<strong>Samantha Cole -- Mercy View Hospital, Parktown Avenue, 1:00 AM -- On Call</strong><br/><br/>"Hey Sam, looks like you and Jerry are in for another quiet night," Tony said as he stuffed his gear back into his bag and hefted it over his shoulder. Sam nodded and gave a weak smile. "Here's hoping." She watched as the older man turned and headed for the side exit of the EMT station, his sizable paunch leading the way under his sweat-stained shirt as usual, and leaned back on the beat-up lounge sofa. With its sagging cushions, moth-eaten upholstery and the stack of phone books tucked underneath to replace the missing left front leg, it was almost exactly the same as the one she remembered.<br/><br/>Almost.<br/><br/><em>'Faded. Why is it so faded?'</em>She wondered, a splinter rubbing raw in the back of her mind. And below that, another question. A worse one.<em>'Why does it bother me so much?'</em><br/><br/>Six months she'd been asking herself that question, not just about the sofa but about everything. Something was wrong with the world, something important. Something subtle, unnoticeable. Something huge. Everything was...<em>less</em>, somehow, from the taste of breakfast to the feel of sunlight to the color of blood on the ground at an accident site. It was as if reality had decided to quit, and was just plugging along until its two weeks' notice was up.<br/><br/>She thought about the look on Tony's face as he'd left. He'd been smiling--sort of. Like he wanted to, but he couldn't recall exactly how to do it. Others had been just the same. Expressions were half-hearted, laughter felt like it was being piped in from somewhere far distant, tears barely left tracks down their owners' faces. And it was happening to her, too. For the last few months, Samantha had noticed it not just in others, but in herself as well, this growing sense of apathy, and it disturbed her greatly. Or it would have, except it didn't. Nothing disturbed her, really. Not even the hazy memory of that boy that used to hang around with her all the time. Weren't they close, once? Wasn't he important? She dimly remembered feelings of panic and deep distress, when she woke up one morning and he wasn't around. Vanished, even, gone without a trace.<br/><br/>Samantha had cried that day, and for days afterward. Gut-wrenching, body-wracking sobs that left her exhausted in the way that only genuine hysterics can do. But that had been months ago, and life had seemed to return to normal. Sam couldn't remember now why she was so upset, couldn't even remember his name. She hadn't cried a bit since then. Hadn't felt strongly about anything at all, in fact, and that was the problem.<br/><br/>She had responded with Jerry to the scene of a horrific traffic accident just a couple nights ago and had come upon the body of a small girl, perhaps eight or ten years old, broken and mangled, covered in the gore of what used to be her parents, and barely breathing. She had looked that little girl right in the eyes as she breathed her last, and had felt only a vague notion of disappointment. And the tiny voice in the bottom of her thoughts kept screaming.<br/><br/>As she pondered her situation with all the meager intensity she could muster, Jerry Mason walked in and chucked his gear on the floor near the coffee table. He plopped down in his favorite spot, a patched and thread-bare recliner that he'd brought from home that sat directly in front of the office's small flat screen television, and pulled a small paperback from his back pocket. "Well Cole, here we are. Alone again. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll stay that way," Jerry said casually, briefly glancing at her before burying his nose in the pages.<br/><br/>"What? Oh yeah, yeah," Sam replied, only slightly annoyed at the distraction. As always, Jerry was engrossed in his own world that he probably didn't even hear her answer. Samantha shifted on the couch and stared directly at him. She'd never noticed before how focused he was when he read; it made her wonder if maybe her problem really was just in her head after all. Then she looked at his eyes, and she almost quit breathing.<br/><br/>His eyes weren't moving. Jerry was staring at the pages, long enough to make it look like he was reading, and turning the pages at what seemed like a normal reading speed. But his eyes weren't moving like they should have been, weren't tracking the words at all. So. It wasn't just her. It was Jerry, too. And Tony. And...and, everyone. Everything,<br/><br/>What the hell was going on?<br/><br/>Samantha's train of thought was broken again, this time by the crackling static of the radio intercom.<strong>"EMTs be advised, have a possible 4-29 at 342 Jefferson Blvd., Apartment 4, elderly female complaining of severe chest pains requesting an ambulance, over."</strong>Immediately Sam and Jerry were on their feet and moving toward the garage, keys jangling from Sam's belt. At first Sam was content to simply let training take over as they climbed into the ambulance, but that little voice was just loud enough this time.<br/><em><br/>'No! Not this time. Pay attention, Sam. Something is going on around here, and I'm going to find out what it is if it's the last thing I do...'</em>