—⏰
…ep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep, bee…
Their eyes don’t open, rather light seeps in until the image of the lamp above them forms. It seems almost whiter than the ceiling surrounding it. Whiter than the walls surrounding them both. Whiter than the sheets of the bed surrounding just them.
They don’t inspect the room, rather they let their head fall to the side and their brain takes in its surroundings on its own. An empty room. Stemming from an empty corridor. With an empty chair.
They don’t react, rather they exist. The heart monitor is a just sound. The dried blood and disinfectant are just smells. The tubes and wires and aches are just feelings.
And they just are.
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happy wip wednesday and first day of nanowrimo y'all
tagged by @socially-awkward-skeleton (tysm~ <3)
tagging @trench-rot, @cassietrn, @strangefable, @voidika, @madparadoxum, @aceghosts, @adelaidedrubman, @josephslittledeputy, @inafieldofdaisies, @g0dspeeed, @simplegenius042, @miyabilicious, @strafethesesinners, @confidentandgood, @jillvalentinesday, @poetikat, and anyone else with something to share! (also to be added/removed to the taglist, please like/unlike this post here)
here's the intro to the scene directly after this halloween treat i posted of syb getting bit and her transformation. she's havin' a normal one. tw for emetophobia
Sybille comes to consciousness to the light of dawn filtering through the canopy of leaves overhead.
Her head is pounding, a throbbing pain trapped inside her skull, and she winces as she hesitantly cracks her eyes open. She lets out a groan. The world is overwhelmingly bright. Most of the trees in the county are still changing colors, but here in the mountains, a good number have started to shed their leaves. What little shade they can provide, it isn’t enough to spare the burning to her eyes.
She lies on the ground, naked as the day she was born, and covered in dirt and blood. She sits up and presses her palm to her forehead, and the second she does, her body is set alight with pain. Every muscle screams at her with an ache so deep that it goes down to the marrow of her bones. Shallow cuts and scratches are littered across her body, from the soles of her bare feet to the blood trickling down her cheek. Yet, while the pain flashes white-hot through her, she’s also fucking freezing. The hair on her arms and back of neck stand on end and through chattering teeth, her breath comes out in visible puffs in front of her. A violent shudder rolls through her, her body desperately trying to ward off the chill.
“Jesus Christ,” she moans, and she runs her hand through her hair, knocking loose leaves, twigs, and pine needles. The sweet, coppery tang of blood sits heavy on the back of her tongue and in her throat, and as she runs her tongue over her teeth — normal teeth — she finds sinewy bits of meat stuck between them.
Her stomach clenches and heaves at the realization and she rolls over onto her hands and knees to expel the rising bile. Only it isn’t just her own stomach acid that splatters onto the forest floor below her. An inordinate amount of blood and chunky pieces of partially digested meat and viscera splash below her. Her throat burns and her eyes sting, prickling with tears, as more and more blood erupts from her mouth. Jesus Christ, this all can’t be hers, can it?
It ain’t. Just deer’s blood.
She gasps her way through the dry-heaves once she’s expelled the last of it from her stomach, grimacing at what appears to be flecks of bone floating in the pool beneath her. Her belly aches, empty and cramping, and she spits a thick, foamy pink wad onto the ground. Wiping the blood and spittle dripping off her chin, she takes a moment to catch her breath. Ragged pants eventually even out into deeper, rasping inhalations that actually fill her lungs.
“Okay,” she wheezes. “We’re okay…we’re okay…”
She lifts her head — to take in her surroundings and get her bearings — but as she does, she’s met with the bloody carcass of an elk right in front of her. Its belly is ripped wide open, with its entrails spilling out onto the ground. Dead, milky white eyes stare back at her, and a fly crawls right over one of them, pausing directly on the eyeball to clean itself of the blood on its little insect legs.
The kill is fresh. No more than an hour or two old. The blood and body are still warm, and the distinctive stench of rot has yet to set in, although she can definitely tell that it’s beginning to sour.
It’s almost a shame to let so much meat go to waste.
And then she catches the chunky bits of meat sitting in her vomit-blood and the color drains from her face. All signs point to the poor elk being killed by an animal — wolves — but why would they abandon their prey instead of bringing pieces back to their pack? And why would they have let her get so close to such a fresh kill? Why the fuck did she, in what she can only assume was a fugue state, feel compelled to partake in feeding off this kill?
And why does she have the urge to press her fingers into the gaping wound and lick the thick, clotting blood off her fingers?
She shakes her head to free the thought. The dizziness is enough of a distraction to drown out the intrusive thought, but not to quiet it entirely. She’s so thirsty. She’s so hungry.
She was hungry last night, too, wasn’t she?
Her head throbs again, and she crawls over to a nearby tree to lean against as she shakily rises to her feet. Pressing her hand to her forehead again, she screws her eyes shut, trying to recall the events of last night. The fuck happened?
She remembers dicking around at the office with Joey.
She remembers Nancy patching a call through to her desk phone.
She remembers Jacob’s voice on the other end. “One of my workers didn’t show up for the final check-in…no one’s been able to get a hold of him…we rounded up a search party…he’s stew meat now.”
She remembers driving up to the Veterans Center, only to find the place empty. And then…
And then…
Christ, what happened after that? Her jaw clenches, trying to focus on her memories, but all she gets is a blur of emotions. Fear, pain, rage, and then, eventually, hunger.
Hunger…
God, she’s so hungry her gums ache.
But her stomach can wait. She needs to find her way back to the Veterans Center and get back to her cruiser. She needs to let the Sheriff’s Department know what’s going on. Let them know about last night.
She needs to let Eli know she’s alright.
Shit, where are her clothes?
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Nico waking up and he doesn't know who he is. He asks Hazel where he is - where's his kid, where's his wife. Hazel sits with him and assures him he's fine while everyone watches confused. He was sick for a bit, she tells him, and now he's just recovering. He'll get to go home soon.
She is comforting and warm and he relaxes a bit. Minutes pass by, turn into hours, and his memories come back. The knowledge that he is him. He is not the dead man who left behind a wife and child after being robbed at knifepoint. He is not the little girl choking to death with asthmatic weak lungs that won't inhale and a mother who doesn't care. He is not the old woman wondering where her husband is.
He is Nico. Son of Hades and Maria di Angelo. He is not dead, not yet. He is not survived by anyone, not yet.
Hazel holds his hand the whole time and he comes back to her weary smile and sighs shallowly as the edges of her face bloom back into his memory. Hazel, his sister. There are other people on the periphery but he focuses on her. Her brown skin. Her brown eyes. Her thick curly black hair. Her warm hands. The bracelet on her wrist.
Her voice beckoning him back.
"His wife looked like you," Nico says. "A little taller though. Older."
He was twenty-six. She'd been in his life since they were five, playing in the sandbox. She'd screamed at another kid for taking her shovel and he'd fallen in love immediately. Nico's heart holds onto that love, twenty-one years, even as the man's world fades. Slowly the love seeps away too, and he's just left with a strange longing for a life that wasn't his.
A life that doesn't exist anymore.
"Is he okay?" Hazel asks.
He closes his eyes and exhales shaky. There's a vicious pain in his abdomen. Another lingering ache in his throat. Screams still echo even as the world fades into wispy colours and a strange man telling him it's time to go.
"He's okay," Nico says, because there isn't any other answer he can give.
The man is dead. The man who lived twenty-six years and had a wife he loved from childhood and a daughter whose young hands never left his own as he laid bleeding on hot tarmac. The man who heard crying and pleads to stay just a little longer, to just hang in there, and couldn't. Try as he might, as hard he wanted to, he couldn't stay.
It was time to go.
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+⏰ let them have something good plz
DIIIIIING duh du dun. duh du dun. duh du dun. dun
No Name sat bolt upright at the first note, whereas Pollut had jumped awake and was hissing at the laptop. Even after No Name — humming along to the song — had turned it off he continued to chitter and snarl unhappily.
“D’y wan me ta stop too?” (Do you want me to stop too?)
Pollut gave a chirp then curled up even tighter. No Name had put a tarpaulin on the floor for the grafaiai to sleep on; supposedly sleeping in the same room helped pokémon get acclimated to their new trainer more than if they slept in the ball. No Name had gotten an old pal to make his heal ball “free roam”, along with the rest of their gang’s to give them all the option of where they sleep.
No Name nodded and got back to getting ready for the day. There was so much to do before they could properly open their studio to the masses, the main one being synergy detection. They’d set up the process back in Galar, four days ago now when they were meant to be setting up for the Wednestern Swing lunch at Jam Out. They really wanted to get it done on the Monday, just have it out the way. Wait. Wednesday, four days…
They went back the laptop and checked the screen for information. Pollut was upset again, starting to chitter until he was spoken over. Well, growled over. Nails digging into the back of their neck and slowly dragging down and around to their collar, No Name’s frustration was palpable. The growl turned into a defeated sigh. Then a weak chuckle.
They reverted their morning changes back into sleepwear as quietly as they had made them, easing themself onto bed when ready for a bit more rest. Then Pollut squeaked.
“Y proper wae nuw, aincha?” (You’re proper awake now, aren’t you?)
This seemed all but confirmed when the tarp loudly crinkled. Pollut must be moving about or trying to get his own back for being woken up. That was until the black plastic hit No Name’s leg. They sat up in time to watch the pokémon jump onto the tarp, now on the bed. They locked eyes in the relative dark as Pollut settled himself. No Name laughed quietly and laid back down. As they closed their eyes, something warm pressed against the side of their leg.
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