This is a response to the following writing prompt. Please read its title & (only the) anchor post before reading the following story . .
The next day, the "miracle of the humans" made all the news channels, as the three injured humans had shown up for work the next day like nothing had happened. None of the three exhibited any sign of their injuries.
Down in the morgue of the central hospital C'zeft, the two dead humans had been rolled up & stuffed in it the "extra-large corpse" drawer, and nearly didn't fit.
Everything was normal until evening shift change, when the oncoming morgue staff arrived to find five Foogah corpses, apparently stricken dead at their workstations. The deceased Foogah were all laying near their workstations in pools of their own fluids.
The evening crew - not knowing what had afflicted the day staff - wasted no time returning to the upstairs administration office to report the baffling incident.
The current admin called hospital security, who brought up the video feed from the morgue from earlier in the day. They fast forwarded through the day shift doing their usual morgue duties until - simultaneously -all the day shift collapsed.
The admin asked the room; "Has anything unusual occurred down the morgue recently?"
The evening morgue shift doctor replied, "other than the dead humans bring brought in two days ago, the schedule's been normal."
"May I?" the administrator gestured at the security datapad. It was handed over and he started flipping through channels until he stopped on a view of the lobby.
Standing beside the front desk was - if the staff hadn't been watching the tri-d and knew better - an ursine from the upper steppes.
It was a human; one of the few on the planet serving as part of the Galacticum's familiarization program for new members. Humans were (at least) half again as tall as the average Foogahn, and far denser than the delicate natives.
The admin fingered a contact on his wrist device; "Deb'roh, this is the admin." On the viewscreen, all could see the receptionist give a little start. "Can you ask the human to join us in the admin office?" the admin continued.
"Me?" Deb'roh squeaked in response.
"Yes, please. Despite appearances, he's not going to bite you".
"O-oo-okay". Deb'roh squeaked, and then squeaked "hello?" at the huge human. He did not respond.
A little louder, Deb'roh exclaimed "excuse me!" in the human's direction but still didn't catch his attention.
She mustered her courage and extended a primehand to give the man a tentative poke on the exposed skin at his wrist. It felt weird; not like skin at all. It was almost like a secon- OH! Silly girl! That was the SocialSuit that all humans wore when out & about in the Galacticum.
She suppressed a giggle at the thought that not only did humans have an uncanny resemblance to the northern großbären, they probably smelled like one, too.
During the moment of her inattentiveness, the human had kneeled down so their heads were level and he asked "May I help you?"
Marvin was a man of many hats at the Terran embassy. Today he was here at the central hospital to meet & transport a notable Foogahn xenobiologist to the embassy in order to help set up a xenomedicine program for native medical practitioners. As time pass, more & more Galacticans would be moving to Foogah and they would need medical services.
The Foogahn scientist could have walked to the meeting, but riding in an embassy transport cut out a lot of bureaucratic rigmarole.
"Honorable, the administrator would like to speak with you; here's a map to his office" she said as she shakily passed Marvin a flimsy with an active map on it.
As Marvin hadn't been on planet long enough to recognize all the genders represented in Foogahn society, just just didn't bother with them. "Thank you", he replied and walked toward the indicated office.
Marvin arrived at the office and palmed the door chime. The door opened and he entered & approached the admin's desk.
"How may I be of service?" he asked.
"We have a mystery at hand" the admin queued up the morgue video from shortly before the staff had collapsed, and let it run to just past that point.
"Our evening staff departed the area rapidly, not knowing exactly what caused the deaths (they feared an airborne pathogen). Our service robots are not designed to work with the weights of humans (much less two) and my thought was that - as a hardy human in a SocialSuit - you could go down and check the place out for us."
"Two dead humans? You mean Mutt & Jeff? I heard they had trouble at the Emperor's gala t'other night, but I didn't think they'd been killed."
"I do not know their names, but those are the two humans in our morgue" the admin confirmed.
"Alrighty, I'll go check it out" Marvin got up and walked toward the door, paused and asked "um, where is the morgue?".
"Since it's in a secure area, these two security officers will show you the way" Marvin was told.
"Okay, after you" Marvin indicated the door to the security officers. "No, honorable, you may walk in honor ahead of us." The security officers may not have been doctors, but they knew better than to let a huge space bear walk behind them.
The officers guided Marvin to the morgue and stood inside the doorway to keep the hatch open while watching the human.
Marvin took a look around from just inside the entrance, walked over to the storage units & silently set up a support in front of the XL morgue drawer.
He quickly yanked the drawer out and slammed it down on the support.
"HEY! WTFBBQ!?" came from the drawer. A clatter came from the doorway as the security officer drew their riot suppressors.
"You fucking slackers! I thought so!" rumbled Marvin toward the morgue drawer.
The two security officers had now backed around the doorway as far as they could while still maintaining an eye line into the morgue. One guard kept his primehand on the hatch to keep it from automatically closing.
A human head (with a beautiful purple robin's egg on his forehead) popped up from the morgue drawer "Marvin! Where the fuck have you been? It's been two days and we're fucking hungry!" said Mutt.
Jeff (with a matching robin's egg on his forehead) popped up with his eyes as wide as could be and a shiteating grin on his face; "WE WANT BRAAAAAIIINNNZZ!" he intoned in a sepulchral voice.
At that point, the three humans could hear a squirt-rattle-flumph-flumph as the two security officers collapsed in their own fluids.
Mutt covered his face with his palms, while Jeff looked over at the mess and stated: "who'da thunk we'd find a species without a funny bone?"
