Short

We don't have enough of anything around here and at times like this it really shows. Alex n' Richard were lucky enough to come back in one piece but with no supplies so I guess we're back to giving and inch and hoping we get a mile.

So far this hasn't worked.

Anybody with half a brain's looked at the class list and noticed that a ton of names have been removed. I'll tell you right now half of the people who have been marked as garbage bag stuffing aren't actually dead yet and they're in my care.

Not that that really delays the inevitable.

The kit we've got is supposed to provide for about a half dozen people with non-lethal injuries and so far we've got five with life-threatening ones hanging by a thread and we've already lost one. Don't get me started on the ones who aren't in critical condition. My policy for the last three days has basically been 'no blood no bandage' and everybody will just have to deal until we figure out what to do.

I haven't slept since wednesday or so and believe me it's beginning to show. I don't really feel tired but if Richard is good for one thing it's honesty, and when he says 'Chase, man, you look like shit' I'm inclined to believe him. I know I can't sleep until everybody's been stitched up and tended to because the last time I took a couple hours off for shut-eye Opal slipped into a horrible fever that left her completely robbed of any will to continue.

She was gone by the end of the night.

The other four aren't doing any better. While Nick is starting to recover it's pretty clear he's not in good shape and won't be doing anything for a long, long time. He's freezing cold and won't stop shaking. The others seem to have horrible cases of the shakes as well, but they're all absolutely burning to the touch. Call it fever or whatever but with supplies sparse and me not trusting herbal remedies (but sooner or later I may not have a choice) infections are common and the only thing we can do is drain the puss from wound x and pray that their bodies fix themselves overnight.

One of them is sitting next to me now. I just need a break from this for a few minutes. It's gotten to the point where I'll look around the camp, blink, and suddenly everything is a mess of blood and gibs and silent as death, like I'm the only one left and those garbage bags that seem to show up A LOT MORE THAN THEY SHOULD are hung from the trees and I know EXACTLY what's in them because there are 27 of them all strung like paper lanterns.

And I blink again.

And camp's back to normal.

I think I need to rest for a bit.