"I suppose." Goodsir sat against the sick pay bench, tense and still bloody-handed. He had formed a strange friendship with Wolfin. The men on board were far past caring about a woman on board. Goodsir tried to catch her ear as often as he could, enjoying the company. Strange as she was, she understood some of what he spoke with her about, the problems of having the wrong form, the wrong body compared to the rest of the crew and a ship that wasn't built with their type in mind. More than that, she asked incessant questions, things to keep his mind off of the ice and the cold and hunger. And the thing lurking beyond the ship walls. He would recall as many medical texts as he could, teaching and growing quite fond of it. He'd missed it. So much of his job now was the gore of survival. Amputation and cauterizing and suturing up old reopened wounds or claw marks. It was nice to remember the other side of healing, when things still had hope. When it wasn't just pushing against an inevitable breakdown of all bodily functions, which most of the crew were struggling with and he (and Wolfin) was desperately seeking answers to. If there was a way to save it besides just giving up on half their already meager rations. He sighed, letting that attempt at a brave face he'd worn for the past year finally fall. He crumpled. "I have to keep doing these autopsies. The captain ordered it. These men know that they aren't even going to their graves whole." There, that hopeless feeling settling back in. Familiar and still uncomfortable, suffocating. He tried to wipe the blood off before it froze to his fingers, but it was already stuck there. He threw the towel down in frustration. "There is an order to these things. But the men can't even rest in--" His voice cracked, he drew in on himself with a sharp sob. Moments of silence, the ship creaking ominously. The men nearby in sick hammocks, coughing. More men he couldn't truly help. Just try to make comfortable as they slowly starved or went septic. "Do you ever..." He paused, knowing how disgusting the thought was but still feeling it wrapping around him, a dark and warm blanket settling around. "The dead, they're warm and watching us all from the heavens. And sometimes, I get these fleeting notions. Of giving up and joining them. Before this gets worse. And lately they've been less and less fleeting." He stared at the swinging lamp behind her head, unable to meet her eyes. "I want to. But they need me. They need me, I'm all that's left."
jacobvanloon
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