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Thace didn’t like the medical bay much. It smelled awful, overwhelming his senses. Whenever he had to go down there, it made his fur to stand on end. Unluckily for him, he had come down with shedding disease. It was a common cub disease, which he had not yet gotten even though he was coming up on his seventh name day.
It was Antok’s fault. He had come down with the sickness first—or at least, that was what Thace had heard from the murmuring of the medical staff who had been assigned to watch them. Because Antok was a hybrid, he was either going to have been highly susceptible to the effects of the disease, or gone through it without displaying many symptoms. He had ended up suffering the former, even though his strain of the disease wasn’t really more dangerous than any others.
The Chief Medical Officer, Matron Lok, had sequestered them into one room on the medical sub-deck for roughly a week and a half. They needed near constant monitoring in order to ensure that neither of their fevers got too high. Thankfully, they had been allowed to stay in the same room, so Thace wasn’t dealing with the medical staff’s poking and prodding alone.
And it was hilarious to see Antok mostly bald because shedding disease caused them to lose all of their fur.
Their main caretaker was Matron Lok. She was known for being incredibly strict, running the medical bay with an iron fist. However, she had been very gentle and soft-spoken the last couple of days. To be honest, it was beginning to weird Thace out a bit. He was very well acquainted with the Matron Lok who talked sternly to him and Antok because they had caused her trouble during one of Antok’s many, many check-ups to ensure he was remaining healthy. Most often her scolding was the result of them accidentally breaking something of hers while playing. The last victim had been one of her beakers.
Today, though, Matron Lok was being exceptionally patient with them—perhaps because their coughs had been pretty bad and their eyes were running.
“Did Ev and Van come to visit?” Antok asked as Matron Lok pressed a stethoscope to his chest.
“Breathe in as deeply as you can, little one,” she said gently, even though her voice was synthesized, due to her mask—Thace couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her with it on. It left him and Antok staring at the four glowing eyes. If he looked hard enough, he could just barely make out the shape of her actual eyes beyond the visual receptors. Wearing her mask was just a precaution, she had explained. It filtered out pathogens in the air.
“What about Dad and Loren—” Thace began, as Antok did as Matron Lok had requested.
Matron Lok let out a soft huff. “Oh, yes… you two have gotten quite the share of visitors while you were taking your naps,” she said as a means of reassuring them. Once she was done checking Antok’s breathing, she lightly smoothed back what was left of Antok’s headfur. “Your lungs are starting to sound better, little one…”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Antok complained, not listening to what Matron Lok had just told him.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, rounding the bed so that she could check Thace’s breathing. “You two need all the rest you can get, so you’ll get better.”
After checking Thace’s breathing, she picked up a comb from her set of tools and began working fur loose from the left side of Thace’s face—what was left, anyway. He still had most of the fur on his ears, but otherwise had lost almost all of the rest. Once Matron Lok was done removing what fur had come loose on its own and moved to do the same with Antok, Thace buried himself deeper into the soft purple sweater he had been given to keep warm without his fur. Antok had one too. Both sweaters had been knitted by Kolivan, as Evren had told them when she brought them down earlier in the week.
“Are you boys warm enough?” Matron Lok asked as she began fluffing their pillows. “I can turn the heating up…”
Antok sneezed before he could respond—it was a surprisingly loud noise for one so small. Thace nearly jumped, and it even startled Matron Lok. She turned sharply, and Thace heard the soft whirring sound of her mask’s visual receptors as she looked them both over again.
Thace was sure that he and Antok looked miserable, with running noses, leaking eyes, and next-to-no fur. But they were definitely getting better than they had been earlier in the week.
“Can we go to the—” Antok began.
“No,” Matron Lok said sternly. “You two have to stay in here… you’re under quarantine.”
Thace’s ears perked as he tilted his head to the side at the unfamiliar word. “What’s—”
“It means that you have to stay in here until you’re better,” Matron Lok explained, helping wrap them both up in some warm blankets that Thace’s father had brought down for them the day before. “You risk getting others sick, and I can think of several officers who would be even more unruly patients than you two are.”
Antok didn’t look too happy about having to stay in the room, and his tail lashed back and forth, but he didn’t say anything.
“Now, you two sleep well,” Matron Lok said, reaching out to lightly stroke both of them between the ears. “I’ll be back in the morning to check on you…”
As soon as she left, Thace yawned wide and began snuggling into his sweater and blankets. He was exhausted. However, no sooner had he shut his eyes, than he felt Antok poking the tip of his nose. Even when he batted Antok’s hand away, Antok didn’t let up.
“Whaaaat?” Thace whined, opening one of his eyes to peer at his friend from underneath his blanket.
“We should sneak out,” Antok said, grinning as his tail tip thumped against the sheets.
“Why?” Thace asked through a yawn, rubbing one of his eyes sleepily. “Matron Lok said to stay in here… we’ll get in trouble if we leave…”
“Because being in here all day is boooring,” Antok insisted, already sliding off the end of the bed. He landed a little shakily on the floor below—although Thace was surprised that Antok hadn’t fallen flat on his face. Thace could hear the sound of Antok’s toe-claws clicking against the floor of the examination room. “Come on, Thace! It’ll be an adventure!”
Thace sniffed loudly—he would’ve started coughing if he had sighed. When he finally slid off the end of the bed, Antok was more than happy to drag him around by the hand, because it was an adventure and it was important that they stuck close. They were caught no more than fifty feet from their room, when one of Matron Lok’s assistants caught them by the backs of their sweaters, lifted them off the ground, and carried them back to their room.
The medical officer was smart enough to lock the door to the room after that.