9:48pm
They slid across the walls, pressing their suited bodies as close to the
white-washed walls as they could, one foot crossed the other softly and
cautiously, tiptoeing down the quite hallway of the isolation unit.
There were no nurses or security staff in sight, as they walked towards
one window of the room, they peeked in to identify if the patient was Ami,
Venus shook her head and motioned for them to continue walking.
“AHHHHH!!!! HELP ME!!! THERE’S SOMEONE IN HERE!!!”
The four senshi froze in shock as they heard Ami’s voice traveling down
the hallway, knowing that the nurses would have been alerted, they quickly
looked around. Mars hissed, “in here!” as she pulled opened the door
of an air sealed chamber that would have led them to the room of another
patient. The quartet rushed inside and pulled the door shut, they
squeezed in a tight pack since the size of the chamber would usually only
fit one nurse and the trolley.
“Well at least we know she’s awake.” Venus said.
“And that she had healthy lungs.” Jupiter pointed out.
“I wonder who was inside her room that made her scream like that…” Mars
muttered to herself, “could it have been…?”
“Oo... I wonder who’s in this room?” Moon asked, half to herself,
as she began to open the door to the patient’s room.
“NO!” Venus hissed, “it could be dangerous. Now, we have to
teleport back, I doubt that we can see her tonight, the nurses are going
to be extra careful and they will have doctors all over the place… not
to mention that I am starting to feel closed-space-phobic” she mumbled,
“come on!”
9:48pm
The night staff sat at the nurses station drinking tea as they played cards
during the usually monotonous stretch of the graveyard shift, they only
had six patients in the ward, three with confirmed tuberculosis, one with
suspected tuberculosis, one with African Fever, and another unknown.
It was hard working a shift in this unit since it was usually uneventful
and quiet, and with the few number of patients, the night shift would typically
require them to turn the lights off, give them the night medication, and
wait until the morning.
“AHHHHH!!!! HELP ME!!! THERE’S SOMEONE IN HERE!!!”
The nurses sat up and looked at the switchboard, “the Mizuno room,” one
of the nurses immediately said. They placed the cards on the table
and ran to the corridor, their eyes opened in shock as they saw a young
man standing inside the room of Ami Mizuno, wondering how he had managed
to get inside without their notice.
They knocked on the plastic divider between them loudly as they hurried
to get their gear to enter the chamber: unlike the tuberculosis patients,
where they could wear normal facemasks, since her virus was completely
unknown to the medical world, they had to wear the extremely bulky headpieces.
While they were strapping the pieces in, it was obvious that the male intruder
was trying to explain something to their patient, and trying to subdue
her screaming by showing that he intended her no harm, but it was also
just as obvious the hysteria that he was causing. After having strapped
the apparatus over their heads, they zipped the plastic helmet sheath into
their uniforms, checking the gauge on their filter systems; three of them
entered the air-sealed chamber. They stood inside the chamber for
a few seconds before opening the door of their patient’s room, the young
man turned and looked at them, they were about to fall to the ground in
self-preservation when he reached into his pocket, however, his hand returned
empty as he reached for a chair and hurled it out the window. They
started towards him, but they were too late, using the bedside table as
a stepstool, he jumped out of the seventh floor of the hospital.
9:49pm
*Beep
Beep Beep*
“Excuse me for a moment will you?” Mewagi Mizuno smiled as she picked
up her handbag and pulled her pager out, frowning. She nodded her
head briefly at Kendo Daiki before leaving to the public telephones situated
outside the dinning room. Kendo-san frowned and checked his own pager,
he wondered what it could have been that would cause his guest to hurry
away, especially when she had only moments earlier mentioned that she was
not ‘on-call’ at all this evening.
9:49pm
The three nurses stared at each other, then proceeded to the window, the
mangled mess of the chair-once-been was laying in the pedestrian walk,
but the man who had jumped out of the room had disappeared into the night.
They then took a look at the hysterical patient who had chosen this particular
moment to awake, and checked her vital signs - she seemed quite healthy
despite her irregular breathing patterns and her rapid heartbeat.
“Ami Mizuno?”
“H…Hai.”
“We are going move you into another room since the window is broken, do
you understand us?”
“Hai.”
“Put this paper mask on.” One of the nurses left the room to bring
in a wheelchair, as they tried to comfort the shaken girl. Her tears
fell like the fresh rain, her shoulders moved ruggedly, as she choked for
breath between her cries, they glanced at each other bewilderedly, uncomprehendingly.
“We are calling your mother now…”
“Arigato.” Ami replied softly as she collapsed into
the nurses’ arms.
10:10pm
Mewagi Mizuno half flew into the lobby of the Juuban hospital the moment
she exited Kendo Daiki’s car, during the car trip she had been silent as
to her agitation, but her fidgeting, her eyes darting amongst the traffic
- her whole aura so filled with apprehension that he had been tempted to
use his sirens to shorten the driving time. As she approached the
sliding doors of the hospital, she realized that she had not yet thanked
her host for the evening, she skidded to a stop and turned, finding the
gentleman in question waving her off with a smile, making a gesture that
he would make further contact by telephone. Cupping her hands over
her mouth, she yelled, “seventh floor, I’ll leave your name with the nurses,
come after you park your car.”
He nodded in comprehension and drove away with another smile. Mewagi
Mizuno turned back to the hospital and rushed to the elevators when a figure
sitting at the lobby caught her eye, “Asuka-san?”
“Aunty Mewagi.” He looked up as he heard his name being called.
“What are you doing here? It’s late.”
“I want to see Ami-chan.”
“She’s… Asuka-san…” her eyes pleaded with him to ask no more about her
condition since she knew that she was not allowed to say anything until
Ami’s physician and the head of Dangerous Diseases had confirmed any suspicions
or otherwise.
“I need to… I’m going crazy… I have to see her… please?” he said weakly.
“Come with me, but I can’t promise you anything,” she said as she grasped
his hand and pulled him into the elevator.