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RP: 188604 An Eve of Chance

J

Jabonicus

188604

In all reality it was a stupid mistake that she felt quite stupid for making, even if she had little means of knowing such a thing would occur. Perhaps she should have been traveling with a partner, but she was simply making her way to the library and thought that she knew the path well enough to avoid any bumps or bruises. In all reality? She was, she knew the path and how the ground was layered on the way there, and it wasn't fully her fault, all things considered. What she ran into was not there before, and she had no way of telling it was there, and by the time she knew it was? It had already carved into the flesh of her arm, leaving a bloody gash that most certainly required medical attention.

Workers had been moving equipment and of it they had apparently been moving a device meant to cut things such as metal, wood, and various other objects- She wasn't exactly sure what it was and she most certainly did not stick around to ask. All she knew was that she had bumped into something that was sticking out at chest-height, above what her support cane would notice, and some sharp section of it had cut along her upper arm. When it occured, it hurt, and it hurt a great deal, a metal piece jamming into her side, only bruising her, but when her sensitive fingers touched to her arm and felt the obvious jagged gash and the welling wetness of blood, she hurriedly moved forward, her voice calling out through the sparsely populated halls for help in a somewhat panicked voice.

She was humorous enough about the situation to find some sense of comedy about the fact that it was one of the librarians she wished to speak to that had found her first, shortly after the initial injury, who had the good sense to know who to call and what to do, covering the wound with cloth and applying copious amounts of pressure. Thankfully he was quite aware of who she was and the circumstances of her sight, so she needed to do little more than show him her arm for him to know what the issue was. A few calls and more worried, doting voices later, she was being moved to another building. While she appreciated the concern there was the obvious disorienting fact of her being almost carried, though she could somewhat understand why, bloodloss could make one dizzy or delirious, but she wasn't losing that much blood, was she?

-----------------

Meanwhile Aras would have been notified of an incoming patient, something to fill her time. From what she would have told, the reason she was being brought in was a mix of two main reasons. The first was that the patient had sliced her arm on some equipment somewhere and needed stitches or some other procedure to help the wound properly heal, and the second being that other qualified and available medical practitioners were simply busy at the time. They could also grab someone else, but it would take time to bring them in as opposed to having Aras do something a bit less dire than outright surgery. The report that came in, relevant medical records of a seemingly healthy young human female, a poorly taken image of the bandaged and bloodied wound, standard information. Yet one thing that was odd and stood out was labeled as 'pre-existing conditions,' which simply listed 'Complete blindness.'

From what the people escorting her had told her as they made sure her makeshift bandages were quite enough,they were close, especially as they began to excuse her past people and through various doors. She often considered herself quite independent, but she would most likely need to call someone to come fetch her, wouldn't she? She wasn't quite sure of where she was or how to get back, but it seemed as if she may have to cancel her library visit for the day.
 
Aras sat in one of the chairs residing the break room. It was a bit odd for her to be actually working on patients, she had spent most of her time at S6 working in the offices, looking for the next breakthrough with her grand project. But today was not most days. In all reality Aras had hoped to speak to the head of medical about something concerning her, but almost as soon as she entered the door, she was flung into working. For whatever reason the clinic had been unusually busy today, an unfortunate event that had lead to Aras working rather than questioning.

Sipping on a drink that she had received from the vending machine, the doctor sat in wait of whatever her next patient would need. After a few minutes of waiting, she was greeted by one of the nurses, carrying a patient report. "Thought she might need some stitches, so we brought it to you." He said to Aras, handing her the Datapad. "Okay, I'll get on that," she said, quickly getting out of her seat and starting for the operation room that her patient would have already been placed in.
 
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To properly say she knew much about the operation room she was in would be a lie, to be quite honest she didn't have the opportunity to walk around and to get a feel of where everything was. Like many medical rooms the way it was built kept a lot of sound in, so she could get somewhat of a sense of the closed-in design, but how far away the walls were to an exact or the shape of the room eluded her. Various machines made small sounds and beeps, dull sounds that didn't travel very far, but it did give her an idea of where the shapeless and purposeless machines were in the room. She decided to not check on her arm, as the small group that brought her in had been fussing over it since she had found help.

She had been treated fairly minimally, as much as various people with no real medical training could do, a tight binding around her arm, her bloody sleeve rolled up above it. She held off on the many questions she had, and she had, despite her best efforts, become somewhat worried of how bad the wound was. Though when she initially felt it, it didn't seem that bad, but that could be said for many wounds right as they occurred, looking not that bad but as the seconds turned to minutes it grew worse. She would like to bring herself to believe it was not sucha case but the others seemed to treat it as it was, a bloody wound that needed treatment.

She was becoming nervous simply waiting for a medical professional to show up. As the people who helped her there split off and only one remained, she listened intently for a doctor or someone of the same caliber to enter, her focus on the footsteps she could scarcely hear outside the door.
 
After a short bit of walking, Aras reached the room she was directed to. Quickly opening the door, she entered to face her patient. "Eve, right?" She questioned in a slightly unprofessional tone. "I'm Aras, I'll be acing as your doctor today." She walked over to the woman near the center, before pulling back out the Datapad she had received previously. "Says here you got a nasty gash, and judging by that bandaging, I can believe it." She looked at the bindings on Eve's arm, though never actually touching her. "So before I take a look, I need you to tell me how you were injured." Aras said, waiting for a response.
 
As Aras walked in and observed the bandaging, it seemed oddly thick and hastily done, whoever had done them clearing unsure of what to do other than to make it tight and to cover the wound. Even still, the cruel splotches of red were visible through it, also staining her rolled up sleeve of gray sweater. Eve herself was about what Aras could expect, young adult human with pale gray eyes, which seemed clouded and glazed, unfocused and untrained. As Aras walked through the room Eve's head vaguely followed her, no doubt simply trailing her footsteps so that she would be talking towards Aras.

Human, or human-like. Female.

Eve gave a shy grin, shifting despite the spike of pain in her arm that it caused her. "It's... Not exactly clear." She admitted, her healthy arm fidgeting in her lap. "I was going to the library and I was using my support cane to make sure nothing was in the halls, and there wasn't." She clarified, her pitch changing on the last statement. "...But something sharp was sticking out of an open door, I think it was some piece of equipment for construction or something similar, but I don't know exactly what it was, but when I walked by I was rounding a corner and it..." She balled her the hand of her injured arm into a small fist, squeezing it gently. "Cut me. You'll have to forgive me for not feeling around it to figure out what it was." Another grin paired with a bad joke.

"I didn't stick around so when I realized I was bleeding l just kept moving and called for help until someone found me. I'm sorry I was probably acting a little... Unsafe." She admitted with a tinge of regret. Not the kind of regret of someone who regretted what they did, but someone who was simply sorry that they got caught. Eve clearly valued whatever degree of independence she had.
 
Aras chuckled at the girl's humor. Not laughing at her, but rather with her. After listening to the rest of her story, she stood for a moment before deciding how to continue.

"Well, it's not your fault you couldn't tell it was there. But if you think it might have been something mechanical we might as well check for infection."
She said walking over to an intercom that was placed near the door.
"Hey, could I get a basic kit in room..." She trailed off while turning to the door slightly. "Uhh... 34"
"Yeah, I'll get one down in a minute" Replied a scratchy male voice on the other side of the intercom.

With that Aras turned back and decided she might as well talk to her patient while her supplies were delivered.
"So, what were you going to do at the library before you got cut?" She asked.
 
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If it was something mechanical, then what from Eve knew it did make sense to check for infection or other complications. Metal was apparently a risky business when it came to cuts, it was a good purveyor of illness, and machinery wasn't exactly known for being the most sanitary of things. The lack of dire response by Aras did wonders to sooth Eve's nerves, as it meant that the wound clearly wasn't as bad as others made it out to be. She concluded that they simply weren't used to dealing with such injuries, as far as she knew they were workers, perhaps they knew what the machinery did or even had something to do with why it was there, but they clearly didn't know what to do in case someone got cut or hurt.

"I've been spending a fair bit of my free time in the library here." Eve admitted as she vaguely moved her head to keep facing Aras. "It has a good selection of audiobooks, and sometimes I can find someone to read for me, it's quite a fun social outing, even if there's a lack of actual conversation. I just enjoy being in peoples presence- If that makes sense." It did sound a bit odd as she spoke out loud. She didn't know how much Aras wanted to know, or if she simply wanted details for some report. "-Plus it's easier to talk about a book I've read with someone I know has read it as well,it makes it easier to talk about my interests." That was perhaps the most honest aspect of it. The need to share and connect with others.

"Unfortunately the library doesn't have much of a selection on braille books, but I can understand why. They're not that easy to come across without specially ordering them, and that's not exactly a simple process either." Her head tilted as she tried to focus on the door, an unconscious act. She knew someone was coming, and while she didn't think much of it her body quickly began to sense just when they would arrive.
 
Aras nodded, "I can see why, with blindness being as uncommon as it is. Though it's still a bit of a shame we don't get new ones." She was about to continue, when the sound of the door interrupted her rambling. Through the door came the same nurse that had alerted Aras earlier. He pushed a small cart in front of him, ladened with various medical supplies. "Here's the supplies you ordered," He said, before returning out the door without the cart. Grabbing a few things from the cart, Aras returned back to her patients side. "So before I do anything else, I'm going to need to take a look at the cut. Do you mind if I remove it." She said, stating it less like a question and more like a warning.
 
Eve noticed the mix of footsteps and the four wheels of a cart against tile a few seconds before it pushed through the door, the small squeeks and shakes of the cart tittering in the air as its various contents settled on it. She wasn't sure what all the cart contained, but given the medical purposes she could take some very vague, and likely very stereotyped guesses. "It is fairly rare, from what I know, though perhaps my own thoughts are biased considering I have more reason to go out of my way to find others with the same issue." It was a small thing, but she neglected to use the term 'disability.' She was right though, she would find more people if she truly tried to find them, people with similar traits, even if negative or odd, tended to try and find and interact with one another.

"I've had testing done and they believe that there's no proper cure for it. Perhaps for others, but standard treatments my parents could afford showed no signs of correction." She listened to the nurse leave, though she did not focus on them. She shifted, making sure her arm was easy to access from her chair as Aras warned of her next action. "Of course, just uh... Let me know when you're doing something to it." Though she could pick up many things from audio clues, she would still prefer to not be surprised by a sudden sharp pain or sting. Ruffling sleeves and footsteps could only tell her so much.
 
Aras nodded quickly, before realizing that it would have no effect. "I'll be sure to prepare you," She said, before raising an arm to the cut. "I'm going to remove the bandage," The said, beginning the process of peeling off the cloth. Quickly looking over the injury, Aras raised a pair of tweezers with a dipped swab at the end. "Now I'm going to clean the wound with a swab. This might sting a little, but it will numb after a sec." Slowly placing the cleaner on the wound, she softly cleaned the wound, a soft stinging would be easily felt. "We're almost done," She said, removing the swab from the wound. "Now I'm going to get a little blood with another swab, and then we'll put another bandage on." Aras returned to the cart, grabbing a dry swab and the roll of bandages. Eve's cut would have been numbed by this point, allowing Aras to easily swab the cut and reapply the bandage, this one a bit tighter than the last. "Okay, we're done! I've just got to send this to the lab before we can continue."
 
Eve tensed a small amount as Aras undid the hastily donned bandages, and she clenched her teeth, knowing fully well that it would likely hurt. She wouldn't say that she was a wimp when it came to pain, but she was no military personnel, no fighter, she didn't have much experience with dealing with pain in any large amount. How could she? It's not like she was blinded after birth and had to hold out against a pain like that.

Regardless, the wound revealed itself rather quickly, and it did appear rather simple. It wasn't terribly deep but the decision to get it checked out was clearly the best course of action. It's jagged shape had a clear reason, it had caught her arm ad started relatively straight and jutted off as she felt the sting of pain and pulled away sharply, much too late as the damage was already done. Not terribly damaging, but it would leave a scar if not treated properly. She inhaled sharply as the initial cold sting went across the wound, her eyes closing as she seemed to hold her breath. However the numbing seemed to work rather fast, as after a few more seconds she relaxed once more, a gave little flinching if any at all towards the second swabbing of the blood.

As she wrapped the wound with a better bandage, she shifted her arm to try and get used to the tightness of it, a gracious smile. "Ah, thank you, Aras. I'm sorry for troubling you with this, I don't know what else you had planned and I certainly didn't mean to interrupt anything you were doing today." She apologized rather gently. "If you don't mind me asking, what will we do once you send the sample to the lab?"
 
After placing the remaining tools she held back into the cart, she turned back yet again. "Me, plans? Never," She chuckled, before answering seriously. "My plans for today weren't particularly urgent, I can get them done later. And you haven't interrupted anything in particular, they were taken down a while ago." Aras was going to continue, but quickly realized she was beginning to ramble. She attempted to answer the second question more to the point. "Well, because the lab is just next door, the test will be done in a few hours. Most patients I have go out and do something before coming back, but that isn't too much of an option for you." She raised a hand to her chin. "Do you have someone to call?"
 
Eve shifted to tap the blank watch on her left wrist. It was an odd thing, as at first glance it appeared like it was some digital watch, but there was no screen, no indication of the ability to tell time, but along the edges were a few buttons, raised dots along them, no doubt having some word in braille to explain what they do. Her fingers lightly read over the buttons, the call feature grouped together. The buttons required a notable amount of force to push down for about a second to work, to prevent incidents such as Eve bumping her wrist into something and hitting the 'Emergency' button by accident. It was a rather simple set up, next to 'EM. CALL' was just 'CALL' which would guide her through who to call and what to push.

However she did not push anything just yet. "I can call someone if need be, when would you like me to come back?" She paused as she listened, and awkwardly shifted in her seat as a second question began to rise in her mind. Waiting so that she didn't interrupt Aras, she cleared her throat before asking in a slightly off tone. "-I'm sorry if this isn't your field of experience but out of curiosity, what technology is present here that could.... Treat blindness?"
 
"Well, the test could take a few hours at most, so returning in about an hour would probably be a good idea. Then again, you're not forced to leave, you could stay if you like." Aras said responding to the simple question she was asked. The second, more unique question caught her off guard.

She began a slightly stuttering response. "Well, uh, I, um." She paused for a moment. the silence painfully noticeable. "I honestly don't know what we've got for treating blindness." She said her voice much calmer after her pause, but a tone of unexpectedness still could be heard. "I'd imagine that surgery would work for some, but with complete blindness I don't know. The only option other than that would probably me full optical replacement, but that doesn't always work, and it can be a bit hard adjusting to a digital eye. I would know." The last sentence was more muttered to herself then to Eve, though it was still clearly audible.

To most it would have been obvious why she had said this, with Aras' prominent facial replacements on her left side, but to someone like her patient, that would mean nothing. But this seamed to sail over her head, as Aras failed to elaborate.
 
Eve was silent for a few seconds as she processed the information, and because of the question the silence could easily come across as uncomfortable. Her face was a solemn one, stoic as she processed the information, but after those seconds passed her light smile returned, though there was an odd tinge to it, a truthful bittersweet feeling that couldn't be hidden. How could she hide it? She could put up a smile but she didn't know what other smiles looked like, what to emulate, so any fib was easily and quickly seen through. There was a lack of visual training in her facial expressions, only the practiced natural ones that any person had.

"I see, I'd say it's unfortunate but I can't honestly say I'm surprised." She admitted, her voice surprisingly sturdy, almost exactly what it was prior to the question. "I've had tests done, and unfortunately neither of those options are viable. I'm sure you know some level of testing can at least tell if someone is able to use a cybernetic replacement, even if it would need work..." She paused. "None of the tests showed any reaction, as if my body simply wouldn't acknowledge any of the treatments they tried." She brought her hands together in her lap, her head slightly shifting left and right in some form of rhythm.

"But regardless it's good to know what options are present here. It's hardly a problem for me, I won't pretend that I'm not lacking something important but it's hard to miss something I've never had." She shifted in her seat, making sure she was facing Aras and could hear her properly. "Assuming it wouldn't be too much of a bother I'd like to stay here until the testing is done." A closing statement, one that also pulled away from the topic of blindness, not that she would be opposed to keep talking about it. It was less the blindness that she didn't want to keep talking about, but more the aspects of cures.
 
"I'm sorry I couldn't be more help with your question." Aras said, a tinge of regret staining her voice. "Another option would be a soul transfer, but I personally wouldn't suggest that." She gave no explanation as to why she wouldn't support that choice, though through her voice it was obvious it was opinionated.

Before Aras responded to Eve a second time, she flicked a switch on the side of the cart, a small mechanism to alert that the cart could be picked up. With that she returned to the conversation, "That will be fine, would you prefer to stay here, or go to the waiting room?" She questioned, with no preference hinted in her voice.
 
"Don't worry about it too much, I certainly can't blame you for something out of your control." She responded to the apology with a warm voice, closing her eyes briefly. It was such an odd gesture, it wasn't the automatic blinking, it was a more lengthy pause, like an extended version of what one did while they closed their eyes to focus. It was a habit she picked up, a means of expression that had simply developed over the years. "And I've heard of soul transfers, I can't say I'm entirely...." She opened her mouth, but the word paused before it came out, as if she had to reevaluate what it meant. "Convinced, at it's effectiveness."

"From what I understand it just seems too dependent on something that's hard to conceptualize. If you copy one book and print another, sure it has the same words and the same story, it's the same book but it's not the one that was copied." She probably could have made a more apt comparison to computers and files but, truth be told, she was never all that good with computers, even ones set up for audio ques and responses. "Though perhaps I simply don't understand it well enough, if Yamatai uses it, it's likely too advanced for me to properly understand."

"If you wouldn't mind my company, I'd like to stay here." She felt a number of questions rising in her mind, standard ones she asked nearly everyone she talked to. What species are you? Where are you from? Questions that were so natural to her but might seem odd to others. It wasn't always as simple as listening to how people walked and talked to figure out what species they were. She was assuming that Aras was some form of human or very similar kind, but she simply had no way of knowing. "-If you don't mind me asking of course, where are you from, Aras?"
 
Aras was a bit surprised by Eve's opinion on soul transfer. Not because she felt her ideas to be absurd, rather because she shared the rather unpopular opinion. She chuckled a bit, "I thought I was the only one who thought like that. Most people with problems like you would jump at the chance of normality without even thinking about it. Even people with no problems whatsoever jump on just because. But you've kept on with your struggles despite an easy solution because you don't follow the crowd. That's quite commendable." Shortly after finishing, Aras realized she had gone a bit off topic. Though she didn't attempt to take it back, she did feel a bit awkward afterwards.

After a short bit of silence Aras decided to continue. "Well I have no problems with you staying here. It should be late enough that I won't be called out, so I can stay here and wait."

To say that Aras wasn't much of a small talker would be an understatement. It wasn't that she disliked talking, quite the opposite actually. The problem was that she could never tend to decide when to stop. This wasn't a problem to all, but to some she would come off as spacy. Attempting to hold that all back in due to the last outburst, Aras responded. "Well, I was actually born on Planet Yamati, though we only stayed there two weeks. My parents ran a trade caravan so most of my life was spent from colony to colony."
 
The response of Aras was comforting, to say the least, especially when she claimed that she shared the unpopular belief about the process of soul transfers. Truth be told she was never given the option of a soul transfer, and she had only really researched about it because she was searching for a solution. She didn't know anyone who personally had access to the technology require for a soul transfer, so she certainly wasn't one of the people who would ever be given the choice. Though, truth be told, if she were given the choice, the technology and the chance right there in front of her, she was sure that she would refuse, even if she did hesitate for a moment.

"It's an easy think to refuse when I've never had the choice of it. I haven't really lived anywhere where you could waltz down to the local doctor and get a soul transfer done." She admitted with a bit of humor. "Perhaps it's as much of a cultural thing as it is a medical one." Though there were still outliers of people who didn't believe in the technology who lived within said culture, that was true for any cultural aspect, especially one as controversial as that. Despite her beliefs Eve felt no ill thoughts towards those who believed or used it, the most she would do would become hesitant at accepting a copy as the person it was, assuming it was someone she had known. Truthfully, she wasn't very sure on how she would handle that.

"Ah you born in the heart of Yamatai? If it wasn't for how briefly you remained there I'd have imagined you'd have quite a bit of experience with their technology then." The mystical Yamatai was known practically everywhere, technological and military giant unrivaled by anything else the galaxy had to offer. While there was much to criticize, it could be said that its citizens lived happy and relatively peaceful lives outside of the military, and that was enough for Eve to forgive any transgressions. To become so large and unopposed, it was clear that certain sacrifices must be made, but it was good to see that the local leviathan had not forsaken all morals. "Personally I was born between planets on a transport. I'm not completely certain as to who my parents were working for at the time but I was practically raised by tutors and caretakers. My parents were understandably... Unsure of how to raise me, they were hardly prepared for a normal child." She admitted in return.

"One thing they were always worried about was what I wound end up doing in life. Without sight a lot of things are simply off the table in this day and age. I'm sure they were quite relieved to hear that I excelled in foreign languages, as currently I work as a translator." One thing she had always been grateful of was just how quickly she could learn languages compared to others. By no means was it easy, she had, on many occasions stayed up overnight in her frantic studies to grasp a linguist concept. At times it seemed hopeless and at times the stress of it was overwhelming, but each and every time she came out on top, able to speak a new language and to communicate properly with a new group of people.

"Being able to communicate with people who are so different that the very language they use is completely foreign is exhilarating, to say the least. If you don't mind me asking, why did you become a doctor?"
 
The silence that had reined over Aras during Eve's monologue was more due to her not wishing to interrupt rather than a lack of things to say. She still held her tongue though, choosing to wait until the question of her profession came. When it did, she stood for a moment trying to decide how to respond. A great tangle of factors had lead to her current state, though two stood out. She decided to stay silent about one of them, considering it a bit too personal for someone she had just met.

After the somewhat noticeable pause while she thought, the doctor finally spoke. "Well, I was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, a disease that causes my bones to be incredibly brittle. It could have been fixed back at Yamatai if we had a few months, but my father decided that his job was a bit more important that what he perceived as a more minor disease. That idea was quickly disproved though, because I broke my arm on the shuttle with what for most would be a minor trip. By the time we had the ability to return for treatment, I was too old for the cure and have been stuck with it since." She smiled a bit, it was clear she was reminiscing a bit before continuing. "You could see why someone in a new splint every few months would pick up a few medical tricks along the way."
 
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