[attr="class","samjertop"][attr="class","samjer"]

[attr="class","samjermain"]Aubre couldn’t understand war. What could be so important that killing others was worth it? Ideology? What stopped people from just talking to each other? Why did people struggle so much to just set aside differences?

This confusion was never on clearer display than tonight. A few days after Post-Dormitum, the small clinic struggled to come up for air. A parade of injured Pokemon—some wild and many veterans—threatened to drown the staff. Each injury was worse than the last. And, somehow, her heart never managed to reach the blissful numbness other people talked about.

Each failure stabbed her heart as deeply as the first. Being forced to decide which Pokemon deserved to be front of the line, hurt her soul in a way that was hard to describe. Because every patient taken back was just one more left out in the cold. Hoping to get ahead of the influx, Aubre decided to stay late. Her exhausted hands, raw from repeated washings, quickly made their way through new patient paperwork.

She paused only to call and tell her daughter tonight. “Good night, Mikky. I’m sorry I can’t be there tonight. Mommy loves you, okay? “ Her daughter made a noise somewhere between a huff and a sniffle. “I’ll be back soon.” The apology is somehow hollow in her throat. No matter how much she missed Mikky, she couldn’t leave patients here to die. Especially not for a conflict many of them wanted no part in. The doctors who saved her were probably exhausted. But they made it. Aubre needed to do the same.

Sweat flooded her. A familiar nightmare approached on fiery paws. But the Houndoom shifted between a dozen different Pokemon. All of them whispering words of blame. The patients she lost over the last couple of days. This chimeric, terrifying mass of powerlessness opened its mouth to expose teeth of fiery fangs. Heat tore into her flesh as she snapped into wakefulness. “NO!?” She awoke with a start. She couldn’t see the clock, but she knew it was after midnight.

She sat groggily up in her seat, the scars on her back screamed. A reminder of the power of good posture. Into the darkness, she spoke. “Hey, Al?” In the corner chair, Alastor blinked awake. “Heli?” His frill was wrinkled, much like the blanket on his lap. “Are you—?”That’s when she heard it. The noise that woke her up. A roar from the Gyarados in the Pokemon sanctuary out back.

Something’s wrong. Not bothering to pull on her lab coat or shoes, the doctor raced into the backyard. Her eyes widened as she saw chaos. Pokemon were free of their enclosures. And Chester, poor sweet, neglected Chester, was seconds away from smiting an intruder with a Hyper Beam.

A Phione flitted fearfully around his head.

“Excuse me, Sir.” The doctor frowned. She managed to keep the tremble out of her voice. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Alastor, no longer sleepy, drew even with his trainer. Unlike Aubre, he didn’t believe in asking questions. This guy was definitely bad news. It wasn’t like tourists broke into clinics at 2 AM. And, he knew the redhead was aware of that too.

“The office is closed.”

[attr="class","samjerpoke"]