Thread: Rusted Roses - Survivor00 & Romantic[Dream]

Spring 1867, Southern Anceria ...---... Olivia Hawthorne pushed aside the heavy canvas tent flap, smearing blood over the tan fabric as she staggered over to the medical washbasin. Her hands trembled as she thrust them into the warm, red-tinted water, furiously trying to wash the clumps of viscera from her arms. She scrubbed and scrubbed until the coarse washcloth began to rub her skin raw, but she couldn??t stop scrubbing. She had to wash all of it off! Her smock too was stained with the crimson fluid, drying fast in the baking midday heat. She choked back heavy sobs, and the underlying want to lose the weak breakfast sitting in her stomach. She pulled her hands from the water, the droplets falling to the baked, dusty ground where they were quickly sucked up by the thirsty earth. Olivia felt a sob crack within her throat, and dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands. How were they expected to save these soldiers? Every time they figured out how to properly treat one wound, something would come around that wounded them twice as horribly? The ground beneath her shook faintly, and she could hear their distant field cannons opening up with their hourly bombardment. She wiped her reddened eyes, looking out towards the fortress city of Landclaw. Towers of dirt and smoke erupted around the city as the first shells hit. They had been trying to take the city for weeks, trying to push into the underbelly of Anceria, but each wave was repulsed by their repeating rifles and multi-barreled gun stations ?? ones that could fire more rounds in a minute than a whole platoon of soldiers. She knew what that bombardment meant, and she dreaded it. ??Olivia?? A calm, but tired voice spoke from behind her. ??Another wave is going out, we??re going to have casualties coming in, and we can??t afford to be short-handed?? She looked back over her shoulder, towards the elderly doctor that stood behind her. He was disheveled, his arms and smock covered in even more blood than hers. ??I??m sorry, but I need you to hold it together.? Olivia wiped her eyes again, sniffing back tears, but forcing herself to stand. ??Will you be alright?? She stared out at that damned city on the horizon, watching a line of their Battle Carriages rattling towards the city, followed by groups of soldiers as they charged down the flat, blood-soaked plain. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly and nodded, ??I??ll be fine?? She lied, but she turned around anyway and walked back into that blood-stained tent. ?---? It was near dusk before Olivia would leave that tent again, walking numbly over to the washbasin and plunging her arms into the water again. She wasn??t thinking. She couldn??t think. If she thought about it, she probably wouldn??t ever be able to do her job ever again. So many young men?boys, younger than her, torn to ribbons, screaming, crying, bleeding?God there was so much blood! She stood there quietly, not even feeling the pain as she scrubbed at her raw skin. The air was sharply cooler than what it had been during the day, and she even found herself shivering in the cold night air. In the distance, Landclaw still stood, the lamplights mocking her from miles away. The smoldering wreckage of their Battle Carriages littered the desert landscape, bleeding black smoke into the purple sky. She gripped the side of the table tightly, arms shaking as she tried to come to grips with herself, the carnage that she tried in vain to relieve. With a frustrated cry, she tipped the table up on two legs, the metal washbasin grinding along the wooden surface, bloody water splashing over the lip before it all spilled and crashed to the ground.