Supernatural Nightshift
Chapter 1: Barbara and the Box
Summary: The witching hour thins the veil, and those who have the gift can see that Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center's cases take a supernatural turn. Follow intern Nazely Toomarian as she navigates a typical evening working nights in The Pitt.
Author Notes: Welcome to Pitt Night Shift! This is just supposed to be a bit of fun and written episodically by case. I appreciate ideas, feedback, and sharing far and wide! Please forgive all medical ignorance, both in terms of hospital care and how hospitals even work. It's all magic to me.
Potential warnings: abstraction of physical violence when describing a supernatural speech pattern
Word Count: 1,820. Follow along and comment on AO3
Nazely Toomarian lowered herself down to be eye level with the frog in Room 3. She was six hours into her twelve-hour shift. Midnight had come and gone, striking the precise time that the board would turn over from typical nightshift excitement to… atypical. The frog’s sister was alarmingly pretty with a delicate ballerina body and gentle freckles around her well-defined lips that Nazely had to look away from. She wept sweetly in the corner and appeared significantly more distraught than the placid green amphibian chilling on the surgical tray.
“Hi there,” Nazely checked her chart, “Barbara. Seems you’ve been turned into a frog?”
The creature blinked once. Nazely was well into the witching hours at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, but this case was a softball. She needed something easy tonight.
“Or maybe a toad?” Nazely used a pen to try and see the underside of the frog, but Barbara curled tighter, blinking twice before making the birdlike chirp of a midnight peeping frog. Dr Abbot appeared suddenly, his physicality belied by the gentle laugh wrinkles at his eyes and disarming voice that swayed between a warm rasp or a playful quip. His eyebrows were raised, sending his gray and silver curling hair back in an animated expression of surprise.
“Oh, an Eastern green tree frog,” he diagnosed.
“Dr Abbot. Barbara—that’s our frog here—um, her sister Natalie says that she was turned into this form by a witch?”
Dr Abbot put his hands behind his back, leaning in to inspect the frog. His shoulders were militarily square, emphasizing his muscular and compact frame. Senior attending Doctor Abbot was not a tall man, but he was intimidating and Nazely both wanted to impress him and to be one of the few to make him crack a smile.
“Barbara?” He asked, switching from the friendly voice to something warmer, something between just him and the frog.
The frog blinked once.
“Is today Tuesday?”
The frog blinked twice.
“Are you communicating in binary, Barbara?”
Again, the frog blinked.
“Once for yes, twice for no,” Dr Abbot said to Dr Toomarian, straightening up with an easy wiggle to his neck. He had a birdlike ability to swivel and bob his head, catching the details of the room in a single sweep. “We see this every so often what with the increased access to witches on Etsy. You feeling confident in handling this on your own, Dr Toomarian?”
“Uh, yeah, I’ve got it covered,” Nazely stammered, eyes darting to sister Natalie who was still crying prettily. Nazely Toomarian had a perpetually tired face, deep circles under her eyes since she was a child, and haunted brown eyes that had the habit of trapping her audience into a gentle hypnosis. She was used to the double-takes. The first was usually pity, the second intrigue. She blew hair out of her eyes—she needed to cut her bangs again—and turned back to the sister.
“Nice singing, by the way,” Abbot said to Barbara Frog as he departed the room. The frog sang again, and Nazely began to dig into Barbara’s Etsy purchase history with Natalie. By the time she had confirmed that Barbara was not in extremis but quite happy with the successful polymorph, Nazely knew she needed another case.
“Excuse me, Doctor?” A pale and translucent old man tried to stop Nazely on her way back to the board to process Barbara’s discharge.
“Yes, Mr Reed?”
“It appears I am dead.”
“Yes, Mr Reed. You died on July fourth, just over there,” Nazely pointed toward chairs just in time to see a man sneeze a small bunch of yellow ragweed flowers out of his nose and then groan in disappointment. “You’ve been a ghost with PTMC for fifteen months now.”
“Oh, have I?”
“Please excuse me,” Nazely crossed to the central desk to start the write-up for Barbara’s discharge. The charge nurse, Lena Handzo was watching her with a steady, unblinking gaze. When Nazely was first inducted to the nightshift Dr Shen had told her Lena had been raised by a detective and a gargoyle who had been in an illicit relationship. It explained Lena’s capacity for stillness and knowing everything that was happening to everyone, but after almost a month Nazely realized he had been describing a 90’s kids’ show.
Nazely had annoying older brothers who would stare at her with their similarly engaging brown eyes, but she was pretty good at ignoring this kind of behavior. Except… she also desperately wanted to befriend Lena. Without looking up from her chart she said, “Jasper sure has been hanging around for awhile, huh?”
“Probably another five or six months before he passes on. But it takes three years before it’s worth it to call the exorcist. You heard about the eldritch horror in chairs?’
Nazely sighed. Yes, she had heard about the eldritch horror in chairs. It was some kind of unfathomable nightmare with black tentacles and too many mouths or eyes that popped out of the too many mouths—the story changed each time one of the Doctors approached it. The prognosis so far was dayshift problem.
“Who is on the case now?” She asked Lena. They hadn’t even been able to triage the horror, it just kept hanging around in chairs chanting in a deep speech and making the patient’s ears bleed.
“Shen got it inside one of those big cardboard boxes for refrigerators, which is actually doing wonders for the nosebleeds.”
“I thought the ears were bleeding?” Nazely looked up.
“Both. Hey,” Lena brightened, having made eye contact. “You haven’t given it a shot yet, huh?”
Nazely leaned her head back with a groan. Ever since she had diagnosed that demonic possession last week she’d become the new horrors doc. Why couldn’t she get the sneezing flowers guy?
“Sure,” Nazely said, handing off the discharge papers for Barbara. “Send out our frog patient through the back? I’m pretty sure the guy with the straw hat in chairs is either a heron or a swan trickster god. Either way, can’t have them eating a patient.”
T̷̩͐ḧ̴́ͅr̴̫̀u̸̪̒u̵͉̾l̴̰̂-̴̨̚k̴̦̍a̶̳͒ ̶̧̓s̵̲͊k̶̬̾r̴̛̙ḙ̷͂ĕ̶̳ä̵̤́’̶̗͛g̶̀͜ẗ̸̪́h̶͙̍ ̴̡͛f̵̳͝’̵̱̀k̵̞͝t̷̟͂h̷̜̊ń̷̯!̷̱͠ ̴̠̔Ś̷̞s̷̩̐ŝ̴͔’̵̨͛ḣ̵͔ḁ̷͝t̷̺͌h̶̤̉-̶̲͝ĝ̶̢t̵̨̛h̵͇͑u̸̱͝l̷̞̉’̵̩̆ḧ̴͙́!̶̭̀ ̵̣͝G̵͚͛g̶̨̾-̸̯̈́g̸̱͌t̴̗͗h̵̖̊n̷̘̓-̸̦̇l̸̡̆ų̷̉h̴̟̑h̵̡̀!̸͎̀
“I’m coming, Dr Shen!” Nazely called, entering the waiting room known as chairs. Attending Doctor John Shen was trying to convince the ward nurse to hand him a blanket to cover the cardboard box, which was rattling wildly. Chantanah, the Ward Clerk, was blocking the corner of her vision and keeping her attention on someone presenting with an ice pack on their wrist.
“Do we know why our Eldritch Horror has visited us?” Nazely asked, trying to see if anything was peeking out of the box.
“Do you speak deep speech?” Dr Shen asked, slapping the top of the cardboard box as the creature tried to lift a flap open. He managed to keep a large plastic cup that was always a third full of milky iced coffee balanced in one hand while wrestling the boxed horror. As co-attending to Dr Abbot, Dr Shen was the next most senior doctor in the Pitt, but he had a habit of disarming anyone around him. Nazely could see how maybe someone as laid back as Shen might pass some of that calm onto a screeching horror, but it did not appear to have worked.
“A little,” Nazely shrugged. She knocked politely on the box. “Ẇ̴͜h̶̙͑ă̸̳ṯ̶̀ ̶̙̕b̵͉͋r̸̝̉i̴͈̍ṋ̷́g̸̙͒s̸̩̉ ̵̠͝y̸̺̽o̶̫̊u̵̦͗ ̸͈̒h̵̘̊ȇ̸͙r̵̗͂e̴͓͑?̷̱͊”
There was a howling and the box rattled strongly enough that Shen had to put down his iced coffee.
“I picked it up in Armenia,” Nazely answered the apparent question. The box made a screech and then a sound like wet bone crunching on stone with chip-chip-chipping sounds, “Yes, like System of a Down,” Nazely sighed. Half her patients brought this up. The box began to sing I-E-A-I-A-I-O and the entire room phased temporarily into double-reality. “Thank you, thank you,” she interrupted the popular song-spell to open a third eye, and then she cleared her throat, “D̴̬̓o̴͎͋ ̸͙̀ȳ̸͙ö̶͙́u̴͎̔ ̵̼̊u̴̫͛n̷͖̈d̶̄ͅê̸͕r̴͎͑ṩ̴t̴͍͗à̷̞ń̶͓d̴̜̈́ ̷̯̈m̵̱̂ȳ̶̹ ̴̪͐E̴͈͐ň̵͇g̸̪͠l̸̖̽i̵̞͑s̴̝̊ȟ̵̯?”
A single knock came from the cardboard, but it echoed loudly as if it were the sound of rapping on a heavy mahogany door. A chill ran through Nazely and for a moment she felt the bouncing tensile strength of time stretch out ahead of her with a definite springing end where her mortal coil ran out.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said with a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll ask again, What brings you here?” Nazely listened to the screeching, clicking, muffled sounds coming from inside the box. After awhile, a low bass-note rumble was growing louder and more persistent until Dr Shen had to knock on the box to interrupt the horror’s speech.
“I think it was approaching the brown note,” Dr Shen apologized.
“Well, I caught most of it anyway I think,” Nazely said. “Okay. Can you show us your human pet, please?”
Shen stepped away from the box and took a drink of his perpetual coffee. Dr Ellis had insisted it was not magical, but Nazely was unconvinced. He and Nazely watched as a blue-and-white ribbon of jellyfish stingers erupted from the top of the cardboard box, slowly revealing something black and iridescent trapped among the fluttery, beautiful, poison ribbons.
“That appears to be a chicken,” Nazely concluded. “With three heads.” The horror was shaking the three-headed black and iridescent chicken, which promptly gargled and then threw up an egg from one of its heads. Shen dove forward and made a grab.
“Nice catch, Dr Shen!”
“I’m good at everything,” he said in disgust. Then he regarded the egg and frowned, “Ugh. My grandma would bring these home for congee.” He pocketed the ashy egg and looked to Nazely, “So his chicken keeps throwing up eggs?”
“No, that’s normal. It’s molting—see?” Black feathers were falling to the ground and leaving little scorch marks as they dissipated into ash. The box was shaking again and more screeching and guttural sounds like chopping flesh and snapping bones were spoken. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t care what he told you. I am a human doctor and I treat humans for ailments, and I can tell you that is not a human. That is a chicken. Uh huh… yes, well, you’re going to have to trust me on this one.”
Dr Shen was already waving down ward nurse Chantanah who had made the mistake of peering at the black three-headed chicken from behind the glass. “Hey! I’m gonna need you to call in the nightshift Veterinary hospital on south side for a pickup. Tell them we have an abyssal molting chicken and—” he glanced to Nazely who pointed to a man in a straw hat, “Some kind of avian trickster god.”
Nazely encouraged the chicken to be pulled back into the box and excused herself from the horror who had begun to have some kind of squawking conversation inside the box with the unlucky lying pet.
Follow along and comment on AO3
Shout out and thanks to @theariespov for a quick beta read!