Whumptober Day 19!

Link to the Ao3:https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210837/chapters/86145226

Title: Stabbed - Darcie

Prompt: No. 19 ‘Just A Scratch’ - bitten, bleeding, stabbing

Trigger Warnings: blood, physical abuse

Word Count: 1578

Don’t scream.

Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream…

She didn’t scream - she just grunted softly and waited for her Teacher to step away, leaving the blade embedded in her lower abdominal while she watched for the signal that she could begin. The first two minutes after receiving a major wound were always the hardest but Stormrkrigeren refused to allow the pain to get the better of her, standing patiently to attention as Mister Wilson glanced from his watch to the digital clock on the far wall of the Room, silently counting down the seconds.

She breathed slowly, carefully, doing her best not to disturb the knife still buried in her skin. It was bleeding profusely - as was to be expected from a stab wound - and most of the front of her shirt and a part of her pants were covered in the hot, sticky gore, yet Stormkrigeren had at least another minute before she could be allowed to treat it. Today’s lesson was in emergency medical self-treatment, and the goal was for her to successfully stop the bleeding and close the hole before she lost thirty percent of her blood.

Even if allowing yourself to be stabbed just so you could practice treating it was something that most, if not all, doctors would not suggest, Stormkrigeren knew that there was very little danger in the situation. She herself had recently passed her combat medic specialist exam, making her a certified emergency practitioner like Mister Wilson, and Dr. Schreyer (who was currently monitoring the lesson from the Watching Room) had a doctoral degree in paediatrics - if anything were to go wrong, either one of them could step in.

Nothing would go wrong. Stormkrigeren knew the procedure and was working in a sterile environment with everything she needed scattered in various corners around her Room (definitely not the most optimal situation, but done to increase the difficulty by forcing her to move around while injured).

Twenty seconds left now. Her stomach was throbbing painfully, but still she refused to so much as flinch at the discomfort and focused all of her attention wholly on Mister Wilson. Her Teacher was eyeing the stopwatch with his usual look of neutral annoyance, silently counting down the moments before she could begin. Stormkrigeren saw when he raised his chin and brought it down in a sharp nod in her direction, the signal that her two minutes was up - and that her time was running out.

She reacted immediately, pulling the knife out of her skin as quickly and cleanly as she could (biting her lip to hold back a scream as she did) while ignoring the sudden gush of hot blood that came with it as Stormkrigeren moved on to the next step - stopping the bleeding. Her previously-clean shirt was yanked over her head and folded into a halfway-decent makeshift bandage which she pressed firmly against the wound, knowing that she had to halt the flow of blood as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, moving around would slow the process down quite a bit, but she had to get the gauze and tape for the next step.

There were three unlabeled cardboard boxes containing exactly what she needed to treat the injury scattered around her Room. Stormkrigeren started making her way towards the nearest one, keeping her makeshift bandage pressed firmly against her stomach as she tried to walk without overusing her lower abdominals. Reaching the box, she pried it open with one hand and swore silently when she discovered that it only contained a bottle of sanitary saline solution used for cleaning wounds - it would be useful in a few minutes, but was not her first priority.

Stormkrigeren shoved the bottle into the hem of her loose training pants (which were quickly turning into a dark crimson instead of their usual gray) and took a deep breath to calm the painful throbbing in her abdomen as she hobbled towards the next box. This time, luck was with her and the contents were exactly what she needed: sanitary gauze and medical tape.

She wasted no time, immediately dropping into a sitting position that didn’t put too much strain on her core muscles and carefully removing her makeshift shirt-bandage to check on the wound. Damn, it was still bleeding pretty badly, though not as bad as when she had started, which was a miracle considering how much she had been moving around. No matter - she had the tools necessary to stop it, and Stormkrigeren got to work covering the injury with a decently-sized wad of gauze to soak up the blood, taping it in place in order to prevent it from moving around and to maintain constant pressure on the wound.

One thing was for sure: bleeding out was definitely the worst part of getting stabbed.

She eventually managed to staunch the flow, or at least slow it enough that she wasn’t too worried about losing any more blood as she stood up once more to move on to the next step sitting a few meters away on the floor. Reaching the third and final box, she ripped it open and quickly began sorting its contents - packing gauze, gauze sponge, bandages - everything she would need to finish tending the wound. Setting the tools well within reach, Stormkrigeren dropped back down to the concrete floor and laid down to begin the task. Even though she had put the new bandage on only a few minutes before, its purpose was temporary and by the feel of things, it had already done the job of stopping the blood flow decently well. Stormkrigeren carefully peeled the blood-stained gauze off of her stomach, and satisfied that the injury had mostly stopped bleeding, she got to work.

She managed to get it decently sanitized by squirting saline solution into the wound and the area around it, refusing to allow the stinging pain to register in her mind as she instead focused on getting the packing gauze damp with solution as well. Wringing the gauze out to get rid of any excess liquid, Stormkrigeren took a deep breath and began the hard part.

The packing gauze was for… well, packing. It was folded into dense, absorbent pads of gauze and carefully packed inside the wound to absorb any excess blood, filling the hollow space to prevent any organs or muscles from shifting uncomfortably during the healing process. Stormkrigeren had done this before and was ready for the pain of having something that was definitely not supposed to be there inside of her body, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. She bit back another moan as she slowly pressed the gauze into place, wincing as it refused to easily enter the hole in her skin - damn, it was being troublesome and taking much longer than she would have liked. But eventually the wound and the packing complied, and Stormkrigeren was able to move on to the next step: dressing the injury. That didn’t take long at all, only requiring her to put a few layers of gauze and bandage over the wound to soak up any extra blood, cover the patch with a decent amount of tape, and move on.

The final task to complete was to return the blade to her Teacher, signalling the end of the exercise. Unfortunately, Stormkrigeren had dropped it almost immediately after pulling it out a few minutes before, and she stumbled to her feet to retrieve it just as she realized a few other mistakes had been made on her part.

Her first, and most punishable mistake had been to leave the knife where it had fallen - in a real-world situation, an assailant could have grabbed it and easily used it against her a second time while Stormkrigeren was disabled by the wound. Her second mistake was not collecting all of the necessary medical kit in one fell swoop, wasting precious time to check on the wound that was obviously still bleeding every time she stopped at a box. And lastly, her third mistake had been almost inevitable, and that was the trail of blood spots dotting the usually-pristine concrete floor, clearly marking where Stormkrigeren had been and making an easy path for any assailants to follow.

There was one thing in her favor, and that was the fact that this particular exercise was based on timing and precision, not mistakes. Stormkrigeren silenced the fatal little voice in her head calling her a failure for missing such crucial errors with that thought, and quickly scooped up the knife from where she had left it to return it to her Teacher.

Mister Wilson silently accepted the blade, pulling a clean rag out of his back pocket to wipe her blood off of the steel before replacing it in its sheath and clicking the button on the side of the stopwatch - task complete. Stormkrigeren watched his left eyebrow twitch upwards at the sight of her time, but her Teacher made no comment on it and turned the device so that she could see the little black numbers indicating her success.

Twelve minutes, twenty-eight seconds.

Huh. Not too bad. Certainly not optimal, considering that a human could die from hemorrhaging in as little as five minutes - but then again, twelve-and-a-half minutes was pretty damn good for treating the wound herself. Not bad at all.

Though Stormkrigeren would admit that physical training would be nothing short of a pain in the ass - or stomach rather - for the next week or so.