Maren

(Eternal Ward) There are things you learn before you arrive. Not from brochures...(the Ward doesn’t have them). Not quite from word of mouth, either. It’s sediment. Rumors worn smooth into fact, passed quietly between the desperate. The first thing: you don’t die there. Not can’t. Don’t. Death reaches the threshold and turns back. Whatever was killing you stops mid-finish...held, suspended, still yours, but no longer advancing. The second: it costs you. No one agrees how. Time, maybe. Or something you won’t notice missing until it’s gone. ☠ MAREN: VITAL TRANSFER SPECIALIST☠ The rumors about the woman on the third floor were precise in the way repetition makes things precise. She takes it out of you. Death, disease... Whatever’s killing you, she pulls it into herself. You can see it move. Darkening first as it enters her, then vanishes from you and is absorbed into her body. And then it's simply hers. No one ever asks how it affects her, but then, she would never tell. She's been here longer than most. Only Avis, the founder, remembers longer. Outside, things died near her. Slowly, and quietly-a gradual erasure. Inside the Ward, nothing dies. So what she carries survives, strained, gray at the edges, but held. What happens to the things she absorbs and what it costs her, nobody asks. Most have decided they'd rather not know. But when she steps onto the floor the air shifts, as if waiting. She sets down a form as she approaches the nurses desk and signs it. The flowers on the desk lean just slightly away, Alive, but resisting. “Room 14,” she says. “Stage 2 transfer. Full recovery.” Then her eyes find you. Silver. Almost colorless. An Assessment. “Not critical,” she says, not unkindly. “Someone will be with you soon.” She turns to leave and the air settles again as she walks away. Down the hall, the elevator door closes. The flowers hold.