Twining Twins: Introductory notes and one short scene

Notes

Sociopolitical system is like modern day communist china. The world is industrialized and highly technological, but struggling with an over population crisis. Mrs. Twining has twins and in defiance of the law, keeps them. Their father is a government official, maybe military. To keep his position, he basically forces his wife and daughters to go underground. He financially supports his wife and her children, but keeps little contact. The twins were born within minutes of each other, like identical twins, but they are far from physically identical. One is Saudi, and one is albino. Half believes that Grace isn't his daughter because of her physical appearance. He's more concerned with his position in the State and blood purity than his own family. Considers his provincial wife to be unfaithful. He does not realize for a while that Emily is gifted for years, mostly owing to not seeing her. He learns about it well after the crash.

The twin's latent power and oddities become apparent to the mother first, naturally. She does live with them and raised them to the best of her ability, but she figures out soon that her children have a special contact with something outside their understanding of reality.

Below is one scene in this story, with more to come (hopefully probably).

Doctor's report from A&E

I was at my normal post in the State Accident and Emergency, top floor. I was fighting mightily to stay awake during a mercifully dull shift when I was paged. I took mental note that the information was transmitted to my mobile, rather than via the A&E intercom.

I will spare you the jargon, but the coded message told me that there was a serious injury sustained by persons critical to the State. They would be arriving via a MedEvac, an air transport usually only used in the event of a military casualty. I was informed to prepare a team to receive two pediatric patients and one adult female, all in critical condition. When the Twining name was transmitted, the delicacy of the situation began to sink in. The nature of the emergency was not disclosed, and I deemed it prudent not to ask.

Open vehicle transport, especially air transport is exceedingly rare. Most men, myself included, would not leave Terra Firma even if death was imminent. In my opinion, MedEvac helicopters turn more patients into autopsies than any other form of emergency medical attention. The unfamiliar sensations of flight can quickly exacerbate any kind of cardiac or neurological damage a patient may have sustained. This issue aside, I had taken an oath to do whatever I could to mend patients brought into my care. I dreaded having to bury the twins and their mother, but knew it was the most likely end result.

I announced over the A&E public address system what information I felt was relevant. The roof airlocks were prepared to receive our patients. The floor 8 surgery team was called on top priority. I knew that the MedEvac EMT's would have already done what they could do in their small confines, and hoped the patients would be somewhat stable when they came into my hospital. In the commotion of doctors, nurses and knifers getting to their post, I took a few minutes to contact our forensic examiner to prepare himself for a pediatric autopsy. I closed the connection, hoping against hope that I would not have to send two children down to the freezer.

The MedEvac took only minutes in reality, but in my adrenaline fueled state, those 300 seconds felt longer than my thirties. My team assembled behind me as I went to the airlock to do initial triage. When the patient transport bay opened and we saw the human wreckage we were dealing with, I felt my soul age years within moments.

Mrs. Twining was first off of the helicopter. She was incoherent, screaming, possibly suffering from hallucinations on top of her substantial physical injuries. Most of her body was mummified in stained gauze and restraint straps held her fast to a backboard. As I mentioned before, I expected some neurological damage and psychological trauma. I directed a trio to bring her out of her condition and back to reality. Our senior staff neurologist and psychologist ran alongside her gurney, with a relatively young surgeon tasked to address and fix her physical wounds. The trio took her to surgery 8A, the closest prepped room to the MedEvac airlock. I made this decision out of a desire to minimize her travel throughout the hospital, to get her to a safe room as soon as possible. In retrospect, I wish I had reversed my choice, taking charge of Mrs. Twining instead of her children.

Myself, our on-call podiatrist and two skilled knifers waited in the airlock to take charge of the Twining twins. I thought I recalled seeing Mrs. Twining's name somewhere in print recently. News of her husband was commonplace, considering his position. I was trying to remember where and in what context I had read about the woman recently. These vague pondering were smashed from my mind when the second gurney rolled off the MedEvac helicopter and into my airlock.

Having only adult size equipment, the EMT's had decided to have the two children double up on the second gurney. The pair had been secured as best as possible, I presume. However, the EMT's call for immediate care was certainly on point.

Maya Twining was on her back, deep lacerations already visible on her left leg. A tourniquet had been applied near the top of her thigh, suggesting heavy blood loss. Her leg was at a clearly unnatural angle, and part of her tibia was sticking out, splinters of bone exposed to the air. Some fragments of glass had lodged into her right side. Relatively superficial, but infection that close to the thoracic cavity still posed a serious risk. Owing to the potential for bleeding out, my focus was drawn to the leg. Most of her torso was covered by Grace Twining, strapped down flat atop her sister. Our knifer responded heroically in the face of the gore, taking responsibility for Maya's recuperation.

Mrs. Twining's treatment team broke from our group to pull her into surgery 8A. I gave the order to transfer the children down to the burn unit in surgery 7A. Grace Twining, even mostly covered by a sheet and restraining straps, still had visible second degree burns to her shoulder, face and scalp.

One of the EMT's, a nurse practitioner, the on-call staff dermatologist communicated via mobile and prepared to meet in 7A. The EMT, knifer and I brought the second gurney down the flight of stairs as fast as humanly possible. I vaguely remember the nurse and Grace reassuring Maya, telling her to fight through the pain as they were jostled down the stairs. Both were lucid and in reality. We set the gurney next to the operating table inside room 7A, and the knifer prepared to separate the twins while the nurse practitioner began calling for a second surgery table to be moved from the suite across the hall.

Grace was still whispering reassurances into her sister's ear, right arm wrapped around Maya's neck, palm pressed flush to her face, covering her zygotic arch. I cut the black restraining straps and attempted to pull the pallid blond from atop her sister. Maya and Grace clung to each other in a strange, almost indescribable way while the EMT made sure moving Grace would not cause any further damage.

I told Grace “You have to let go.” Perhaps it way my imagination, but if memory serves, we happened to speak that sentence in perfect unison. Maya was losing some color, and I suspected it was more due to an emotional than a physical reaction. I saw her go limp and quiet, into a merciful unconsciousness. I lifted the white twin from her unconscious twin. I wrapped my arms around Grace, hoped I would cause no further damage in doing so, lifted Grace up, rolling and covering her with the MedEvac's sheet. Minimizing her movement in an attempt to minimize friction on her damage scalp, I placed Grace face down on the surgery table while our EMT and nurse practitioner began preparing pain medication for the patients.

I reverted to my medical training, going through the usual triage question are with Grace Twining. She seemed to still be stunned, but in almost oddly good shape upon first examination. She reported no major pain in the legs or arms, and when asked to show where it hurt, she gestured toward her head and heart with her left hand.

No longer worried about immediate life threatening injuries, the dermatologist and I momentarily left our guards down.

“You'll be in pain for a while, but you will survive. You are in the best of hands.” he said in his best reassuring tone.

“Yes, you should bounce back in due time.” I said, setting up a morphine transdermal. I placed the first of many patches on an intact portion of her back, near the spine.

“Can you roll over onto your back for mo so we can address those burns?” he asked.

“It hurts something awful.” she said, in her clear, nearly musical voice.

“Yes kiddo, but this patch will help with the pain.” I said. It was then that I registered she wasn't crying, somehow. This struck me as showing quite the level of bravery, especially for someone so young.

“It has medicine, but it looks like you're going to need some bandages on those burns. Can you roll onto your back for me?” I reiterated.

She nodded, gritting her teeth against the pain. The dermatologist gave me a look, something quizzical. Grace didn't give me time to interpret the glance, however. Using her right arm for leverage, she pushed up with her left arm.

Time slowed to a crawl as Grace begun an almost elegant lateral spin. She landed flat on her back in seconds. Her right pupil quickly contracted in reaction to the bright surgery room lights, sapphire colored iris reassuring us that there was no brain injury. The burns did not look hopeless. Long to heal, and the scalp follicles were likely destroyed and her eyebrows were non-existent. I had faith that my colleague could repair the damage.

I tried to share a glance of guarded optimism with my colleague. He didn't even look at me. His gaze was transfixed by Grace's left eye. I followed his gaze and knew that while Grave would surely live, she would never be the same. In the whole motion, her left eye had not moved.

The damage was already far too extensive for any hope of saving it. Before our eyes, her left eye reduced itself to nerve, iris and fluids in her hand. I saw right through her eye, that haunting ring of lapis lazuli sliding from it's natural plane, folding through her fingers to become useless biological scrap on the cutting room floor.

A paralyzing stupor rooted me to the floor, of a kin to the paralysis that had already stricken my colleague dumb. We stood, fighting just as hard for consciousness as she was. Blood was pooling in the empty cavity. Almost as if finishing the words she had spoken to her sister, her contralto again broke the silence.

“We all have to let go in the end.” she said, intoning a wisdom well beyond her natural years. With that, she reached with her left hand to the cavity. Dipping her thumb in her own blood, she pulled off the dangling upper eye lid. She flicked it away from her, and we watched as it floated to the floor. A second quick move reddened fer forefinger and disconnected the rest of the now superfluous lower eyelid.

Her arm and my colleague heeded the call of gravity at the same time. He probably made a sound as he met the tile, but my attention was transfixed, vision tunneled. All I remember is seeing that lid and those lashes slip from her fingers and float to the floor like the last petal of some vicious flower.

We occupied that time and space alone, in some unexplored place between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Mercifully, the morphine transdermal soother her other eye to close, freeing me to return from the nearly hallucinogenic terror trance.

Reality returned with full force. I was me again. No fractures, only burns. I grabbed gauze and disinfectant swabs and cleaned Grace's face as best I could. Optometry is not my specialty, but I sill drained and disinfected the cavity to the best of my ability. After her wounds were properly dressed, I did one final vitals check. Her heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure were all amazingly normal. I found a notoriously strong-willed nurse practitioner in the burn unit and informed her of the situation. Assured that Grace would be well cared for throughout the night, I made a note for the first shift optometrist to visit her room when he came on duty first thing the following morning.

“Make sure she has plenty of painkillers.” I said, by way of departure, dragging 215 pounds of unconscious doctor out of ICU.

“Boy, you look like you too need some just as much as her!” she quipped at my retreating back.

I nodded, but did not turn around. The dermatologist god parked unceremoniously next to the first floor reception desk to get his night's sleep. I, on the other hand, still had an oath to uphold.

Cold coffee in hand, I took the elevator back up to the eighth floor. Both members of the MedEvac crew stopped me before I could get all the way down to the hall and into 8A. They pulled me aside and reported that, by some miracle, Maya and Mrs. Twining were already improving.

“They may be out of intensive care by as soon as tomorrow.” one reported.

“I think the fair one will pull through, maybe even live a normal life again.” I reported, expecting my words to travel further than our little triad.

“Good prognoses all around.” the junior EMT piped in. “I am sure, doctor, that the Twining family and the State will recognize your miraculous service tonight. Now, please. Get some sleep, if you can.” he said, with a weak smile.

“The press vultures will certainly be following the blood trail tomorrow.” I said, matching his expression and giving him a fake 'cheers' with the last of the Joe. The three of us went our separate ways, the MedEvac pilot and technician upstairs to the landing pat, and myself back down to floor seven. I hoped they would think I was headed out the front door. I waited for them to leave and backtracked to 8A. I walked into Mrs. Twining's room to find her fast asleep and her duty nurse reading a paperback. She stashed it, began to make noises of apology, but I gestured for her to be silent.

“Wait for them to leave, and we'll move the three of them down to the sub-basement.”

“You mean, like lock them up?”

“After a small talk with the EMT crew, that might be the best thing for them. This family has been through enough. I won't see these girls and their mother get hounded, or turned into a political football again.

“I see. Well, I'll get her bed, if you can get theirs.

I knew she was saving the easier assignment for herself, but I was in no mood to argue.