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Spending time in the hospital, looking at those white walls and being in the white lights all the time was slowly causing Fortsy to go insane.
He didn't feel that bad. Or at least he felt better than others.
When he was called to go to pick up some documents from the desert's nuclear facility he didn't expect anything unordinary-he has been there many times. He had wandered through these corridors already and always was threatened with respect by workers of the nuclear power plant.
Everything went as always.
He arrived, checked in, and entered the nuclear safety director’s office. Some papers were signed, others stamped. Polite conversation followed, discussions about their well-being carried out with practiced formality.
Fortsy wasn't in a rush, he just wanted to finally go back to his lovely district. After he quit the office he started walking his way to the exit.
Then he saw a strange man pressed against the wall. Well, “pressed” wasn’t exactly it - he was struggling to keep his balance, leaning heavily for support. His face was flushed, almost sunburned, which made sense in the desert heat. Blood dripped from his nose onto the floor.
“Are you all right?” Fortsy asked, stepping closer and placing a hand on the man’s back. The man remained bent over the wall, gasping for breath.
“I… not…” he managed, barely audible. He tried to turn toward Fortsy, but a violent coughing fit seized him.
“You should sit, sir,” Fortsy said, gently trying to guide him down.
The coughing worsened. Suddenly, the man gagged and vomited - dark, thick liquid splattering across the floor, forcing Fortsy to step back to avoid it.
“…I’ll get your shift manager. Where is he?”
The worker weakly pointed down the corridor. A sign hung above the hallway, listing two destinations.
“The control room?” Fortsy asked. The man gave a small, approving nod - no need to clarify further. “Stay here. I’ll get someone in a moment,” Fortsy said, moving toward the indicated direction.
Fortsy followed the direction the man had pointed. The corridor stretched longer than he remembered, the overhead lights were humming softly. Everything looked normal. Too normal.
As he walked, he rubbed his hand against his uniform, trying to get rid of the warmth the man’s skin had left on his palm.
Heat exhaustion, he told himself. The desert does that.
Just as he was about to enter the control room a man walked out. He was tall, possibly in his 40's.
“Excuse me,” Fortsy said, stopping him with his hand. “There’s a worker in the east corridor-he’s unwell. Vomiting, nosebleed. He needs medical attention.”
The man swore under his breath. Not loudly-more like a reflex. He glanced back toward the control room, then at Fortsy again.
“Stay here,” he said, already turning. “Don’t touch anything else.” That phrasing made Fortsy frown. The air was weird. It had this metallic taste which made him dizzy.
The man disappeared into the corridor without another word.
A wave of nausea rolled through him - sudden and sharp. He steadied himself against the wall, blinking hard as his vision blurred at the edges. The corridor seemed brighter now, the white lights harsher, almost vibrating.
Fortsy straightened slowly and the door opened again, this time abruptly. A different man stepped out, but whatever composure he had earlier was gone. His jaw was tight, eyes wide in a way that did not match the calm tone he tried to use. “You need to leave,” he said. “Immediately.”
“What’s happening?” Fortsy asked.
“Just a technical issue.” Behind him, an alarm finally shrieked to life - sharp and piercing, echoing down the corridor like a blade scraping metal.
Fortsy flinched. “That doesn’t sound minor.”
The man didn’t answer.
Another alarm joined the first. Then another. The calm hum of the building shifted into something frantic. Footsteps pounded somewhere out of sight. A door slammed.
Fortsy’s stomach twisted violently. He doubled over without warning, barely managing to turn away before vomiting onto the floor. It wasn’t just bile this time. Thick red streaked through it, darker than before. For a moment, he simply stared at it.
That wasn’t normal.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he pulled it away, there was blood there too. The metallic taste wasn’t just in the air. It was in him.
“Sir-” one of the operators from inside the control room rushed out, grabbing Fortsy’s arm. “You need to evacuate. Sector three exposure.”
“The worker in the corridor,” Fortsy said hoarsely. “He’s still there.”
“We’re handling it,” the operator snapped, though his voice shook. “You have to go. Now.”
The alarms were screaming continuously now.Red lights began flashing along the ceiling. Fortsy hesitated - just long enough to feel another wave of dizziness crash through him. The hallway tilted slightly. His knees felt unstable, unreliable.
The last thing he thought about before losing his consciousness was a question: how much radiation was he exposed to?
This way he landed in the hospital - small room, white ceiling. He waited for God knows how long for a nurse to finally come. She was a woman, young, probably freshly after nursing school. Besides normal uniform she also wore a mask, gloves and face shield… which was deeply disturbing.
“How are you feeling?” She asked, adjusting the IV. Only then Fortsy noticed that his bed was behind a thick fabric that was hung just under the ceiling.
“Fine,” he lied. He actually felt horrible. His whole body felt heavy, his throat burned as he was saying that. He was dizzy, feeling like he was about to throw up.
The nurse didn't seem to believe him, but she nodded anyway. “You experienced moderate radiation exposure,” she explains calmly. “You’re stable. We’re monitoring organ function and blood counts. You’ll remain in isolation.”
“Others?” he asks.
A pause.
“There are multiple patients.” That wasn't an answer.
From somewhere down the hall, he hears it - a violent coughing fit. It goes on too long. It turns wet. Then it turns into shouting. Then hurried footsteps. Then silence. Fortsy closes his eyes.
Hours blur together after that. The lights never dim. He drifts in and out of shallow sleep. When he wakes again, there’s a tray beside his bed. Pills, water, instructions written neatly on a laminated card.
He manages to lift his hand slightly in order to look at the card. He is barely reading it, words blurring into one.
When the nurse left she didn't pull the fabric surrounding his bed and stool till the end. Through the gap he saw that the doors from his room were open, a piece of a corridor was visible. Under a wall there was a covered stretcher. The sheet was pulled too tightly beneath a shape under it. He looked at it for a moment before putting the card back down and turning his gaze away from the tray.
His stomach tightens, but he doesn’t vomit this time. He just lies there, listening to the steady rhythm of his own heartbeat on the monitor.
Another coughing fit echoes from somewhere deeper in the ward.
Fortsy presses the heel of his hand against his eyes until he sees sparks behind them.
He hears footsteps from the corridor - the shoes seemed too heavy to belong to medical staff. They are getting louder, then he hears the door closing and the footsteps getting directly next to his bed. The curtain is pulled away, and fortsy lowers his hands.
Solev stands near the end of the bed. “You look terrible,” he says at last.
Fortsy looked at the ceiling. His whole head felt like it was about to blow up, and the president showing up was definitely one of the reasons for it. Something boiled in Fortsy as soon as he heard those words.
“If you actually invested more into dessert then maybe the power plant would have better technologies. Maybe they would detect the leak sooner.” Fortsy didn't dare to look at him. Even considering their private relations he couldn't forgive him shitting on dessert so badly.
“I don't think it's my fault that the engineers did the power plant this way, and not any other.”
“It's also not your fault that they had a tight budget?”
“The facility received the funding it required,” he said flatly.
Fortsy let out a breath. “Sure it did.”
Then Solev exhaled slowly, as if he had expected the accusation. “Budget decisions are not made by me alone,” he said evenly. “And I doubt the engineers would appreciate you simplifying their work.”
Fortsy let out a weak laugh that immediately turned into a cough. The movement sent a stab of pain through his chest. He pressed his hand to his mouth until it passed.
“You’re alive,” Solev said. “That seems like a more relevant fact.”
Fortsy finally turned his head to look at him. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Solev studied him for a moment. His expression was difficult to read - somewhere between irritation and something more controlled
“Most of the people who were closer to the leak are in significantly worse condition,” he said. “Some will not recover.”
Fortsy’s jaw tightened. “Good to know I won the lottery.”
“You were exposed, but not fatally,” Solev continued, ignoring the sarcasm. “The doctors believe you will recover if you follow their instructions.”
Fortsy glanced briefly at the tray of pills beside the bed. Then he looked back at the ceiling.
“I’m not taking them.”
“Oh.” Solev glanced around the room. His lips twitched slightly before he put his hands on his hips and sighed. “…Why?”
Fortsy hesitated. “Don’t feel like it.”
Solev let out a quiet breath through his nose. Not anger exactly-something tighter than that. “You were exposed to radiation,” he said. “You are currently vomiting blood, experiencing dizziness, and your organs are under observation. The treatment prescribed is minimal.”
“Congratulations.” Fortsy turned his head slightly toward him. “You came to a really hard conclusion.”
“Do you think this is amusing?” he asked sharply.
The sudden edge in his voice made Fortsy’s eyes flick back to him. “You walk into a contaminated facility, ignore procedure, collapse in the corridor, and now you lie here refusing treatment like a child.” Solev’s hand struck the metal tray beside the bed with a sharp clatter. The pills rattled in their small container. “And you think sarcasm is appropriate?”
Fortsy blinked slowly, unfazed. “Relax,” he muttered. “I’m the one dying, remember?”
“Dying is easy, Fortsy. Living is harder.”
“Well, you should try it then.”
“Enough.” The word cut through the air like a blade.
Fortsy blinked, surprised despite himself.
Solev leaned forward slightly, one hand braced against the edge of the bed. “You think this is some kind of punishment?” Solev said, his voice low but fierce. “That refusing treatment somehow balances the scales? That it makes you noble?”
“You're suddenly very concerned,” he said quietly.
“I have always been concerned with the survival of my personnel.”
Fortsy let out a weak breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “Right. Personnel.” His eyes drifted back to the ceiling. “You didn’t sit next to every soldier’s bed like this,” he muttered. “Did you?”
“I visited every soldier affected by the accident.”
“Sure, but that's not why I asked. Did you sit next to them like this?”
“You are making assumptions.”
“So you are calling me delusional? You weren't so attentive all these times when you ordered me to go to the capital just for the sake of having an excuse to see me.’
“That was not-”
“Professional?” Fortsy finished for him. He closed his eyes. His throat was starting to burn really bad. It was already aching from all the coughing and throwing up. “So forgive me if I’m a little confused,” he murmured. “One moment I’m your soldier, the next I’m your problem, and occasionally I’m-”
He felt the mattress shift somewhere next to him. He opened his eyes and saw Solev taking the pills from the nightstand into his hand.
“You'll take them.”
“We are already back to orders?” Solev looked at him, eyes sharp. He didn't say anything. “Get off my bed.”
“It's my bed. I funded it.”
“Oh thanks, I was wondering.” If he could, he would throw something at him. Unfortunately, it would require the ability to sit up without the world spinning.
“Take them.”
Fortsy didn’t move.
“No.”
“I am not repeating myself,” Solev said at last.
“Then don’t.” Fortsy’s voice was hoarse now. “Problem solved.”
Another coughing fit caught him before he could say more. His body jerked with the effort, the pain in his chest sharp enough to make his vision flash white. When it finally subsided, he lay back against the pillow, breathing unevenly.
Solev watched the entire thing without speaking. Then he reached for the glass of water.
Fortsy noticed the movement immediately. “Don’t.”
Solev didn’t stop.
“I said don’t.”
Solev leaned forward slightly. The mattress dipped under his weight as he shifted closer, one knee pressing into the side of the bed. Fortsy tried to push himself up, but his arms trembled and failed halfway. The dizziness slammed back into him instantly.
“Don’t make this difficult,” Solev said quietly.
Fortsy laughed weakly. “That’s rich coming from you.”
Solev set the glass down on the tray. He used one hand to grip his jaw while steading himself above him.
Fortsy tried to pull away. His strength lasted about half a second. He turned his head sharply.The movement made the room spin. “Stop acting like you get to decide everything,” he snapped.
“You lost that privilege when you walked into a radiation leak,” Solev replied.
“How would I even know there was a leak?’
“Open your mouth.”
“No.”
Solev slipped the pills between his lips before Fortsy could react. He immediately tried to spit them out, twisting his head sideways, but Solev’s hand closed over his mouth, firm and unyielding.
“Don’t,” Fortsy tried to protest, the word muffled against Solev’s palm
The glass was already tilted against his lips.
“Swallow.”
Water flooded into his mouth. Fortsy coughed, choking on it, trying to turn away, but Solev held him there with infuriating steadiness. The movement sent another wave of dizziness crashing through his head. Reflex took over before pride could.
Solev put the glass back on the nightstand, staying in place for a moment. After a few seconds he stood up and just went straight to the exit.
Solev stopped before the door, looking back at Fortsy. “You will take the rest on your own,” he said.
Fortsy let out a hoarse breath that might have been a laugh. “Or what? You’ll come back and sit on me again?”
“If necessary.” Solev’s eyes lingered on him for a moment, unreadable. “Seek help. Mentally and physically.”
Then the door hissed shut behind him.