"Where..." I awoke to bright lights and the constant electric hum of machines. I looked around and realized I was in a hospital bed with an IV attached to my forearm. The pain came quicker than my remembrance of what occurred before I ended up here. My face felt swollen. My right arm felt like it was on fire and I could barely move it. I gasped a little. (Oh yeah, that's right, I was on my way home. And then- and then the crash.) I pushed the call button and yelled for a nurse. No one came. I began to recall the explosions, the people screaming, the fires. As the pain overtook me, I slowly drifted back out of consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, there was a woman sitting in the one other chair in my room, near the window. She had mixed blond hair. It was tied in a ponytail behind her head, but it looked like it would come down to her lower back if she untied it. She looked about my age, upper twenties to low thirties. She wore a nice pair of glasses. After staring at her for a moment, I called out to wake her up. "Hey!" After a few more attempts, she woke up.
She shook herself out to get rid of the drowsiness and then realized I was awake. "Hi, Doctor Melody. I'm Doctor Kyra. You've been out for a week." the woman said with a pained smile. I was shocked. I assumed I'd been out for awhile, but that was more like a coma.
"Oh, that's not what I was expecting. Have you contacted my family?"
"Of course, using your ID I attempted to contact anyone who was in your immediate family, but no one responded. Things are different now."
"How so?" I asked.
"Well, Melody, you're my only patient."
It took me a moment to realize the gravity of what she had just said. (In a huge hospital, with capacity for thousands, I'm the only one?) "Where are all of the nurses? I called for one earlier when I awoke for the first time, but nobody came."
"It also happens to be that I'm the only doctor. You and I are the only two people I've seen since last week."
"So the explosions..."
"Either killed of the majority of the populace or people are too scared to come out. Or a combination of both." I brought my hand to my face. The pain was nearly gone. I looked towards the one television in the room and realized that it was playing the same message I had seen in the lobby a week ago. That was it.
"Are there any news channels?"
"This is the only channel left. I think it's being kept up by a government broadcast system. The last thing I heard from the actual newscasters was the most political leaders, including the president, are dead."
"What about the police force and firefighters?" It dawned on me that we were now in a nearly lawless society, even if there were only a small amount of people left, they could do whatever they wanted.
"Based on the blocks of completely burnt out buildings, I'd say we can rule out the firefighters. We also haven't received any 911 calls or emergency alerts from authorities. Not even any ambulance calls. We don't have staff for ambulances anyways."
"It says we're supposed to stay inside. Have you been going out?"
"No, I've been living in the hospital in the in call quarters. It's quite creepy being in a hospital all alone at night. Luckily, we have food stores here for about fifty people at any given time. I could stay here for awhile without getting anything. I'm glad you finally woke up though. You were the last one brought in by the ambulance. A piece of wall hit your car." So that's what happened. I stretched out and hopped off the bed. Kyra took my ID out.
As I washed up in the bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. My brown hair was overgrown, my skin was pale, almost a grey color, and my eyes were much duller than I remembered. I began to cry. I couldn't stop. I knew what those unreturned calls from my parents meant. (I'm alone. I'm so alone. It's just me... what's the point!) I slammed my fist on the sink. "Melody?" Then Kyra knocked on the door. I calmed down a little.
"Do we look for people?" I asked. I'd been wondering if we should try to find other survivors. Humans tend to work better when they can socialize.
"I was thinking that too, but the government seems to be treating this like a disease. They're telling us not to leave our homes and to not congregate in groups."
"If this was a disease, it'd have a case fatality ratio of nearly one hundred percent. A disease couldn't spread with that much killing. This must be some sort of weapon. The shelter in place could also be to keep us away from the explosions, almost like they're terrorist attacks."
"Terrorist attacks don't kill 99% of a country with three hundred million people in it." Kyra had a point. This couldn't me military, with our current technology. Who would kill this many people... it wouldn't do any good if you were trying to take over a country.
"Well, arguing about what it is won't help us."
"Agreed. We're going to have to go outside eventually." (I really don't want to spend a single night in this hospital while I'm conscious.)