment. Not that he would be eating anything for awhile; his appetite seemed to have been utterly obliterated in the last few minutes.

"We don't know where you came from yet," he said and gave her an apologetic smile, "that's one of the things we're hoping to find out."

John flicked a switch on the device and it started emitting a low hum. He stared at the screen for a minute, punched a few buttons and stared at it again. Then he switched it off, checked the connection and switched it back on again. He punched the same buttons.

He stared at the screen some more.

"Uh ... "

Simmons gave the man a look, complete with quirked eyebrow that if written in text would have been summed up in the letters - wtf?

"You uh ... you might want to take a look at this," he said in response to the unspoken query.

Simmons hopped down off the bed. "Don't worry," he said to the girl, "I'm not going anywhere."

The device was a small, portable version of the Cerebro circuit carried by the Sentinels and used to distinguish between human and mutant targets. Quite simply, mutants should be highlighted in red, while humans showed blue.

The image on the screen was neither, instead opting to be mostly blue with shifting patches of red luminescence.

"Huh," Simmons grunted in surprise.

After a moments consideration he switched the device off himself.

"Carry on," he said and returned to his perch on the bed.

"Sorry, about that, even the best scientists in the world get faulty equipment sometimes. They're just going to carry on with their tests now though, nothing to worry about."

He adjusted his glasses, "what's the first thing you remember?"

[deadgirl]

She turned her head slowly from side to side, slowly adjusting to the freedom of motion. It wasn't that she was sore or tired from all the energy she'd expended, in fact, she felt fine except for a persistent ache in her chest. It was still that she wasn't sure what to do with the body she'd woken up in.

"Blackness." She said, looking at him. Her eyes focused on him for the first time, feeling a little more stable the more she did so. "It was dark, and I was in that drawer. I try to remember how I got in there, but...." She shook her head, and upset began to take her again. Closing her eyes, she keened through her teeth, a dry, soft cry that seemed to make her whole body ache. Turning her head to the side, she tried hard not to scream, though for all the world she wanted to. This man was genuinely trying to help her, and something told her he'd explain it all if she was patient.

And it came to her then that the dead weren't patient- they simply had no other choice but to wait. She could hear one at the end of the hall, he'd been reciting poetry the entire time. Loud, passionate, angry poetry, lyrics of rage. The sound of his voice calmed her now. If the dead were here to wait with her... perhaps she wasn't alone.

"I'm -not- alone," she said, biting into her bottom lip. Her teeth cut into the skin, but now blood flowed, and the skin did not bruise. Opening her red eyes slowly, she lay there passively, waiting for his next question.

[Trask]

"That's right," Simmons agreed, "you're not alone, not any more."

She seemed much calmer now and while he had feared a slide back into the weeping and wailing of earlier when she tried to recall what had happened it hadn't manifested. Her composure held.

Perhaps she was coming to terms with her wholly unnatural state.

He decided not to press the issue of memory, instead opting for a more indirect approach. He pulled a couple of photographs from his pocket; one showing a group of smiling people wearing a gaudy array of clothing, the other showing a trio of girls with their arms slung around each other. Both had names and numbers written in black marker across their glossy surfaces.

He held the pictures up for Moonbeam to see.

"Do you recognise any of these people?"

As he spoke John prepared a syringe for a blood sample, hoping all the while he wouldn't be the one that had to actually take the sample.

[deadgirl]

She tried to calm herself enough to look. They looked like pleasant people, smiling, she could almost feel the sun on their shoulders. She heard laughter in her mind, and it didn't seem the same as the laughter of the dead woman three drawers down from her back at the morgue. This was different laughter, it made her feel happy and safe, as if she had no more cares.

Smiling faintly, she watched the pictures for a long time. That world wasn't hers, it was no different to her than cheesy pictures in empty photo frames at a gift shop.

"No," she whispered. Separated from that world, she had the sense there was nothing for her there even if she wanted it. The sunlight would not feel the same on her shoulders as they had felt it on the afternoon the picture was taken. How she knew it, she wasn't sure.

"No I don't know them."

[Trask]

While she may not have recognised the people in the pictures, the calming affect of the photographs was considerable. The memory may be gone but an echo remained; something of the warmth and companionship depicted still struck a chord.

"I'm going to release the straps on your arms now," he said softly and unbuckled the wrist restraints and waist-band to allow her to sit up.

"Why don't you keep these?" He suggested and offered her the pictures, "you might find they help you more than you think."

Daniels chose that moment to return with a cup of water and what looked like a pre-packed tuna sandwich. His colour had improved but he still looked ill at ease.

Simmons waved him over and opened the plastic pack.

"Here," he said and offered the food and drink.

[deadgirl]

She sat up, rubbing her wrists. There was a quiet moment when she looked at her hands. The mottled greenish tone to her skin was terrifying enough for anyone looking at her... much worse for the girl now living inside that skin.

Her hand turned, a bit of blood still smeared across her palm. She watched it as if it were not a part of her. The hand moved to her neck as she remember the blood's source, her skin now perfectly repaired.

"Gunshots," she whispered, and gagged, choking and gasping suddenly as from the center of every cell the memory came rushing back, aspirating her own blood, throat torn out by the bullet, red gushing everywhere, everywhere.

Her other hand closed tightly around those pictures and she forced her eyes to the man who'd been helping her. Her moss green lips trembled as she choked again on nothing, drawing in a ragged breath(the first he'd seen her take) only to let out a splintered, anguished cry.

Pressing her hands to her face- one fist still around the pictures- she sobbed for a few minutes, not nearly as hysterical as before, and no longer flailing, but crying nonetheless.

After a time she slowed, and her hands lowered to her lap. She looked at Simmons blurrily, sobbing once dryly. As he offered her the water, she nodded and curled her fingers around the cup, bringing it to her mouth as if it were immensely comforting.

At first the water spilled from her lips. She wiped her mouth, looking down at her bloodsoaked tshirt without so much as a whimper. One hurdle at a time, but after she was over it, it seemed no longer to disturb her.

She tried again, bringing the cup to her lips and tipping back her head a bit. The first swallow was hard in coming, and she gagged a bit but stubbornly swallowed again, and again, and again.

Setting the cup on the gurney beside her mostly empty, water dripped from the corner of her mouth, rinsing dirt and blood down her chin. She burst into another short sob, then bit her bottom lip until she stopped, shutting her eyes tight.

[Trask]

Echoes of memory. Simmons decided he liked the term and would put it in his report. The girl was clearly experiencing, remembering or otherwise reliving part of the Baltimore incident. The alleged cause of death had been a gunshot wound to the neck, a wound that was now nowhere to be seen. She clearly recalled receiving the wound however and Simmons waited patiently for her to sob herself out.

Under other circumstances he might have been compelled to put his arms around her and comfort her with a hug.

Somehow he had an idea that such an act would be slightly ineffectual.

He watched as she struggled and then succeeded in drinking some of the water and gave her a smile and nod of encouragement.

"Good," he said, "now Mr. Largo here is going to take a blood sample, check your pulse and heart rate, that sort of thing, but I'll be here the whole time so you don't need to worry."

For his part, John Largo looked singularly unimpressed with the duty he had just been charged with. He had a job to do however and it was a job he was well paid to do.

With that thought fixed firmly in mind he took up the an empty syringe and advanced on the unnatural girl with what he hoped was a friendly expression on his face.

He was sure he looked alot more confident than he felt.

[deadgirl]

She watched him with somber eyes, taking a small bite of the sandwich and chewing slowly. Making a face as she realized she really had no saliva in her mouth with which to soften the food, she took a drink of water and forced another swallow down.

The needle had no effect on her. All that would draw from her veins was the smallest amount of a translucent grey-green lymph that came forth only with a significant amount of prodding.

Jeff at the morgue would have been able to identify the fluid on sight. Butanediamine, putrescine. A substance created by the decay of amino acids in the body within 48 hours of death. It wasn't something ever seen in living organisms, and indicated her preservation occurred sometime after she arrived at the morgue.

The dead girl continued to wash small bits of sandwich down with water, watching the young man with a quiet, untrusting expression.

[Trask]

No pulse, no heart rate, no respiration, hell, not even any blood to pump around. Largo was fighting hard to keep his expression neutral despite the fact that he was quite obviously carrying out a medical examination on a corpse. At least it should have been a corpse.

He watched as the corpse took another bite of sandwich, her unnerving red eyes watching his movements with wide-eyed mistrust.

The fact that some level of decay had quite obviously set in meant that she hadn't been killed in this condition but had, at some point after the incident, arrested her own decomposition.

How she had managed that was a secret Largo wasn't entirely sure he wanted to pry into.

Simmons would be happy with the DNA sample to test once they got back to the lab but for now he was pretty sure there was nothing else they could do for her. Short of putting her to sleep.

Could she sleep?

How did you kill something that was already dead?

"Very good," Simmons praised her as she waited patiently through the examination, "now I'm going to remove the restraints from your legs so that you can get up and move around."

Largo opened his mouth to say something but Simmons cut him off with a single raised hand.

"It's alright Mr. Largo, we're all friends here now, isn't that right?"

[deadgirl]

The girl shifted to slip her legs over the edge of the bed. She felt her wrists and rolled her ankles, still looking down at the colour of her skin with a distinctly uncomfortable expression.

She looked between them both. "What's going on with me?" It was a calm enough question, likely the most lucid she'd offered so far. But then a different look come over her, and she put a hand to her stomach.

"I um..." she couldn't look greener, but it was plain something was wrong as her bottom lip trembled. "I need a bathroom. Please?" An instinct towards dignity remained with her- she didn't want them to see her be sick.

[Trask]

What was going on with her?

It would be tactless, as well as technically incorrect to tell the girl that she was dead. She WAS dead, but then generally the dead didn't get up and walk around of their own free will.

That meant she was something else.

"We're still working on that," Simmons hedged with a smile, "I know it must be difficult, but you are going to have to be patient a little longer."

He paused.

"We are trying to help you."

He watched as she swung herself off the bed and marveled at the amount of mobility she retained in her otherwise dead flesh. It really was quite incredible.

If the effects could somehow be duplicated ...

He left the thought unfinished, wondering exactly what Secretary Trask would think of such a project.

"There is a bathroom through there," he said, gesturing to a side door, "we'll be here when you're ready."

It may have been a psyche ward but patient dignity was still taken into consideration, even if sometimes the patient needed to be sedated for their own good.

[deadgirl]

She swooned a bit as she got to her feet, setting a hand on Simmon's shoulder. He wasn't helping her, but she needed the balance. Just as quickly she stepped away from him and found her legs beneath her as steady as they could be- no fatigue or shakiness after her ordeal. In fact, she felt as if she could run a mile and not be out of breath.

It still hadn't occurred to her she hadn't drawn a breath in three days.

A few quick steps to the bathroom and she shoved the door shut behind her, tumbling to her knees in time to wretch over the toilet. Her subconscious expected the voluminous wave of bile and saliva that may have come after an evening drinking or due to the flu, but she had none. Very few fluids remained in the husk that was her new body.

The series of coughs and gags that echoed against the bathroom walls were cold comfort as she managed to not so much to vomit as regurgitate the sandwich and water she'd forcibly swallowed minutes before. Her head spun as she felt her empty stomach reject the foreign objects she'd subjected it to. From somewhere deeply buried in a self preservation instinct she knew; eating was no longer a function of her existence.

The bathroom fell quiet to the soft sound of the faucet running. She splashed water on her face and cleaned out her mouth, afraid to swallow any down. The taste of tunafish was slightly revolting now, and she gagged just remembering chewing and swallowing it down. Fear and panic were starting to leave her, replaced by a stony sort of apathy. No sobs came from the doorway as she stepped out of the bathroom, regarding Simmons and Largo with a faintly timid expression.

"I guess we can check that off the list."