SATe [✔]

[17] parastin

There's something about looking at the crime scene pictures that puts me on edge. I realise that it's not exactly an experience I was meant to have and a lot of people would be able to say the same, but it had become abundantly clear as photographs came out of the folder Smith had provided me. I had watched Smith rush around the hospital basement with a camera in hand but thought little of it at the time. I couldn't even be thankful there were only pictures of the first scene Perry had asked for a report on; three bodies, peeling skin, a dank basement covered in spiderwebs and fluids, nothing was appealing to look at.

Smith had printed off the guidelines for reports and banished me to the meeting room underneath the IT suite, just close enough in the vicinity to her that Perry couldn't say she wasn't guiding me. The guidelines themselves asked for basic information; team members at the scene, location of the operation, number of casualties, species of alien involved with the operation, and meaningful information that took little to fill out. The most significant section of the report, however, pertained to my personal experience; what did I think happened during the operation and what time would I say they occurred?

It was a daunting task.

Not only would I have to scour through my head to recall every detail, but I would also have to remember times and actions, when I took them, and why I took them. I'd have to take all of that into consideration while the images of dead bodies and aliens flashed through my mind. I had spent so many hours trying to replace those images with friendlier ones. Pretend I was just at a check-up with Elizabeth Baxter, and she was left perfectly unharmed, and pretend Mary-Anne Winden had just popped through a hotel I was guarding for the night.

But now I had to remember the real events and how I'd really come to know the faces of those two women.

I couldn't help but feel ill with every glance of a picture. I'd hurried to write down my thoughts on the hospital scene, sliding the images back into their folder and pushing it across the table. That, in comparison to the other two, seemed like it'd be the most difficult to deal with, but I hadn't considered the fact I, individually had more impact on the other two. When I thought about what happened I couldn't help but start trailing the pen over blank pieces of paper and doodling instead; focusing on Marie lying in my arms unconscious or Georgia lifeless against my fingertips without an ounce of life in her wasn't possible.

The opportunity to focus on it had been a shorter length of time than I realised. I found myself beginning to write down my mistakes in Monroe Hospital, leaving Marie with the nurse, talking to Georgia a tad too long, and getting lost on the way to the third floor. I'd barely wrapped it up when the rest of the team had pooled in and gathered around the table. Perry had motioned for me to wrap up the papers as they glued their eyes to the door.

My curiosity barely had any time to form before a short woman followed them a couple of minutes later. From the get-go, she seemed out of place. If anything, she was as far removed from the group around the table as she possibly could be.