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The last Cage Fight was very rough one.
The latest opponent that your creature faced off was what you could describe it as an aggressive tank.
You still can't shake off the image of an organic creature that's disguised by metallic shell and mechanical components.
A lot of blood was spilled from your creature and theirs. You had to force a timeout to revise your strategy and focus on blunt hits.
Eventually, you won. But not without serious damage to your creature. You can't imagine how much money is going to be spent to treat those injuries.
Stop. It's already over.
You shake your head as you descend the familiar grated stairs. You've been through this many times. No point moping around. You got a job to do.
You eventually reached the room that housed your creature. Your only friend.
You could’ve asked the vets to do their work, but you didn't. You didn't entirely trust their intentions.
Why bother? It's already too late to save it.
But it’s not that you couldn't try to fix your creature. You were the only person it could trust.
The loud blaring alarm shakes off your thoughts as your focus on the present. The reinforced bay door opened, but your creature didn't show up.
You set foot onto the grated that overlooks the chamber where it houses your creature.
And the sight isn't pretty.
It made no effort to notice you. It laid on its back and it was sprawled across the floor, clutching the worst of the injuries.
The amount and the severity of its injuries made you wince. It's clearly suffering from the agony that it received.
Look at it. You did this.
There was a reason why you brought a medical bag you "borrowed". And you intended to do it.
You walked to the platform that lowered you until you were in the ground level with the creature.
When you made a slow and deliberate approach, the creature notices you and turns its head to look in its mismatched red and white eyes. There was no other effort from your friend and the expression was somber.
Don't. Don't fall for it.
You let out a sign that signifies a pained expression. Your voice, filled with heartaching sadness spilled out the words, "Hey there, Sweets."
Fuck.
Not again.
"The fight with Iron Turtle was a rough one, eh?" You continue. That one was a real challenge, but you prevailed.
Sure, the winnings were in the hundreds of thousands, but expenses gotta come one day or another.
Most of it isn't for you to keep.
Making a few more steps, you lay down the bag and open the zipper to the contents; bandages, ointments, splints, opiates, the standard stuff for organic beings.
As you pull out the necessary tools for treatment, you spoke again with regret, "Sorry, but I’ll have to do this."
Sure, you weren't a medic, but you had enough medical knowledge to know what you’re doing.
With bandages, ointments, sutures, saline, biofoam, tweezers and opiates at ready, you begin to assess the damage your friend sustained.
And it was not looking good. The creature seemed to be stable but looks can be deceiving.
There was a wide myriad of cuts and bruises all over the creature's body. Those can be healed with ointment, no big deal.
The more serious lacerations and punctures require more tools. Painkillers were required to numb the pain, saline to clean the wound, tweezers to remove shrapnel and foreign objects, biofoam to quickly mend the damaged tissue and sutures to seal the wound shut.
But the most severe wound was on the abdomen of your creature. It was still clutching it, as if it didn't want to let its guts spill all over. You weren't sure if your creature had insides. You better not find out.
From your observation, the tissue damage was pretty much extensive, and the wound was deep. Severe was putting it mildly. It was ugly as sin. The area around the laceration was full of dirt, grime and dried blood. It was clearly filthy. Within the injury were dozen, if not several dozen pieces of metal shrapnel that stuck out like sore thumbs. You mind flashed back to when the opposing creature struck your creature with its heavily damaged arm that you could’ve sworn saw metal bits fly out by the sheer force of the attack.
Are you sure it's still salvageable?
You took a deep breath and spoke "Sweetie, I'm gonna try to treat you to the best of my ability, okay?"
It nods in acknowledgement and shifts its arms so that it wouldn't disturb your work.
Your medical gloves were already on your hands. Already got them out of the bag.
Seems like the bleeding has slowed enough for you to start treatment. Did it apply pressure for all that time? No matter, at least there's less work for you.
You open a painkiller kit and look at the selection of vials. There are mostly opiates that helps relieve pain, but there was an antagonist to reduce the dosage of opium and naltrexone to prevent any potential addictions. It also comes with a jet injector.
You pull out the jet injector and a vial next to the antagonist. You didn't recognize this and so you wanted to make sure you’re not using something weak by reading the label.
[Fentanyl – Warning: High concentration of opium]
Fentanyl... you heard that this drug is at least a hundred times stronger than morphine. And judging by the severity of the laceration on the abdomen, you'll definitely gonna need it.
You insert the vial to the jet injector and fill the container with the drug. You reckon that one shot of that would be enough. Once you bring the nozzle to its skin you break the silence by saying "Bear with me, it's going to sting a little."
Once that's said, you pulled the trigger of the injector, and the fluid was dumped instantly. What immediately followed was a flinch, but it wasn't enough to damage the tissue further nor provoke more bleeding.
You sigh in relief knowing that no incident happened so far. You put away the injector and grab absorbent gauze then sterilize it with saline.
Why are you doing this? Leave it.
You carefully wipe off the grime that surrounds the laceration, being careful not to touch any muscle fibers. The wincing from the creature pauses your action, which may you say, "I know, it hurts. But trust me, you're gonna feel a lot better after this."
Thankfully, no further incident occurred while you cleaned the area. But honestly, you were a bit of a perfectionist. You didn't want it just clean. You wanted it completely clean. And that effort took you three replacements of gauze and quite a bit of saline.
Once that's done, you moved on to take care of those obstructions stuck within the wound. You prepare the tweezers and a biohazard bag as you think on where to start.
You bend your knees and glance towards the creature’s right loin. This is where you'll start. The amount of shrapnel should be even, but it will definitely ramp up the closer you are to the other side.
"I'm gonna start, okay?" You break the silence to let your creature know about the painful part.
It's not going to help anyway.
With the tweezers in hand, you start to carefully extract the metal shards from the wound, making sure you don't damage the tissue further or provoke more bleeding. Each piece of shrapnel you remove is responded with a flinch. It is what it is...
As you make your way towards the abdomen, more foreign objects are deposited into the biohazard bag. One piece dug in deep into the wound, and so you had to take extra time to get it out.
By the time you reach the umbilical region, you started to lean in to continue extracting shrapnel. So far you collected roughly thirty pieces of shrapnel, a pretty big amount. Sometimes, you were struggling a bit to get some pieces out and had to tug them to loosen them.
Once you reached the left lumbar region, you were leaning so much that your creature had to use a clean right hand to hold you stable. Its grip was tight, but not too tight to penetrate your skin.
Why are you asking for its help?
You were on your last pieces when your knees started to hurt. You’ve been removing shrapnel from the wound for about ten minutes.
Eventually, the number of obstructions was reduced to one. The piece on the other side of the laceration have dug deep into the wound, and you couldn't go to the other side, because you didn’t want to risk collapsing into the creature's wounded body and contaminate yourself.
You outstretch your arm that's holding the tweezers and lean in to reach for the piece of metal that's embedded into the tissue. It takes you a few misses, buy you were able to grab the foreign object.
From there, you started tugging the piece of metal in order to ever so slightly tug it out without damaging the tissue further. It took more than a minute, but you were able to extract it.
With a sigh of relief, you stood to your full height and deposited the last object into the biohazard bag. There are around seventy-five in total. "Now you don't have to sorry about the spikes in pain." You respond.
You set aside the bag and put away the tweezers. From there, you open the tissue repair kit and pull out one of the biofoam bottles. You read the label to make sure.
[Medical-Grade Biofoam – Promotes tissue healing and prevents bacterial infection]
You pull off the cap of the bottle and point the nozzle towards the edge of the laceration on the right shin. Before you start, you say with caution "This is gonna hurt, okay? I'm gonna start."
It nods in acknowledgement as it braces for the incoming aching.
You apply the first of the biofoam directly to the wound. Immediately, the foam triggers a reaction that quickly expands. It seals any bleeding still not stabilized and releases compounds that disinfects the damaged tissue. Shortly after, the foam sets and becomes a semi-rigid, porous mass, which accelerates the healing of damaged tissue and muscle.
You momentarily stop to check if the creature's okay. Apparently, it didn’t feel anything yet, so you're still good.
You continue squirting out the biofoam along the damaged tissue and work your way towards the far end of the injury. On some occasions, you had to stop because of the wincing. "Yeah, I know." you replied with worry laced in your voice.
Stop it.
Once the last of the damaged tissue is mended, you expended most of the bottle but can still use it on some wounds.
With tissue damage taken care of, you set aside the biofoam and open the sealing kit. Since the wound is too wide and too deep to close with staples, you had to grab the biodegradable sutures.
You start closing the wound by making deep sutures. That way, it'll make closing the epidermal layer of the wound. You knew that it’s going to take long. You're in too deep to back down.
It took you about 10 minutes to get the deep sutures done. You settle for a continuous over and under stitch and start stitching the wound from the left loin and work your way towards left lumbar region of the creature’s abdomen.
The process took you another ten minutes to complete. Once that's done, you disinfect the wound with an antibiotic gel to kill of any bacteria that reside within the surface of the wound.
Finally, you bandage the wound thoroughly and secure the dressing with medical tape.
The abdomen injury has been treated, but it's not over yet. You still got several more littered across the creature's body. This is gonna take a while.
You repeat the procedure for the other wounds that need urgent treatment. There wasn't as much tissue damage or shrapnel, and you only had to use the standard Morphine. Since the wounds weren't as deep as the one on the abdomen, you only needed one layer of sutures, but you decided to use the medical stapler for that.
It took you noticeably less time since the injuries weren't as severe as before, but the combined time taken was comparable to the one that you treated on the abdomen.
Once the last open wound was treated and bandaged, you move on to the minor cuts and bruises that litter your creature.
There were all over its body, so you needed a lot of ointments and bandages. After treating the last of the injuries, you went through most of the ointment jar and a handful of bandage rolls.
So much waste and for what?
You stow everything back into the medical bag and finally take off the medical gloves and dumping them into clinical waste bag shortly after. You take a few moments to decontaminate your hands with a hand sanitizer.
You realized you've been there for four hours or so, evident by the digital clock you spotted next to the bay door.
You wanted to return to your quarters, but at the same time you couldn't bring yourself to leave the wounded creature by itself. You didn't want it to be dejected.
For god's sake, just leave it already!
It is a fine line between its depression and management finding out about your relationship. It really unnerved you how bonding with creatures was not being taken lightly. It’s like a misdemeanor if you were caught.
You let out a sigh as you approach your companion. Its red and white eyes meet yours as you reach for the chin. "It's okay." You blurt out with calmness. "It's okay." You repeat yourself as you rub the chin, being careful not to cut yourself with the rays. "You're okay."
Its face relaxes as if the pain quickly faded away. It moves its clean arms to make a de facto embrace, which makes you extend your smile. The way it positioned its arms pulls you closer to continue caressing the wounded creature.
"As long as I'm with you, you're gonna be safe." You remind your companion as you rub away. Seconds turn into minutes as you continue your session.
Eventually, the creature is the first to break the embrace. You both knew that it was getting late. "Well, I'm gonna retire for the day." You exclaim as you stretch your limbs. "You were very brave today. Keep it up, and we might challenge the Cup."
You hoist the medical and waste bags and head towards the platform that raised you to the upper level. You and your creature wave your goodbyes as you go through the closing bay door.
You knew that you're gonna have to explain this to management. Hopefully they won't do much to your companion.
Hopefully.