Chereads / Ruins Above:Survivors of the End Times / Chapter 4 - Clare's Hold: Relief in a Hospital

Chapter 4 - Clare's Hold: Relief in a Hospital

The city is a giant furnace of death, and the hospital is not immune to the ravages of the apocalypse. A place that once symbolized hope and healing is now shrouded in fear and despair. Clare is in the midst of it all, but like a beacon of light in the darkness, she stays true to her mission.

Clare walks through the dimly lit corridors of the hospital, her nurse's uniform already stained with blood and dirt, her eyes showing fatigue, but more determination. Beside her was a young intern, Dr. Lee, and the two of them walked hurriedly and cautiously, each step as if they were fighting for time against the Grim Reaper.

"Clare, there's not much medicine left, what should we do?" Lee looked at Clare with a worried face, his forehead covered with beads of sweat and his hands clutched the only bottles of potions he had left.

Clare frowned, she knew the gravity of the situation, but at the moment she couldn't show the slightest hint of panic. "Check the wards first, take care of the patients who are in dire need of medication and we'll figure out how to find it." Her voice was calm and strong, giving Lee a hint of reassurance.

They came to a ward with moans of pain coming from inside. Clare pushed open the door and saw an old man lying on the hospital bed, the old man's face was as pale as paper, his lips were dry and cracked, and his wounds had begun to turn into pus due to infection. Clare walked quickly to the old man's bedside and gently held his hand, trying to give him some comfort.

"How are you feeling, grandpa? Does the wound still hurt?" Clare asked gently while carefully inspecting the old man's wounds.

The old man opened his eyes slightly, his eyes filled with pain and helplessness, "Girl, am I dying? How did this world become like this ..."

Clare's heart stung as she held back her tears and smiled at the old man, "Don't worry, grandpa, we'll cure you." After saying that, she turned her head to Lee and said, "Lee, give him a shot of antibiotics to ease the infection first."

Lee nodded and quickly prepared the syringe, and with Clare's assistance, injected the old man with the medication. During the injection process, the old man was trembling slightly due to the pain, Clare held his hand tightly and whispered, "Grandpa, bear with it, it'll be over soon."

While taking care of the old man, a life-and-death struggle was also taking place elsewhere in the hospital. In the emergency hall, a group of survivors poured in, some of them seriously injured, some terrified. A middle-aged woman holding a bloodied child cried out, "Save my child, please!"

The rest of the hospital's medical staff sprang into action, some to calm the survivors, others to provide emergency treatment to the injured. The head nurse, Jenny, was bandaging a man with a severe leg injury, her technique skillful and quick, but her eyes revealed deep concern.

"Jenny, there are too many injured like this, we don't have enough manpower!" A nurse said anxiously.

Jenny gritted her teeth, "Save the seriously injured first, one is one if we can."

In the basement of the hospital, the warehouse where the medical supplies were originally stored had been ransacked, leaving only some scattered bandages and empty medicine bottles. David, who was responsible for guarding the warehouse, looked at all this, his heart filled with anger and helplessness. He picked up a wooden stick and decided to go to other parts of the hospital to see if he could find something useful.

Back on Clare's side, she and Lee had just come out of the old man's ward when they heard a cacophony of footsteps and shouts. It turned out to be a group of infected rushing into this floor of the hospital. Their eyes were hollow and frantic, and low growls came out of their mouths as they lunged towards the medical staff and survivors.

"Quick, find a safe place!" Clare shouted as she pulled Lee towards the stairs and ran. As they ran, they came across several survivors who were looking for shelter.

"Follow us!" Clare shouted, and the group ran towards the stairs together.

However, the stairway was already blocked by several infected. Clare grabbed a mop she found from the wards and used it as a weapon, charging towards the infected. There was no fear in her eyes, only determination to protect everyone.

"Everyone be careful!" Clare swung the mop and hit an infected hard in the head, knocking him back a few steps. Lee and the other survivors also grabbed the items around them and fought the infected.

In the midst of the fierce battle, one of the survivors was unfortunate enough to be grabbed by an infected, and he let out a desperate cry. Seeing this, Clare rushed over and stabbed the infected in the eye with a mop as hard as she could, successfully rescuing the survivor.

"Thank you ...," the survivor looked at Clare gratefully.

"Cut the crap and move!" Clare shouted as they continued to run towards the upper floors.

On another floor of the hospital, the head nurse, Jenny, and the other medical staff were also fighting the infected. They had built a makeshift defense line with hospital beds and medical equipment, but the infected were getting more and more numerous, and the line was faltering.

"Everyone hold on!" Jenny shouted as she grabbed a scalpel and prepared to fight the infected in close quarters.

One of the nurses yelped in pain as the infected scratched her arm. Jenny rushed over to check on her, she knew what it meant to be scratched by an infected, but she didn't have time to grieve at the moment.

"You go inside and find a place to hide first, we'll hold them off." Jenny said to the injured nurse.

Just then, Clare and the others arrived on this floor. "Jenny, we're here to help!" Clare shouted.

"Why are you guys here too? It's too dangerous here, you guys have to go!" Jenny said.

"We can't leave, we're all fighting together!" Clare replied firmly.

So, they combined their forces and fought the infected even more fiercely. Using his battle experience, Clare commanded everyone to form a defensive formation, cooperating with each other and attacking the weaknesses of the infected.

In the battle, they gradually gained the upper hand and repelled the infected to the other end of the corridor. However, everyone was also exhausted, and quite a few of them were injured.

"We can't stay here for too long, we need to find a safer place." Clare said.

They started looking for a suitable shelter on this floor and eventually found an operating room. The door to the operating room was relatively sturdy and it had some equipment inside that could be used for defense.

"Everyone go in first and block the door." Clare commanded the crowd.

They pushed the operating table and some medical equipment to the door and blocked it. Then, Clare began to check everyone's injuries. She found that a few people's wounds were rather serious and could be life-threatening if not treated in time.

"Lee, bring over the rest of our medicines and treat the wounds of the seriously injured first." Clare said to Lee.

Lee nodded as he opened his medical bag, only a few bottles of antiseptic solution, some bandages and a small amount of painkillers were left inside. Clare frowned, she knew that these medicines were far from enough, but it would have to do for now.

She started by cleaning the wounds of one of the survivors who had been bitten in the abdomen, the wounds were deep and blood kept pouring out. Clare carefully rinsed the wound with antiseptic solution and then wrapped it with a bandage. During the bandaging process, the survivor clenched his teeth from the pain and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

"Bear with it, the wound must be treated cleanly or it will get infected." Clare said softly.

After treating the wounds of the seriously injured, Klara sat on the ground and sighed deeply. She looked at the exhausted and frightened crowd, her heart filled with helplessness. In this apocalyptic world, the lack of medical resources made her feel helpless like never before.

"We can't just sit around and wait, we have to find a way to go out and look for medicine and other supplies." Clare said to the group.

"But it's too dangerous out there, there are infected people everywhere." A survivor said worriedly.

"We don't have any other choice, if we don't, sooner or later we'll be trapped and die here." Clare's eyes revealed determination, she knew it was a tough decision, but she had to take the risk for everyone's survival.

In the basement of the hospital, David encountered a group of mutated rats while searching for supplies. These rats were huge, their eyes flashed red, and their teeth were so sharp that they could easily bite through metal. David raised his wooden stick and looked at them warily.

"Damn it, what kind of monsters are these!" David cursed.

The mutated rats lunged towards David, who swung his wooden stick and fought them. His movements were a bit slow but experienced, and he managed to hit the rats accurately every time. However, there were too many rats, and he gradually became a bit overwhelmed.

"Help!" David shouted.

Elsewhere in the hospital, Clare and the others heard David's cries.

"It seems to be David's voice, he's in danger in the basement!" A nurse said.

Clare frowned, she knew that David was too important a member of the hospital to be seen dead. "I'll go check it out, you guys stay here and keep watch." Clare grabbed her weapon and prepared to head to the basement.

"Clare, I'll go with you." Lee said.

"No, you're needed here. I'll go alone, you guys protect everyone." Clare refused Lee and she headed towards the basement alone.

The basement was dark and damp and filled with a pungent odor. Clare walked carefully, her heartbeat involuntarily racing, each step fraught with danger. When she came to where David was, she saw that David was surrounded by a group of mutant rats in a critical situation.

"David, hold on!" Clare shouted as she rushed over and drove the rats away with her weapon.

David was delighted to see Clare coming, "Girl, why are you here? It's too dangerous here."

"Cut the crap, let's rush out together!" Clare said.

They were back to back, fighting to the death against the mutated rats. Clare's eyes were sharp, and she realized that although these rats were ferocious, they seemed to be a little afraid of the bright light. In a flash of inspiration, she took out a flashlight and shone it towards the rats. The rats were stimulated by the bright light and retreated.

"Come on, let's go!" Clare pulled David and ran towards the exit of the basement.

During their escape from the basement, they encountered a few more minor twists and turns, but eventually managed to make it back to the operating room. Everyone was relieved to see that Clare and David had returned safely.

"Clare, it's great that you're okay." Lee said.

"We're safe for now, but we still have to figure out how to find supplies." Clare said.

They rested in the operating room for a while and then began to discuss plans for finding supplies. Clare suggested that they could start by looking on other floors of the hospital, maybe there were some medicines and food that had been missed.

"Let's split up into teams of two people each, that way we can stay safe and expand our search." Clare said.

Everyone agreed to the plan, so they split into groups and started moving. Clare and Lee were in one group, and they headed towards the top floor of the hospital.

The top floor of the hospital was originally an administrative office area, and it was now in shambles as well. They searched through the various offices, rummaging through every drawer and cabinet, but with little success, finding only a few office supplies and a handful of snacks.

"These will come in handy too." Clare packed what she found into her backpack, not letting go of any item that might be useful.

During their search, they heard a strange noise. Clare signaled Lee to stop and she looked around warily. The sound grew louder, as if it was some sort of machinery running.

"Could there be other survivors? Or a new danger?" Lee whispered.

"Let's go check it out." Clare said, and they headed towards the source of the sound.

In a conference room, they found a huge ventilation duct from which the sound was coming from. The lid of the ventilation duct had been opened and there were some flickering lights and complicated wiring inside.

"There seems to be something in here." Clare said, as she moved closer to the ventilation duct, trying to get a better look inside.

Suddenly, a mechanical arm reached out from the ventilation duct and grabbed towards Klare. Clare hastily stepped back and dodged the attack.

"What is this?" Lee looked at the mechanical arm in the ventilation duct in horror.

"I don't know, but it looks dangerous. We have to be careful." Clare said.

They grabbed their weapons and prepared for any possible danger. At that moment, more mechanical arms reached out from the ventilation ducts, and they waved in the air as if looking for a target.

Clare and Lee engaged in a fierce struggle with the mechanical arms. Clare noticed that these mechanical arms had some wires exposed at their joints, and she realized that this might be their weak point.

"Attack their joints!" Clare shouted.

Lee followed Clare's instructions and attacked the joints of the mechanical arms with his weapon. Sure enough, after a few attacks, one of the mechanical arms stopped functioning. Encouraged, they continued to attack the other mechanical arms.

After some hard fighting, they managed to destroy all the mechanical arms. But they didn't dare to take it lightly, who knew what other dangers were in this ventilation duct.

"Let's get out of here first." Clare said as they left the conference room and continued their search for supplies on the top floor of the hospital.

During another team's search, they found a hidden room in a corner of the hospital. The door to the room was blocked by a huge wooden plank, and it took them a great deal of effort to remove it.

Upon opening the door, inside was a room filled with all sorts of strange equipment and documents. The equipment all looked very advanced with some blinking lights and displays on them, but none of them knew what they were used for.

"This seems to be a secret research room in the hospital." A nurse said.

They searched the room, hoping to find something useful. In a filing cabinet, they found some information about virus research and some experiment records.

"This information might be helpful to us." A doctor picked up the information and looked at it, and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

They gathered the information and some equipment that looked useful and prepared to bring it back to the surgery.

As Clare and Lee continued to look for supplies, they came to the rooftop of the hospital. There were some solar panels and water tanks on the rooftop, and Clare realized that these things could be the key to their survival.

"If we can use these solar panels to generate electricity, we can solve our electricity problem." Clare said.

"But how do we get them down?" Lee asked.

Clare looked at the solar panels and thought for a moment. "We could try to take them down and move them near the operating room."

So they set to work removing the solar panels. The process wasn't easy; the solar panels were heavy and firmly fixed. But they didn't give up and after a lot of hard work, they finally managed to remove a few solar panels.

During the process of carrying the solar panels, they encountered a new problem. As the solar panels were too big, it was difficult to move them in the narrow staircase. Moreover, they had to be on constant alert for attacks from the infected.

"We have to think of a way." Clare said.

They found some ropes on the rooftop, then tied up the solar panel and slowly lowered it down through the edge of the rooftop. During the process of lowering, they carefully controlled the speed to avoid the solar panels falling and getting damaged.

Once the solar panels were safely placed downstairs, they were faced with a new challenge - how to move the solar panels to the operating room.

"We can use a stretcher to carry it." Lee suggested.

They found a couple of stretchers and placed the solar panels on them, then worked in pairs to slowly make their way towards the operating room. During the carrying process, they encountered some infected people, but they skillfully avoided the attacks and finally managed to move the solar panels near the operating room.

After returning to the operating room, the other groups came back one after another. Everyone put together the supplies and information they had found and began to organize them. Clare looked at the haul and felt a twinge of relief in her heart. Although supplies were still scarce, at least they had some new hope.

"Let's install the solar panels and see if we can generate electricity." Clare said.

Everyone worked together to install the solar panels outside the windows of the operating room. After some tweaking, the solar panels managed to start generating electricity. The operating room lit up and everyone cheered.

"With electricity, we can use some medical equipment." A doctor said excitedly.

"But we still don't have enough medicine, we have to keep looking." Clare reminded everyone.

With everyone's efforts, the hospital had some life for the time being. But they knew that in this apocalyptic world, danger was everywhere, and they had to continue to hold on and look for more chances of survival, while Clare would continue to lead everyone to find the light of hope in this darkness.