The air in Seattle Grace-Mercy-Doom Hospital smelled of antiseptic and sexual tension.
Elara Vance woke up standing. She was running. Why was she running? She looked down. She was wearing blue scrubs that fit perfectly but were somehow incredibly flattering. A stethoscope hung around her neck like a heavy, rubber albatross.
"Move it, Intern!" a nurse screamed, shoving a clipboard into Elara's hands. "We have a Code Blue, a Code Red, and a Code Beige in the E.R.! And Dr. McSteamy is crying in the elevator again!"
"Where am I?" Elara gasped, skidding around a corner.
She crashed into a gurney. Lying on the gurney, looking pale and tragically beautiful, was Aldren Vance.
"Elara," Aldren whispered, clutching a hospital gown that was open in the back. "I am dying."
"You're a vampire," Elara panted, checking his chart. "You're already dead."
"I am dying of... Ennui," Aldren sighed dramatically. "The lighting in this hallway is fluorescent. It drains my soul. Also, I have a hangnail. It is a terminal hangnail."
"Cut!" Barry Bannington's voice boomed over the hospital intercom. "Aldren, more agony! Elara, more urgency! This is a Medical Drama! Everything is life or death, even the paperwork!"
"Barry!" Elara yelled at the ceiling. "I didn't go to medical school! I don't know how to save people!"
"You don't need medical knowledge!" Barry shouted. "You just need to shout 'Stat' and 'Push one of Epi'! Now, get to the O.R.! Dr. Wusheng is waiting!"
The Operating Room
Elara pushed Aldren's gurney into the Operating Room.
Standing over the operating table, wearing a surgical mask and a headband that said HEALER, was Li Wusheng.
"The patient's Qi is blocked," Li announced gravely. He wasn't holding a scalpel. He was holding a stick of incense. "We must perform an emergency Feng Shui adjustment on his liver."
"Li," Elara said. "That's not how surgery works."
"Silence, Intern!" Li snapped. "I am the Chief of Surgery. I have watched eighteen seasons of House. I know that it is never Lupus."
"It's not Lupus," Aldren agreed from the table. "It is the weight of immortality."
"Anesthesia!" Li barked.
Ignis walked in. He was wearing scrubs that were bursting at the seams. He held a giant rubber mallet.
"I am the Anesthesiologist," Ignis grunted.
"Where are the drugs?" Elara asked.
"Drugs are expensive," Ignis said. "This is cost-effective."
He raised the mallet.
"Wait!" Aldren shrieked. "I demand a second opinion!"
BONK.
Ignis hit Aldren on the head. Aldren went limp.
"Patient is sedated," Ignis reported. "Also, I ate the lollipops in the lobby. The children cried."
"Good work," Li said. "Scalpel."
Elara handed him a scalpel. Li threw it against the wall.
"Too sharp!" Li yelled. "I need... The Hand of Mercy."
Li held up his glowing hand. "I shall perform psychic surgery! I will remove the Ennui without breaking the skin!"
Suddenly, the gallery doors above the O.R. opened. A man looked down. He leaned on a cane. He had a stubble beard and eyes that looked like they had seen too many misdiagnoses.
Dr. Gregory Manor.
"You're all idiots," Dr. Manor rasped. "It's not Ennui. It's a parasitic alien worm from the History Channel universe you just left."
"Dr. Manor!" Li gasped. "The maverick genius who hates patients!"
"The patient is turning green," Dr. Manor pointed with his cane. "If you don't extract the parasite in thirty seconds, he explodes. And that will ruin the sterile field."
Elara looked down. Aldren was indeed turning a shade of lime green.
"He's right!" Elara panicked. "Barry! What do we do?"
"Drama!" Barry yelled from the speakers. "We need a personal conflict! Elara, confess your love for the surgeon while the patient flatlines!"
"I don't love the surgeon!" Elara yelled. "He's my roommate!"
"Then confess your love for the Anesthesiologist!"
Ignis blinked. "I am open to a relationship, but my heart belongs to kebabs."
"Focus!" Dr. Manor yelled. "The worm is moving! It's heading for his Ego!"
"I got this," Li said. "Iron Palm... Defibrillator!"
Li rubbed his hands together until they sparked with blue lightning.
"Clear!"
He slammed his palms onto Aldren's chest.
ZAP.
Aldren convulsed. His mouth opened. A tiny, green, alien worm crawled out.
"It exits!" Li cheered.
"Grab it!" Elara yelled.
Ignis snatched the worm. He looked at it.
"Don't eat it," Elara warned.
"It looks like a gummy worm," Ignis whispered.
"Ignis!"
Ignis threw the worm into the biohazard bin. "Fine. But it is a waste of protein."
Aldren sat up. He gasped. "I saw... a tunnel. And at the end... there was a buffet. But they only served garlic bread. It was hell."
"He lives!" Li raised his hands. "The surgery is a success! My ratings are secure!"
The On-Call Room
"Okay, cut!" Barry called. "Great scene! But the network says it was too clinical. We need more soap opera."
The scene shifted.
Elara found herself in the On-Call Room. It was a small room with a bunk bed and dim lighting.
Aldren was sitting on the bed, shirtless (again).
"Why are you shirtless?" Elara asked, exhausted.
"It is the protocol of the On-Call Room," Aldren said. "This room exists solely for illicit romances and crying. I am currently doing the crying."
"Why?"
"Because," Aldren looked at the wall. "I am a vampire doctor. I save lives... but I take them. The duality... it tears me apart."
"You're a vampire blogger," Elara corrected. "You haven't saved anyone."
"I saved myself," Aldren whispered, leaning in close. "From loneliness."
The music swelled. An acoustic guitar started playing a sad indie song.
"Oh no," Elara groaned. "The soundtrack. It's happening."
"Elara," Aldren murmured, staring into her eyes with 500 years of manufactured angst. "You are just an Intern. I am a specialized Attending Vampire. We cannot be together. The hierarchy forbids it."
"Good," Elara said. "Because I don't want to be together."
"But we must!" Aldren grabbed her shoulders. "The ratings demand a 'Will-They-Won't-They' arc! If we don't kiss, the demographic will switch to The Real Housewives of Atlantis!"
"I refuse to kiss for ratings!" Elara shouted.
Suddenly, the door burst open.
It wasn't a nurse. It was Dr. Manor.
"You two make me sick," Manor grunted. "Love is a chemical defect. Also, we have a mass casualty event."
"What?" Elara pushed Aldren away.
"A bus crashed," Manor said. "A bus full of... Mimes."
"Not Mimes again," Elara groaned.
"They are flooding the E.R.," Manor said. "They are trapped in invisible boxes. They are walking against the wind. The triage nurses are confused. We need everyone downstairs."
The E.R. of Silence
The Emergency Room was chaos, but silent chaos.
Dozens of Mimes (Public Domain assets) were running around. Some were clutching invisible wounds. Others were pulling infinite ropes.
"Help them!" Li Wusheng shouted, running into the fray. "I will diagnose their invisible injuries!"
Li grabbed a Mime who was clutching his chest.
"Sir! Can you speak?"
The Mime shook his head frantically. He pantomimed a heart breaking.
"A broken heart?" Li gasped. "Code Blue! We need 50 CCs of Ice Cream and a Rom-Com, stat!"
Jen (who was now the Hospital Administrator) marched in, wearing a power suit.
"This is inefficient!" Jen yelled, checking her clipboard. "These Mimes don't have insurance! They are paying in 'Imaginary Money'! We are losing revenue!"
"Jen, save the patients, not the budget!" Elara shouted, bandaging a Mime who was pretending to have a severed leg.
"I am the Administrator!" Jen roared. "If they can't pay, they get discharged!"
Jen grabbed a Mime. She spun him around.
"You!" Jen pointed to the door. "You are healed! It's a miracle! Get out!"
The Mime looked at his leg. He jumped up and down. He gave a thumbs up and moonwalked out of the hospital.
"She is curing them with capitalism!" Aldren marveled. "It is a dark magic."
"Administrator!" Dr. Manor limped over. "We have a problem. The Mimes... they aren't just injured. They're infectious."
"Infectious?"
Elara looked around.
One of the nurses—a regular human—was suddenly standing still. She touched an invisible wall. She started wearing a striped shirt.
"It's a virus!" Elara realized. "The Silent Plague. It turns everyone into Mimes!"
"It's airborne!" Manor coughed. He touched his throat. He tried to speak, but no sound came out.
Dr. Manor's eyes went wide. He started pulling an invisible rope.
"We lost Manor!" Li screamed. "The cynic has been silenced!"
"We need a cure!" Elara yelled. "Quick! What is the opposite of a Mime?"
"Noise!" Ignis shouted. "Loud, obnoxious noise!"
"Rex!" Elara turned to the Bard. "Do you have your guitar?"
Rex (who was dressed as a paramedic) nodded. "Always."
"Play!" Elara commanded. "Play the most annoying song in the universe! Break the silence!"
Rex grinned. He plugged his guitar into the E.R. defibrillator.
"Anyway," Rex whispered. "Here's Wonderwall."
STRUUUUUM.
He didn't just play Wonderwall. He played a distorted, heavy metal, out-of-tune version of Wonderwall at 120 decibels.
The sound wave hit the E.R. like a physical blow.
The Mimes shrieked (silently). They covered their ears.
"LOUDER!" Elara screamed.
Rex cranked the volume. "TODAY IS GONNA BE THE DAY!"
The glass windows shattered. The invisible boxes shattered.
The Mime Virus couldn't survive the acoustic assault. The striped shirts dissolved. The face paint melted.
Dr. Manor gasped. "I... I hate everyone."
"He's cured!" Li cheered.
"We did it!" Aldren struck a pose. "The power of bad music saves the day!"
The Transfer
"Cut!" Barry Bannington's voice announced.
The E.R. froze. The Mimes vanished.
Barry walked onto the set, stepping over shattered glass.
"Brilliant!" Barry clapped. "The Mime outbreak? Genius. The musical resolution? A little derivative, but the demographic loves 90s covers."
"Can we go home now?" Elara asked, dropping her stethoscope.
"Home?" Barry laughed. "Elara, baby, you're a star! The Medical Drama numbers were through the roof! But..."
He checked his tablet.
"The focus group says the hospital setting is too 'sterile'. They want something more... adversarial."
"No," Elara backed away. "No more genres."
"We're moving you to the 8:00 PM slot," Barry said. "Primetime. High stakes. The ultimate drama."
The hospital set began to dissolve. The walls turned into dark wood paneling. The gurneys turned into jury boxes.
"You're going to Law & Order: Void Victims Unit," Barry grinned.
"A courtroom drama?" Jen asked. "But we already did a trial in the last volume!"
"This isn't a metaphysical trial," Barry said. "This is a procedural. One of you is the District Attorney. One is the Cop who plays by his own rules. And one..."
He pointed at Ignis.
"...is the Judge."
"I get a gavel?" Ignis asked, eyes lighting up.
"You get a gavel."
"Is it made of wood?"
"Yes."
"I will eat the gavel."
"Please don't," Barry sighed. "Action!"
DUN-DUN. (The Law & Order sound effect played).