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The triage lights pulsed amber-green. All hooves on deck! Velvet threw her apron around her waist, covering her soft-fronded haunches. She skittered out the door, the various instruments in her pockets making faint scuffing sounds against each other.

We must come together, the walls urged her. The lights responded, showing them a trail to follow. The other nurses were perplexed, but moved with the urgency that the environment demanded of them.

In the entryway, they saw a novel sight. Strange smooth faces, narrow-shouldered surface-breathers. What were they doing down here in the depths?

Nurses had arms looped around them, the poor creatures stumbling blindly about. Some were coughing, a horrible raspy sound that made it seem like there was no wetness left.

The black-fingered doctor rounded the corner as well, his pale skin illuminated by the green lights. He blinked quickly, as if surprised by the crowd forming in our atrium, or perhaps just awakened from a slumber.

He began directing the nurses with a simple touch on their shoulders or backs. Soon, the atrium cleared, with patients triaged based on severity. Finally, he pressed a hand against the wall and asked aloud for a religious one to be sent for. We need them.

Velvet lent a hand to a stumbling creature. They were brave, doing their best to feel out for the walls. But Velvet could tell that the walls did not assist them in the same way they did her. To be disconnected from it all, Velvet is surprised they got this far anyway.

She shook her head, yellow pods swinging gently from her antlers. She mustn’t judge, perhaps they came down here for help in the first place.

After placing the patient in the bed, she pressed against the wall, her moss-brown flank-fur nearly standing up from all the activity within the facility. Everyone was chattering, but all the voices fell silent when a nurse said that someone was breathing normally.

The doctor, Cebunk, rushed over. The stillness remained as everyone watched him enter the room. The nurse, Maven, backed up, his heart racing as all the attention was on his patient.

Cebunk took one look at the patient and ordered spores. Breathing pores opened in the ceiling, spores guided from outside and swirling into the room. Cebunk said “Vitals.”

Maven’s watchful stillness skipped a beat as he placed hands onto the patient’s chest, feeling for breathing. We are unfamiliar with the biology, but noted no change.

“Spores kill them, yet this one is living.” Cebunk’s lanky visage bent over the patient, his large, dark pupils peering at the curiosity.

Velvet saw a hint beneath the patient’s skin, reacting to Maven’s touch. “A light,” she cried, the first to speak up after the clinic watched in bated breath.

The information immediately registered with Cebunk. He placed an inky black finger over the light source that faintly emanated within the patient's chest.

The man, quite awake and quite confused, looked in shock as the black finger grew tendrils around his torso, warmth spreading through his ribcage. He started to cry out, then suddenly, all became clear.

He could understand the creatures. They were worried about him. About all the humans that entered. Or was this the final moments before death, a hallucination? He was a man of science, near death experiences were still a curiosity to the human race.

No, not death. This. This is life. What he had been living before was a shadow compared to how connected he felt. He could hear Maven’s thoughts as he watched over his vital signs. Cebunk, apparently a doctor of this place, was stoking this spark in his chest. And through Velvet’s eyes, a nurse he hadn’t even seen, he could tell she was watching him carefully, and in him, she saw the yellow spark that made this all possible.