Location: Origin, Medical Unit of SERAPHIC Inc. Headquarters

Origin years since the Arrival: 3

“Looks like her vitals are stable.”

“Her arms looked mangled as hell before we started the surgery. I think we did a good job on them. So… She’s one of those mutated humans from Division 5?”

“Yeah…Oh–hold on. She’s waking up!”

Winter groans, hearing muffled voices in her ears as consciousness slowly comes back to her. She feels as if lights are penetrating her eyelids and furrows her eyebrows in response. Her arms hurt like hell, and her entire body felt like a giant rock hit it. Once she opens her eyes, she makes out the silhouettes of two black figures, one dressed in an outfit similar to the scientist she'd decapitated when she first met Reuban and the other dressed in a white medical lab coat.

“Where…Where am I?” Winter mutters out, slowly feeling the blurriness of her vision crawl away. Everything was becoming clearer to her.

As she moved her head to the side, she saw a needle inserted into her inner elbow, with a long plastic tube reaching up to what looked like a bag of water from her perspective. It startled her, and she immediately sat up, feeling woozy from the sudden action.

“Whoa there! Relax. You were dehydrated.” The man in the white lab coat puts a hand on Winter’s shoulder. “Take it easy. Can you tell us your name?”

“Winter…Where am I? Where’s Reuban? I mean–Arch Extent.” Winter wasn’t sure if people were familiar with his real name or if the title was more appropriate to use.

“He’s safe. But we have a few questions for you, Winter. You can call me Doctor Mavis. I need some information about you before we determine what to do with you.”

“Where am I? What’s this thing in my arm? I need to see Extent.” Winter panics.

Doctor Mavis frowns a bit but then proceeds to take his hand off Winter’s shoulder. He drags a metal stool to the hospital bed, sitting down casually. “I wouldn’t rip it out. That stuff in there is what is hydrating your body right now. But we’re in a hospital. Do you think you could relax a little for me, Winter?” 

“Yeah…” Winter tries to calm herself. Her fuchsia eyes swivel down to her physique, noticing that her previous clothes were gone. She was in a white hospital gown, and her arms and legs had several wrappings of gauze on them. They hurt like hell, and she doesn't have any recollection of how she ended up in a hospital.

“So Winter, it’s just a few standard questions, I promise,” the doctor explains. “First question: How old are you, and when is your birthday?”

“I’m…Twenty-five. I was born on the twelfth of the New Moon of Winter,” Winter answers.

“Um…Lucia, could you translate that for me, please?” The doctor kindly asks the woman in the black tester outfit.

“January twelfth,” Lucia answers.

“You look like those other people on Divon I’ve seen in the labs…” Winter comments as she focuses her gaze on Lucia.

“I’m here to help translate anything from Division 5 terminology into Earth lingo for Doctor Mavis. I’ve been on Division 5 expeditions a few times,” Lucia responds.

Winter blinks at her last sentence. It reminds her of Helena and Elijah, and she wonders how often those two have been on expeditions to Division 5. Then, it vividly reminds her of Hightop Lab's self-destruction. Did they survive? Or did they become engulfed and incinerated by flames at the Hightop Labs?

“Next question, Winter. Do you know your family medical history? Things like cancer, diabetes, heart disease. Would she know what any of that is, Lucia?” The doctor looks towards the Division 5 scientist in the room.

“I know what those are,” Winter interjects. “I’ve never been sick with any of that in my life. I don’t know who my parents are or any of my blood family. Do you know when I can leave, doctor?”

“You’ll be allowed to leave once we medically clear you. Next question: Have you been in contact with Cosmos Plague?” The doctor stares up at Winter, waiting for her answer patiently.

“Yes…But I’m immune to it. It’s why…Extent wanted me to help him make a cure for it,” Winter confesses. Her head peers down, and she looks at the white blankets of the hospital bed, her hands reaching to grip it. She wants to see Reuban so badly the anxiety within her is riled up to the max.

Doctor Mavis grows silent at her answer.

“I see. Alright, well, that concludes all the questions I have for you. There are a few more patients I need to attend to,” the doctor finishes his statement as he stands up from the chair, sliding it back to its original position.

As Doctor Mavis leaves the room, Lucia turns to Winter, bringing up a watch with a familiar holoscreen Winter had seen so many times. She flips through a few menus, and Winter tries hard to read what it says. She can see a few things: Type 4, her name being entered, age, and so on. She was thankful that numbers on Earth were the same as on Divon, so that wasn’t much of a learning curve.

“Lucia, can I go now?” Winter asks, hoping she can at least get out of the bedroom.

“You’re not medically cleared. Plus, you just got out of surgery not long ago. We had to stitch the skin back on, and it wasn’t an easy task with you,” Lucia comments, walking towards the curtains.

A window is revealed as Lucia pulls the curtains back from the wall, causing Winter to squint her eyes. Lights from outside peer in, and the Winterlance is immediately bewildered by the sight she saw. There were tall towers made of steel, with so many lights on them, flying vehicles, lots of neon lights that flashed, and so many giant billboards. Winter knew where she was.

We’re on Earth… Origin.

“I’ll make sure someone brings you some food soon.” Lucia walks towards the nightstand next to Winter. “I have to run a few errands, too. So, feel free to watch TV in the meantime to occupy yourself.”

Lucia picks up a small rectangular box, handing it to Winter. Winter quickly grasps it and stares at all the little buttons on it. Several buttons had numbers, some with arrows, while there were other symbols she didn’t quite understand. Lucia presses the power button, and a holoscreen appears on the wall in front of Winter, startling the Winterlance at the barrage of a man talking.

“Oh, the news. It’s always the same boring stuff. Never changes. Use the arrows on that remote to change channels if you want to watch something different.” Lucia walks towards the door, but Winter’s voice stops her.

“So, uh…when will I be medically cleared?” Winter’s eyes look hopeful.

“When we tell you.”

With that, Lucia leaves the room, leaving Winter alone to herself.

“On today’s news, the Albany zone is now permanently closed. A Cosmos Plague outbreak has killed nearly everyone, and after over a year of the zone being yellow, it’s now confirmed red. Seraphic has been retracting many of its resources to ensure that the New York zone remains green. And–” The news channel is cut off.

Winter changes the channel, seeing it flipped to what looks like reality TV. Changing it again, there was a kid’s cartoon show on which Winter decided to watch for a few minutes. Then, she continues to use the arrows to scroll. It was like her mind was being baked with so much new information, terms, language, culture… everything at once. She wasn’t quite sure how to process it.

Everything felt fast-paced, not as slow as life on Divon. She wonders how Reuban grew up with all this or how other Earth people she met managed it. What were schools like? Families? The laws?

Winter eventually changed the channel back to the animated show she saw on TV and left it there. She lays her head on the soft white pillow, contemplating, as the TV sounds were white noise to her. Beyond that, she could hear other types of alarms going off in the distance, people talking in the hallways outside her room through the window, and other sounds she didn’t have words to describe. She assumes it was the vehicles that flew by.

“I can’t stay here forever…” Winter mutters to herself as she sits up again. The huntress looks at the gauze wrappings on her arms and legs. She tries to recall previous events before she was like this. All she knows is that Reuban was shot directly in the head, and it made her use the last of her reserves to create a giant glacier on both sides of her. She shot the Nexus agent Kobi in the head, and before the labs exploded, she managed to drag herself and the scientist out. After that? There was a brunette woman in high heels. She also wore a red vest like Reuban did.

“Arch Pointer…I think that was her name. Maybe she knows where Reuban is.”

Winter tries to slide herself out of the bed, feeling pain rush into her legs as she stands on her feet. Everything feels sore and achy, and it's tedious to try to move. As Winter attempts to take a step, she realizes there are white wires attached to her, which connect to a monitor. She peels off the tape, and the monitor flatlines, setting off an alarm.

“Oh fuck…”

Before Winter could take a few more steps, two medical personnel barged in towards Winter. They carefully approach her, trying to usher her to sit back in bed.

“Ma’am, you need to lay back down. And we need to reconnect this to you. You’re not allowed to leave the bed without an assistant,” one medical personnel attempts to inform Winter.

“What? I can stand on my own; I don’t need help.” Winter was ready to make a huge fuss.

“You’re to be monitored at all times. If you need an assistant to use the bathroom or to get out of bed, you can pull the wire next to the bed on the wall.”

Winter grumbles in annoyance and sits back in the bed. She wants to retaliate, but she follows through. This land, the rules, all of it, are foreign to her. She isn’t sure what is allowed and feels like no one explicitly explains it to her. After sitting back down in the bed with a loud grunt, the medical personnel leave the room.

A few minutes pass, and Winter inspects the string on the wall, attempting to read the metal plating above it. It’s difficult initially, but she gets the hang of the Earth characters. She could read the word ‘help’ easily. Then, an idea springs upon her. The huntress eagerly pulls the string with a grin on her face.

After hearing the chime go off, one of the medical personnel comes in, dressed in scrubs, and walks right up to Winter.

“What do you need help with?” The person in scrubs questions, looking like they’re just waiting to be free from a twelve-hour shift.

“Can you uh…bring me to someone named Arch Pointer?” Winter wasn’t sure if the request was bold. It was worth a shot.

“Arch Pointer? I’m sorry, but she’s way too busy to see patients…Let alone actually trying to get an Arch to hear you out...” The person in the scrubs spoke as if they had experience with this.

“It’s important. I need to talk to her about something. I was hoping she could help me go see Arch Extent.”

The person stares in confusion at Winterlance. They aren’t sure who this patient is and firmly know that they aren’t paid enough to get into any business involving the Arches of Atlas.

“Listen, I just work here. I’m a new nurse. Also, my shift ends in five minutes. Is there anything else I can help you with?” The nurse crosses their arms, patiently waiting for an answer from Winter.

“Can I leave the room if you walk out with me?”

“A sign on the door says only a level six and above employee can escort you out. I’m only level four. Sorry.”

“I’ll just…watch TV, I guess,” Winter grumbles.

The nurse leaves the room, shutting the door behind them as they return to their business. Winter slouches into the hospital bed, frustrated at her failed attempt to escape the room again. Even if her body was still pulsating with achiness, she didn’t want to remain trapped in isolation in a foreign world. She had to think of another way to escape, to find out where Reuban was and reunite with him.

Part of Winter wanted to cry, unsure of what to do. She was alone in a room, with no one to talk to, except the occasional unusual people dressed in that medical attire who would visit to check on her. The sounds of the TV drowned out, and all she could do was turn to her side and watch outside the window.

I miss home…