MEDIC!

by The Rohg

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Other, Original Character, Tragedy, Fluttershy, Adventure, Crossover
Length: 4993

A young mare retells the story of her unusual past and upbringing.

Medic, a young mare, retells the story of her past and upbringing. A mix of trials and triumphs, she and her sisters struggle with and against each other for achievement, perfection, and survival. A life full of loss, compromise, and betrayal, Medic even still doubts she is worthy enough for survival.

Although Flutter Medic is a rather popular crossover character, this story has little in common with neither the MLP cannon or the TF2 characters. Originally started out as a little role play game blossomed into a very complex character with an unknown back story. For my friends, I compliment you and the good times we had together; I dedicate this story to you. Thanks

Published 2012-04-23 03:04:03 UTC
Last updated 2012-08-22 20:08:37 UTC

Chapter 1

"A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession." - Albert Camus

        My first memory?  Let me think…… the earliest memory that I have is probably playing with I sisters in the activity area.

        There were eight of us.  Some of us were playing as a group, some by ourselves, and one even going all over the place.  We never cared, never feared, and always found something to do then.  We lived in our own small world, isolated from everything else.  It’s not that we were never curious, or that Mother told us not to go, it was what they wanted us to do; the ponies with the eyes.

        They were always watching us, either from the side of the room, from just outside the courtyard, or from the opposite plane of a glass window.  They weren’t always easily found, sometimes they tried to hide, so my sisters and I had a game where the first to find all three was given first choice at any toys we had.  Now, we didn’t call them “The Eyes” because they were always watching us, it’s because of their thick glasses.  If you couldn’t see them well, or were trying to find them, all you had to do was look for their brightly reflecting glasses.  We had a blast with that game.

        Anyways, the Eyes didn’t talk much, but when they did, everyone had to do what was said.

~~

        “Ok, we’re going to have twenty minutes of art related activity now.” One of the Eyes spoke through an overhead speaker from the other side of the glass.

        Mother promptly went to the supply closet and brought out things for us to draw, paint, and even build with clay.

        “I don’t want to do art, I want to play ball!” Sassy demanded.

~~

        Timeouts were the discipline of choice if you didn’t do what the Eyes told you to do then, and some of us got more timeouts than others.  Sassy probably got the most.  Her real name, the name the Eyes gave her, was Number One, but Mother insisted that we have names more meaningful and personal, so she named Number One, Sassy.

~~

        Mother tried to reason with Sassy, but she was interrupted by the Eyes.

        “Ten minute timeout for Number one, then she will engage in activities with the others.”

        Sassy hesitated, but she eventually went and sat in the stool in the corner that faced away from the rest of the room.  She crossed her hooves and grumbled about her ball when she got there.

        “Can I have the colored pencils, please?” Number Two took what the Eyes told us to do rather seriously, and she didn’t miss a single moment to dive into each new activity.

        “Are we going to be graded?” she added as Mother handed her several pencils and a piece of paper.  She also loved being quizzed, and knowing that she made the best scores out of any of us on a test gave her the confidence she always had.

        “I don’t know, probably not.  Let’s just have some fun with this, ok Valed?”

        “Ok” she darted for the crafts table and immediately began drawing.  The look on her face made it apparent she wasn’t following Mother’s advice this time.

        Mother nearly stumbled and dropped all she was carrying as Number Eight jumped in her way.

        “Claaaaaaaay!” the little filly yelled with the biggest grin she could manage to express.

        “Calm down Fizz.  Here, how about I set these on the craft table, and each of you can choose what you like.”

        Fizz skipped in circles as they followed Mother to the table.  Valed’s concentration didn’t seem to be fazed by our approach.  Fizz was quick to grab the clay, which none of us minded as she was the only one who liked it.  In no time at all, she had a large clump of clay in front of her; her hooves digging and stirring into it, as the clay somehow managed to get small clumps of itself in her mane.

        Number Seven quickly grabbed some paper and markers.

        “My picture is going to be the best!” she declared with her usual smug smile.  “Even better than yours!” pointing at Valed and her incomplete picture.

        “Vie!” Mother scolded “that isn’t very nice of you to say.”

        Vie folded her ears in shame, but stuck her tongue out at Valed when Mother wasn’t looking anyways.  Valed still didn’t seem to notice anything going on around her.

        Number Four quietly took a water color set and took it to a paper easel.   Number Three followed suit, but Mother stopped her.

        “Fins, are you sure you’re not going to make a mess?”

        “I’ll be real careful this time, I promise.” Fins pleaded; she knew she had a clumsy reputation she couldn’t live down, but she still strived on, never quitting.

        “Ok, but don’t use the easel next to Harmony.  The stains from last time took forever to wash out of her mane.”

        Sassy snickered from her corner; some of us found the flying paint incident more humorous than the rest of us.

        Harmony didn’t think it was funny at all, but she was already busy stroking her brush across the paper in smooth sweeps.  Her movements seemed like a dance with the easel as she hummed another tune she made up.

        “Harmony, I can’t work with your humming!” Vie exclamated.

        “Vie.  Harmony isn’t doing anything to bother.  You can still color and not be bothered.”

        As Vie and Mother disputed, Number 6 got a tap on her wing.

        “Got you some crayons, Flutters” She turned to see Number Five,who had a box in one wing, and some paper in the other.

        “Thank you, Sport.”  Flutters looked over at the table; she didn’t want to get involved in any of the drama over there. “Umm, want to draw over there?” There was an open space on the floor, not too far to be away from the group, but far enough to separate ourselves from any interaction.

        “Sure!” Sport leaped and dove into the spot Flutters designated as theirs.  Her movements were always very cat like, and when she was lying down, she couldn’t stay still, she had to remain physically active.

        Flutters, however, found comfort in the tranquility of coloring on the floor, but she enjoyed Sport’s company.

        The overhead speaker made a soft click; the impending sign that one of the Eyes was about to speak.  It was barely audible, but it even made Valed look up from her paper.

        “Number One, please join the others in the activity.”

        “Finally” Sassy’s words seemed impatient, but she took her time on her way to the craft table.  She took what was left; some paper and the dull pencils that Valed left.  She stuck her tongue out to the side in a concentrative gesture, but her eyes quickly beamed as an idea came to her.

        For a while, the fillies continued in peace, with nothing but Harmony’s humming and Sport’s shifting from one place of the floor to the next as she seemed to tackle her work as she drew to break the silence.

        “*click*” everyone looked up “Art activity is over”

        “Awwwwww” Harmony seemed disappointed “I didn’t get to finish”

“That’s alright Harmony, I’m sure you did good.  Everyone, bring what you’ve made to the craft table.  I want to see what you’ve made.”

We each got up for the table, but most of us held our work close and facing away from each other; myself included.  Vie was the first to show hers.

“Ta-da!  A perfect replica of the Facility” The walls were crooked, but the orientation of the rooms was accurate.  “See? I bet it’s much better than yours” again, she pointed at Valed.

“I drew the sky from last night” Flutters didn’t know how accurate that one was.  She never paid any attention to the night sky then anyways.

“Those are wonderful fillies.  Who wants to show next?”  Vie was unsatisfied with the amount of attention she got and expressed it by dropping her paper on the table and plopping down into her seat with her hooves crossed; Mother ignored her though.

“I drew a race!” Flutters didn’t see it well, but she could see by Mother’s expression she couldn’t make much of it either.

“This looks great Sport, but, um… who’s racing?” she pointed out several blurs where characters should have been.

“I don’t know. They’re going so fast, you can’t see them.”

~~

*giggles* I’m sorry, that still makes me laugh.

~~

“That’s very good, Sport.  Anyone else want to show?”

“I do!!! I do I do I do I do I do” Fizz’s sculpture was already apparent to everypony there, but that didn’t stop Mother from expressing false surprise as Fizz held out a disfigured clump of warped shapes.

“It looks amazing Fizz... What is it?”

“Her name is Rose!”

“I see that.” Mother’s expression became one of both confusion and concern.  “Who is Rose?

“She’s Rose.”  Fizz simply pointed at the figurine, if you could call it that.

“I see that, but how do you know how to make a sculpture of Rose?”  With little influence from things outside of the facility, Mother had reason to worry about where Fizz got her ideas.

“I didn’t, but now I do!”  Fizz smiled proud.  Mother shrugged the unique sculpture as whimsical imagination.

“Harmony, what did you paint?”  Harmony looked at the painting she had facing away from us, and back at Mother; her eyes were pleading to not ask her to show.  “It’s ok.”  Mother tried to reassure.

Harmony slowly rotated her easel around revealing a swirling mix of colors and strokes; it was hard to believe she did that with only one brush.

“It’s beautiful Harmony!  You should be proud.”

“but… I didn’t get to use any blue yet…”  Harmony still looked disappointed in herself.

Meanwhile, Fins was busy carefully separating her canvas paper from the easel and patiently waiting her turn to show Mother.

“My turn!  I didn’t make a mess this time, and I like what I ma…” unfortunately, Fins tripped over some carpeting and fell face first; onto her new painting.  Vie and Sassy laughed at the paint smeared and sobbing filly as Mother quickly helped her up and cleaned her off with a few tissues she kept at hoof.

“I’m sorry, Mother.  It was going to look wonderful.” Fins pointed at the now wrecked canvas as Mother dealt not only with washable water colors, but salty tears as well.

“Hey, its ok, its ok.  You tried hard, and that’s what counts.”  Mother kissed Fins on the cheek as her cries discontinued.

“Ok, who’s next?  Flutter?” Flutters nervously ruffled her wings as she handed Mother her picture.

“I drew myself napping under a tree.”

“Awwww, it’s so cute.”  Mother’s warm smile was enough for Flutters to be satisfied, no matter what criticism any of her sisters made.

“That’s nothing.”  Sassy waved her picture for the whole room to see.  The fragility of her confidence was making itself apparent again.  Sassy had drawn what looked like a stallion’s face, only it looked like someone had polished the face off, leaving a smooth, sparkling blank oval.

“What is it?”  they were all confused, eager, and dreading what it could be.

“It’s the back of Dr. Cerebald’s head!”

~~

*facehoof* I feel immature for laughing at that.  Dr. Cerebral was the facility psychologist, a pony deserving of great respect, even if he insisted that we all call him Max.

Anyways, the reason that was my earliest memory was not because of the paintings, the stumbles, or the bad jokes, it was what happened later; the next morning when we got up.

Chapter 2

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." - Norman Cousins

        The dormitory was the only place The Eyes would rarely follow us.  So, things were never very serious while waking up.  Mother would walk in from her private room; one of the only two doors in the dormitory.  She’d wake us and then quickly prepare herself for the day.  My sisters and I would take those short moments to goof off; we wouldn’t get many more chances to do what we wanted the rest of the day anyways.

~~

        A pillow hit Flutters’ head as I was rubbing her eyes.  Startled, I looked up to see Sport hanging from her upper bunk.

        “You’re it!!”  She sprang up and over her bunk to the next.

        “Yeah, but for how long?”  her wings shifted and vibrated in excitement as I chased her between and through the other bunks.  Fizz was quick to join in the game.  It became even more fun and challenging as not only did the fillies chase each other, but they also dodged pillows and blankets thrown by Sassy, Vie, and Valed.  Even Harmony joined in the chase, although she preferred to pounce and hide rather than run and chase.

        Sport was it again, and I knew I had to be extra wary and cautious; she was a much more superior athlete after all.  However, having shifty wings had its advantages.

        “Haaa!” Sport gave a battle cry as she charged at me.  I reflexively jumped and gusted her wings for extra lift.  Sport slid and ran into the wall below unharmed while I landed on Number 3’s bed, and, much to her surprise, on Fins herself.

        “Fins!?  What are still doing in bed?  Get up before Mother comes back; we’re having fun.”  I shook at her until she responded.

        “I can’t” Fins moaned. “I’m hurt”

        Instantly and instinctively, I became dreadfully concerned.  I took a close look at Fins.  She was warm and flushed, breathing was slow, but deep, and her heart rate was high for a filly who had been lying down.

        “Tag!”  Sport had jumped up to the bunk too, as unaware of Fins’ situation as I was when I leapt up there.

        “Hold on Sport, something’s wrong with Fins.”  I held her back from Fins, preventing another body slam to the ill filly.  I looked at Sport; her gaze wasn’t leaving Fins, and her expression made it clear she saw and felt the same way that I did.  The excitement in the room quickly halted.  The other fillies began to gather around Fins out of curiosity and concern.  Some asked “What’s wrong with her?” but none of knew, they had never seen an ill pony before.

        Mother quickly came in; alarmed by the sudden silence that the fillies had produced.

        “What happened?”  she stressed.  Any experienced mother would know that silence is more troublesome from a young one than noise.

        “Fins is hurt!”  Fizz blurted out.  This was the first time she spoke with a tone that wasn’t joyous.  Mother nearly galloped over to the bunk, displacing a few of the fillies in her urgency.  She leaned over Fins, feeling her brow and holding her hoof to check her pulse.  Flutters couldn’t tell if Mother was pale then or just looked that way compared to the flushness that enveloped Fins’ face.  However, her mood was obvious; Mother was very afraid.

        “Its best you girls get dressed and wait outside in the hall, I’ll take care of Fins.”

        “What about the mess?”  Harmony always looked forward to the cleanup after the fun.

        “Later dear.”  Mother didn’t even look away from Fins as she spoke.

        We hadn’t a clue what was wrong, but none of, not even Sassy, were going delay things further.  A sense of urgency was in the atmosphere, it frightened us as well as empowered us; it was the quickest they had ever gotten dressed and filed into the hall.  The fillies waited for Mother just outside the dorm.  They never went anywhere without Mother in sight.

        A couple agonizing minutes later, two of The Eyes came from the restricted access end of the hall.  They quickly marched passed us and into the dorm, closing the door behind them.  The fillies guessed that Mother had called them into there to help.  Flutters looked at her sisters; they were all a bit traumatized by what was going on.  Harmony was even starting to cry.  Flutters did the only thing that came to mind and wrapped a wing around her.

        Mother then came out of the dorm too; her fear wasn’t as obvious; maybe she was trying to hide it.  However, she looked like she may cry as well.

        “How about we go to the activity room for a bit?”  Mother began to lead us away from the dorm.

        “Mother?”  Valed spoke up, and Mother looked over her shoulder; unstopping as she trotted down the hall.

        “Yes dear?”  She didn’t show it, but Mother knew what Valed was about to ask, and she was dreading it.

        “Is Fins going to be alright?”  Mother hesitated to answer.

        “She’s in good hooves now.”  Although the answer wasn’t direct, it satisfied Valed’s burning concern.

When they got to the activity room, Kevin was there.  Once a week, he would visit us.  He was a young stallion with the title of the facility’s bio-technician.  His job was to check up on our cybernetics.

~~

Oops, sorry; did I forget to mention those?  I’ll tell you about them then.

Each of my sisters and I were implanted with numerous cybernetics en utero.  They helped augment and regulate many functions and were placed in numerous places in our brains, eyes and ears, CNS, and by each major artery.  At that time, we weren’t aware of them, we just thought this guy was being ridiculous and wasting his time.  We had to sit still for what seemed like hours while Kevin swept over us with his hoof held scanner.  He would try and be funny sometimes and call it Mr. Duck.

~~

“Hello fillies, how are you?  Oh, and Mr. Duck.  What are we doing today?  Quack!  Quack!  Quack!  That’s right, scans.”

~~

The monotone didn’t help at all.

~~

        None of were in the mood to be scanned; not after what had happened.  Not even Fizz, who actually enjoyed his jokes.  She was always the first one to be scanned.

        “Fizz!  Why so gloomy today?”  Kevin probably didn’t know what had happened, but it didn’t take long for him to catch on that something was wrong.

~~

Of course, a quick head count could probably give away what had happened.

~~

        Kevin quickly straightened up his face and began to swipe ‘Mr. Duck’ along the sides of Fizz’s face.  For the first time, she stood still through the entire scan.  When Kevin was done, he looked up to Mother and just shook his head.  He always shook his head after scanning Fizz.  The fillies just thought it was because he couldn’t get a good enough scan due to Fizz’s hyperness.

        Flutters glanced over at Mother.  She looked like the negative nod was just more bad news.  A tear formed in one of her eyes.  I wanted to run up and give her a hug.  Flutters glanced over at the tinted glass window at the other end of the room.  A pair of reflective orbs hovered in the darkness.  Shoot!  She wouldn’t be able to take a single trot out of line without being disciplined.

        Kevin was working his way up the line, when the door next to The Eye’s window opened.  The fillies all nearly jumped out of our skin from the slight noise that it made.  In the door stood Dr. April and the Colonel.

~~

        Dr. April was a pleasant mare.  She visited from time to time and carried an aura of authority with her when she came.  She was almost like a grandmother to my sisters and I.

        The Colonel, on the other hoof, was a near opposite in demeanor.  He was the absolute authority at the facility, and if things weren’t going his way, he made them go his way; a very dominating figure.

~~

        The two ponies motioned for Mother to follow them.

        Mother muttered a four letter word none of the fillies had heard before and made her way to the authoritative couple.

        “Could you watch them for me please, Kevin?”

        “No problem Jenny.”

~~Sometimes we forgot that Mother’s real name was Jennifer.~~

        Again, the fillies were without Mother.  The hall was one thing, but the activity room without Mother was near enough to make us panic.  Flutters kept looking at the tinted glass; the two orbs still hovered and stared.  Even as Kevin began to run his scanner over me, she still kept shifting around.

        When Kevin was almost done with Sassy’s scan, Mother came back through the door.  The fillies could see Dr. April’s expression of empathy while the Colonel grumbled incoherently about waste, results, and funding from around the corner.  Mother was anguished.  Flutters didn’t care if The Eyes were watching this time; she ran up to Mother and hugged her around the neck.  Several of her sisters followed suit.

Mother was crying, and so was they, and they didn’t know why.

It took a while to get things into a controllable order.  Kevin still had to scan Sassy.  Eventually, three pairs of orbs could be seen in the darkness behind the glass.  They were back, but Fins wasn’t.  Flutters decided to do something she, nor any of her sisters, had done before.

“Where’s Fins?”  Flutters propped her front hooves on the glass as she peered up into the floating reflections.  She could see the reflection of Mother in the glass; she was shocked, but even that didn’t bother her as much as the lack of Fins presence in the activity room.  Flutters knocked on the glass again.  “Where’s Fins?” she repeated.  Squinting into the glass, she could see silhouettes writing on clip boards, and quietly conversing with each other.  One reached out to the side for the intercom and it made a soft click, but nothing was spoken as The Eyes and Flutters were startled by the sudden SLAM into the glass.

“WHERE’S FINS?!!!” Now Flutters was the one shocked.  Fizz had rammed into the glass.  She glared at The Eyes through the glass as if she was making up for all the time that they had looked down at her from their end.  Her teeth were grit and breathing shallow.  Another emotion was emanating from Fizz that she had never seen from her, or from any from her sisters before; Rage.

“WHERE IS FINS?!!!”  Fizz demanded as she ran and leapt into the glass again.

Mother quickly grabbed Fizz and dragged her away; Fizz kicking and screaming the whole way.

“Where’s Fins?!  Why did you take my sister away!?  How dare you? HOW DARE YOU!!”

~~

        Another thing about the cybernetics that I think I should mention now is that it allowed my sisters and I to see and feel other pony’s vital functions.  Heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, perspiration, metabolic stability, and other calculable functions, and even though we weren’t aware of them yet, we felt them like extra senses.

        Fizz’s anger at that moment was almost explosive on the charts.  She changed that day; she became very distrusting.  I guess you can’t blame her, we never did see Fins again.

        Also, reflecting back on the readings that I got from Fins when I was on the bed with her, I can say that she was sick with a common flu, nothing more.  How you justify taking a filly away from her family, or the family away from the filly over something like the flu is… well… you just can’t justify it, but it happened at the facility with Fins when I was only five years old.

        And it didn’t stop there.

Chapter 3

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing. - Will Rogers

      That event was traumatic for all of us, especially at that age.  However, things got back into their usual routine.  The morning lessons from mother as the Eyes gazed at us through the classroom window, the arts and activities that followed for the rest of the day, the weekly visit from Mr. Kevin, and the bi-weekly visit to Dr. Cerebral’s office.  This continued for several months after Fins disappeared.  We were young, adaptable, and moved on; all of us except Fizz.  I’m not sure if she began to distance herself, or if we began to leave her alone, but any socializing with her brought up questions and concerns for her sanity.

~~

        “Fizz, where did you get that?” Mother interrupted her own class to point out the clay figurines that Fizz was playing with.

        “Oh these?  I made them; they are my friends.  I made friends” Fizz chuckled as she continued to play with them  and conduct interactions between the clay characters.

        “Fizz, this is class time, and we don’t play with clay in class time.”

        “Oh, they aren’t clay, they are my friends, and they don’t have class time.” Fizz never even looked up from her toys, and continued to lightly mumble the imagined words of her projected clay personas.

        “Now is not the time.” Mother was stern as she stuck out her hoof towards Fizz’s small desk. “Hoof them over please; you’ll have to play with them later.”

~~

        Mother has already tried reasoning with Fizz during an earlier incident, and it proved futile to try and convince to Fizz that her friends were just clay.  So, I guess in order to save time, Mother would argue on the topic about the rules that were being broken, rather than spend an hour showing that clay friends are still only clay.

        I’m not sure, but I think Dr. Cerebral also tried to show Fizz reason and reality.  If he did, it failed.

~~

        “But” Fizz pleaded “They’re my friends.”  Fizz finally looked up from her desk, and directly at her mother.  The other fillies remained quiet.  The last incident proved to be unpleasant and regretful.  An attempt from Harmony to show sympathy was met with a scorn from Fizz; the rest of learned from this example and let Fizz condole her own feelings.

        Mother had become aggravated and impatient towards Fizz’s developing behavior.  In a quick swipe, she took the clay figurines off of Fizz’s desk and promptly set them in a desk drawer.

        “Now…” Mother continued with her day’s lesson and pointed back at the blackboard, only to be startled and interrupted by an enraged Fizz.

        “YOU CAN’T TAKE AWAY MY FRIENDS!!!!”  Fizz pounced onto Mother’s desk, pulled the drawer completely out of its slot and emptied it of contents.

        The classroom was all in shock; eyes wide and jaws agape.  Class time was supposed to be an orderly time, a quiet time, and a time to sit still regardless of how squirmy or squirrelly they felt.

        “Young lady, you sit back down in your seat this instant!”

~~

        Young lady, heh; you could tell Mother’s emotions by what she called you by.  If she called you by your numerative designation, then you knew she was in the mood for business; if she called you by the name she gave you, then she was comfortable; but if she called out “young lady”, then you knew she was mad and that you did something very wrong.

~~

        Flutters glanced to her left. Sport just stared as the filly on the desk and Mother shared a frightful glare. In front of Sport sat Sassy, who seemed genuinely interested at the recent development. Directly in front of Flutters sat Valed, who had propped an open book on its side, and hidden her face in it. Next to Valed sat Harmony, who had hidden under her desk as if an earthquake had struck.  To her right, Flutters saw Vie, who showed complete disinterest in the incident.

        “You don’t take my friends!” Fizz began to pull out another drawer as she stood on Mother’s workspace.

        “You…” In a single motion, Mother blocked the drawer from being pulled out again and pointed a hoof in Fizz’s face “will show me the proper respect!”

        Fizz just ducked her head under Mother’s hoof and stuck it in the desk drawer.

        “What are you hiding in here?  Are any of my other friends in here too?  Is this where you’ve been keeping Fins?!”

        Flutter’s cybernetics showed otherwise, but the room felt ten degrees colder with those words.  Even Vie startled up at that remark.  Mother looked in horror as her daughter poked her head back up and stabbed a piercing glare into Mother’s eyes.

        “Well?! Is it?”

        Mother nearly collapsed as her limbs grew numb.  Fizz was able to pry the drawer loose from Mother, pushing her into a corner.  The fillies just stared as Fizz continued to dismantle Mother’s desk.  It was so frightful and violent, that none of the fillies heard the door swing open, and two of The Eyes stormed through.  They nearly startled the fillies as they flew by and pounced on Fizz, quickly restraining her.

        With her hooves held behind her back, Fizz was dragged over the desk and towards the door.  Mother became alert again and quickly ran up beside The Eyes, nearly pushing them over.  Flutters could see Mother repeatedly mouthing the word “No” over and over as she ran over.  One of The Eyes blacked Mother as they reached the door, and motioned for her to stay.

        “Please?!”  Mother pleadingly begged as she limply grabbed Fizz’s towards an unreachable Fizz.  Just outside the door was Kevin with his hoof held device, his posture was depressed as he turned to follow the seized and screaming Fizz down the hall.

        Mother sat there inside the doorway; her head hung so low, it nearly touched the floor.

        “Class… dismissed” she sobbed, unmoving from where laid.

        The next day, there were only six seats in the classroom.