Fallout || Stranger Things [2]

twelve || hospitals and havoc

The early Russian winter swelled around the west side of the expansive country, the snow drifts much smaller but the cold just as violating to anyone not dutifully prepared. Wind billowed harsh around the only structure for miles, a blank and unassuming hospital no stranger to the drop in temperature or the weight of heavy snowflakes.

However, what it was a stranger to was an uptick in chaos.

On any given day, the secluded hospital served quiet patients from all around the globe – the reason for their arrival never questioned by the doctors and nurses paid a hefty salary. The rhythm was simple. Always a full staff, always the highest doses of medication and the highest secrecy. Fat wallets and closed lips.

So, when the alarms began blare just shy of 3 a.m. on November 7th, there would be no police arriving on the scene, the cops instead averting their vehicles from the area as the wailing seeped out through the snow and darkness of the early morning.

Even the distant villages only turned over in their beds.

Once calm corridors were filled with chaos, the shattering of glass sending highly trained nurses running for their lives.

They weren't paid enough for this.

Footfall thundered throughout the facility, bodies and glass littering the path to safety. The fluorescent lights danced overhead, distorting shapes colors along the way. Heavy breathing. Screaming.

Energy.

One of the live-in doctors, of which who had never seen hard day at the facility, skidded into the security office under the flickering lights. Panic lined their brow, cracked glasses hanging low on loop their nose as they slammed their hand down on a large red button.

Dozens of slatted bars began to descend from the ceiling all over the facility, overtly out of place for what was assumed to be a hospital. Every exit covered. Every window barred. Every hallway blocked.

No way out.

For all but one.

The clattering and crashing within the hospital came to a stop, only the dashed whir of the emergency alarm bringing goosebumps on the flesh of those left alive.

"Wait!" The wild eyes of a nurse skidded outside of the security room, catching the hefty door before it could be slammed in her face. Her cheeks burned bright red as she was hauled into the room, quick to deadbolt the door behind her. "How is this happening?" she asked, her native Russian two octaves higher than normal as she tried to regain her breath.

Glass shattered in the distance.

The doctor crouched in front of the brightly lit security panel, cautious eyes peering out the slatted bars covering the window out into the hall. "Unresponsive since the day they arrived and barely any sign of life? They weren't supposed to wake up at all."

"Why were they brought here in the first place?"

"You know we're not allowed to know that."

"It would be helpful right about now!" the nurse screeched, suddenly pulled down below the window.

The doctor's eyes scoured the panel, dancing between it and the flickering light coming through the blinds. "We get paid too much to ask questions."

"We don't get paid enough to die for their secrets!"

"Just shut up!" he barked, his knees beginning to ache. "Every door is locked."

"Does it seem like that will stop them? Because I don't thi-"

The doctor clapped a hand over her mouth as a hall light bulb shattered, sending off a sequence of explosions and plunging the corridor into darkness.