Play@YSDC

The bags she carried dragged at her arms and yet she barely felt them. Her feet worked with a purpose of their own. The little dears were all asleep. She was vaguely aware of this as she settled down the two large bags onto a square of linoleum, obsessively nudging the two bags until they were both on the one tile. As she turned, the bag's loose side slipped a little, exposing several links of slightly rusted chain. She pushed open the double doors, a blast of heated air brushing the hair from her face as she passed beneath an airconditioning vent, on her way to collect more of her bags.

The faces were all ambiguous blurs to her. She didn't recognise them as belonging to people. She recognised nothing but the duty she was doing and the dreams of drifting black clouds rolling across London. She recognised nothing but the metallic screech she heard inside her own head.

A droplet of blood slipped from her nose and ran a smooth arc over her lip, into the gap, onto her teeth. It tasted like iron.

She collected the last of her bags. One containing a tool box and the last of the padlocks and pollyfiller. The other containing packets of crisp and other delicious edibles. She vaguely thought she smelled roasting meat as she re-entered the hospital.

Jason Brown's doctor was busy. The appointment line is at least two hours long. Not that people were lined up. They are all just sitting down in the waiting room or strolling around the hospital. There seems to be a lot of people strolling around, a few more then usual who are looking very agitated.

He sees a familiar woman enter the hospital, carrying a couple of very large bags. He seems to recall that she used to volunteer at the Children's Ward. Her eyes are glazed and her face slack as though she has just heard the worst news of her life and is still incapable of coming to grips with it. Jason's mother had worn a similar expression for a few weeks after finding out how sick he was. Nowadays, she smiled more regularly. Nowadays, she hardly looked at him.

Jason wasn't about to stick around to find out what the woman was sad about, eventhough it was unlikely for her to recognise him in the sea of people floating around the hospital. He had become quite adept at dodging potential sources of grief and sadness. Life was too short, especially for him.

He quickly dropped the book he was reading into his wellfilled backpack and fled onto the stairway up to the second floor. Perhaps there was someone he knew at the Children's Ward. Calling them friends would be a lie, but at least he could relate to some of them.

Still, he'd have to be careful, as it would mean having to dodge the woman again...

Jason gets up to the second floor easily enough by going up the access ramp. The elevator was on another floor and there was already a line. The stairs were directly in her line of sight. The only sneaky way was up the sloping tiled floor, though the walk makes him feel already the fatigue nibbling at his bones and making his muscles feel as though they were drooping.

This floor seems less busy, at least, and he finds it easier to hear himself think. Soft strains from a crackling radio station seem to come from the Male Ward. The nurse's station is deserted. The nurses must be all doing their rounds or were otherwise occupied. Not everyone in sight was a patient. For some reason, it seemed like a lot of visitors had been attracted to the hospital on the same day.

Jason follows the steady flow of people until he reaches the doors of the children's ward. There he leans against the far doorframe and looks in, trying not to get affected by the smell which quickly brings back bad memories.

He cautiously throws a glance over his shoulder, to make sure the woman hadn't caught up with him yet.

She's nowhere in sight.

The Children's Ward seems quieter then usual. It's as though they were all asleep. The chair where the duty nurse often sat was empty. In the left-hand corner of the room, were a couple very large of bags bulging with all sorts of odd shapes.

All beds are filled. Crowded room, yet silent? Odd... there used to be always at least one snivveling bastard crying or one attentionwhore ruining for the rest of the kids. And what's with those bags?

Jason throws another quick look over his shoulder and enters to take a closer look.

The double doors swing shut on weighted hinges, closing with a soft click, as Jason comes further into the room. He recognises a few of the children. Lessica, a once beautiful six-year-old girl with childhood leukemia whose long, golden curls have lost their lustre over the past few months, and whose once excitable face is now slack in the repose of sleep. Oliver, a hawkish twelve-year-old asthmatic who always seemed to keep coming back to the Children's Ward. His brown hair is flopped across the pillow, his gangly arms hanging over the edge of the bed, his eyes are closed. Steven, a fourteen-year-old boy suffering from AIDs, who's unending amount of energy has seen him bounce in and out of hospital, even when his damaged immune system was overrun by some new disease, is now snoring loudly.

There are five large bags in the corner. Each one can easily fit a computer monitor worth of goods and each one is filled to bulging. They are zipped up, though, so he can't see what is in four of them. The fifth one, though, has ripped along the seams and a few fat links of rusted chain are visible.

Rusted chains? In the children's ward? What the hell is that crap doing here... As if these kids weren't sick enough, they store random crap here too? Slightly pissed off he takes a closer look at the ripped bag.

Jill Adams finishes lugging her last bags up the stairs and stops for a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow. Luckily she still retained some of her old athletic muscles. Picking up the bags again she drags them to the doors of the Children's Ward, back to where she left her sleeping darlings. This was the last load and now she would be able to make them safe before ... she shakes her head and pushes open the ward doors.

Jason is surprised by the schreeching door and quickly abandons the idea of investigating the bags. Instead he casually walks towards the other end of the room, heading for the balcony. He doesn't even turn to see who it is that entered. He can guess well enough...

It is only after Jill Adams places the bags on the floor that she becomes aware of the child moving out onto the balcony. He can be fetched now or later. The balcony was twenty or thirty feet from the ground. There was no fear of him getting lost that way. She now had all the goods she needed to shut the door. The vents had already been blocked by some other kind fellow. That was one less thing she needed to bother with. The doors, though, needed to be chained shut. The metal would keep it closed. The metal would keep it all away.

In the meantime, Jason is steadily crossing the room toward the door that led out onto the balcony.

As Jill begins unpacking the chains and padlocks she calls over her shoulder. "Hello, Jason. I'm glad you're here. I brought some more of those comic books you like." Her voice is expressionless and flat. She starts feeding the chains through the handles of the doors.

Jason stops walking abruptly. How did she recognise him from behind? Surely, there must be more than one kid with jeans and baseball cap...

He slowly turns around and spots her securing the chains to the door.

"Wha-" Jason says, almost yelling, but he stops himself, afraid from waking the other children.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he whispers with his heart pounding in his throat.

Jill pulls the chain tight and snaps a padlock through two links. As she studies the door she quietly replies. "I know, it's going to be horrible. But at least I can keep all of you safe in here. When I finish this I'll find those comic books for you." She pulls more equipment out of her bags: a hammer and nails, and small, oddly shaped pieces of lumber, which look like discards from some other project. She seems to change her mind and instead picks up another chain and padlock and turns to head toward the balcony doors.

"What are you going on about? You can't lock us in here." Jason whispers while slowly walking backwards.

"I'm not even supposed to be inhere..." Jason adds.

Jill gives Jason a smile that somehow makes her countenance even more disturbing. "Oh, but it's good that you are. Since you're here I can keep you safe, just like all the rest of these wonderful children. It'd be so sad if you were caught outside when ..." The artificial smile drops from her face and a glazed look covers her eyes. She walks over to the balcony, pulls the doors securely shut, and starts sliding a chain through the handles.

Jason slips into the lavatory and searches for a way to lock the door behind him. If the main door can't be locked, he'll lock himself in a stall.

The toilet is relatively spartan. The doors to the four cubicles are closed and the lights are steady and give the room a distinctly antiseptic look. This door cannot be locked though there is a door that leads into the Male Ward. However, unless the Children's Ward door is locked from the inside - thus suggesting there are no children in here - the door into the Male Ward is locked, and vice versa.

Jason enters a bathroom stall and closes the flimsy prefab door behind him. He calmly dials the police on his mobile.