Chaos in the Morgue
Chaos in the Morgue
The next thing I knew I was awake again. It could have been a week later, or a year later. I had no idea how long I'd been out or even where I was. All I knew was that it was dark, too dark to see anything, although my eyes were open. That's where I felt the sting of the smoke first, then the dull aches throughout the rest of my body, followed lastly by a hot, searing pain in my leg.
It took me some time to pull back my memories out of the fog. I saw first the Inferus that I'd foolishly created. A shiver of dread ran through me before I remembered it had been destroyed in a threefold blast from my friends. Next I saw the last image I'd seen of Barnaby, on the floor of the morgue. That picture was enough to get me moving, and it was only then as my hearing rushed back to me that I noticed it had gone.
"I think she's coming around!" A voice above me yelled. A voice I couldn't place, who was that?
"Samhain? Samhain can you hear me?" That voice I knew. "Penny" I choked out weakly. My lungs filled up with dust and smoke as I accidentally inhaled deeply, I started coughing.
"I think she's okay" I heard Penny again.
All my memories returned to me in a rush. I remembered everything that had happened, I remembered where we were, trapped in the demolished morgue of St. Mungo's. I remembered Barnaby, how I'd found my way to him in the darkness. I squeezed both of my hands. They were both still holding, yuck, I remembered in disgust, letting the severed finger drop. The other hand I clenched tighter, praying it was wrapped around my fiancé and nothing else.
"Rennervate!" I heard Penny's voice again, and finally, I felt the arm I was holding jerk in my grasp. "Barnaby" I managed to choke out again.
"Samhain" his answer was extremely weak but I'd never heard a better sound in my life. I squeezed his arm again. "I'm here, are you badly hurt?"
"I.. I don't know. I don't think so?" was his reply.
"Are you hurt, what happened-" his questions were cut off by a coughing fit.
I struggled to sit up, feeling again that boiling, sick pain in my leg as I did. I dragged myself closer to Barnaby. "I think my leg is broken but I'm okay. Did you guys find our wands?" I asked my friends through the smoky darkness.
"Yeah we got them all, Samhain I have no idea how you did that but it was brilliant. You saved our lives" Chiara told me. "We got the lift doors open and sent up Patronus's for help, but no one's found us yet. We're just trying to heal what we can on our own. Which leg of yours do you think is broken?"
"Right leg" I grunted, feeling the pain spike again. "Can you heal it without seeing it?" "I can try" Penny answered rather doubtfully. "It's not important, let's just get out of here first" I told her, right as a chunk of rock fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing my good leg.
The dust was starting to settle although the fire in the crater continued to blaze, creating more black smoke that billowed out. We were able to see a bit better after Penny cast an Obliteration Charm to clear the air. Then we did what we could, staying low to the ground we cast Aguamenti on small fires, leaving the big one alone so as not to create any more smoke.
Finally we heard shouting through the open lift doors."Hello? Penny, are you down there?" "Yes!" She screamed back. "There's five of us, we're right next to the lift doors in the morgue. I think two of us can't walk, can you get us out?" "I'll do my best, but I'm alone up here, and it's mayhem!" the voice called back down to us.
"Look we're okay for the moment, everyone is awake now. Go tend to the wounded. I think I've got an idea of how to get us out." Penny called up.
"Okay Penny, be careful. If you can get out I could really use some help up here" the voice laughed.
"Right you lot, we're going to need to work together. Wands up!" Penny commanded us.
"Chiara you're the smallest so you get to go first, crawl over to the lift and blast a hole in the ceiling, and watch out for debris falling."
Chiara obediently followed Penny's instructions, she sat in front of the lift doors, pointed her wand upwards and cried "Reducto!" Bits of the lift ceiling rained down but nothing hit her. "How big is the hole, can you fit through it?" Penny asked. Chiara looked up, "Maybe. Let me try to widen it without damaging the structure of the lift shaft." She cast Reducto again. "Okay that should be big enough, what now?"
"Now we all cast Wingardium Leviosa and float you up until you can get out on the next floor" Penny explained. Chiara looked like she didn't want to be the first, but she reluctantly climbed into the center of the lift and curled herself into a tight ball. "Don't you dare drop me." Was all she said.
Alexi hauled Barnaby to his feet, handing him back his wand. Then Barnaby gently lifted me up from the floor. He tried to set me on my feet but my broken leg buckled with a nasty crunching noise and I fell back into him, nearly blacking out from the pain.
Alexi and Barnaby worked together, each wrapping an arm around my waist, they managed to get me upright and supported nearly all of my weight. I took my wand back from Alexi and the three of us shuffled awkwardly closer to Penny and the lift doors so Chiara would be in our sight the entire time. We counted backwards from three and stayed in perfect synchronization as we cast Wingardium Leviosa, all swishing and flicking together.
Chiara started to float towards the ceiling of the lift. "You have to keep your eyes open Chiara." Penny reminded her. "As soon as you're parallel to the next floor let us know if you can reach it."
We raised our wands and Chiara floated up through the hole she'd made.
"Okay hold me here!" She called back down. "I'm close but I can't reach it, can you bring me about a foot and a half back towards the doors?" We did our best, not being able to see Chiara we tried to move her just an inch at a time until, "Ouch! Okay okay I'm good." We kept our wands up as we listened to her scrambling onto the floor above.
"Oh man, it's a real mess up here. We're so going to get fired for this Penny." Penny didn't seem to care. "You next Samhain" was all she said.
Alexi and Barnaby lifted me as gently as possible into the lift, but they didn't let go of me. "Chiara we need you to help, can you see Samhain well enough to levitate her?" Penny called up.
I looked through the hole in the ceiling and saw my friends face peering over the edge at me. "Hi Samhain" she said, smiling comfortingly at me.
"Three, two, one, Wingardium Leviosa" they chorused. I felt myself float up away from Barnaby and Alexi. I couldn't make myself into a ball like Chiara had, so I just stayed as still as I could as I drifted up through the hole.
Finally I was at the opening of the first floor, a foot or two away from Chiara, who still had her wand on me. "Help me bring her closer." Chiara called down the shaft. I was floated inch by inch until I was right next to Chiara. "Alright I can reach her now. Hold the spell as strong as you can, I'm going to drop my wand and pull Samhain over." Chiara instructed them.
I had one terrifying moment where I suddenly fell, but only an inch or two as the others steadied me from below. Chiara grabbed me by the tops of my arms and planting her feet against the wall, hauled me out onto the first floor with a grunt.
I laid on the floor, pale and sweating from the pain in my leg, but very grateful to be out of the morgue.
Chiara told them to wait a minute before sending anyone else up. She retrieved her wand from where she'd dropped it and hurried back to my side, expertly cutting through the fabric of my jeans so she could see what she was doing. I looked away and gritted my teeth as she she cast Brackium Emendo on my broken leg. I heard a snap and felt one too, like my leg had been rebroken. But a minute later the pain started to fade down to just a dull ache.
I hugged Chiara and thanked her quickly, then we moved back to the lift shaft and called down for the next person. Barnaby was sent up while we had equal strength on both sides to steady his weight. Next was Alexi, and then finally Penny who even helped by casting the charm on herself.
Once we were all safely out of the morgue we spent a few minutes doing our best to heal each other's most dire injuries.
Barnaby had some broken ribs and Penny had a long gash across her left shoulder, but she'd already stanched the bleeding on it. Other than that it was mostly cuts and bruises. We were all extremely lucky no one had been killed.
Once we were all back on our feet, we split up into two teams and spread out to help the Healers with whatever we could. Barnaby and I followed Penny down the hall and Chiara and Alexi found a working lift and went up to the floor above.
The morgue definitely had it the worst. As we went along helping here and there I noticed the damage was mostly just structural and would be easy enough to fix when the people had been taken care of. There were some injuries on the first and second floors, but thankfully, no casualties.