For failure, see your feathers stripped
Let all your children's fates be tipped
The early death of eldest son
The firstborn's mind to come undone
The second one to kill and rage
The third to live within my cage
-Demeter's curse on the Siren, Teles
…..
Her eyes were stinging. Something was dripping into her eyes, and her lids closed reflexively. There was a spike in the ambient noise around her-ambient? No, it was a panicky bustle. Someone was sobbing. The voice sounded familiar. She put her fingers to her lips. No, it wasn't her, her lips weren't moving.
Something was passing in front of her face. Several somethings. Sticks, maybe. No, fingers. She blinked again. Who had taken her glasses?
The same sound was being made over and over. Her lips moved in automatic response. Was that her name? What was her name?
Vivi. Vivi was her name. How could she have forgotten? What a silly thing to forget.
Something was wrong. She squinted, feeling for her glasses. She always left them on the nightstand. Her hand knocked against a plastic guardrail and she froze. She had no plastic guardrail. The fingers now held her chin, forcing her to stare into a stranger's eyes. The stranger was moving his mouth and pointing a light in her eyes. She tried to pull her face back, but the grip held firm.
The sounds were beginning to form themselves into words. She could hear her name being called, and someone was crying. She knew that voice, but she still couldn't place it.
"Can you hear me?" the stranger said insistently, as if he'd been saying this all along.
"Yeah, I can hear you, what's going on? Where are my glasses?" She reached for her nightstand again-there was no nightstand. "Where are my glasses?" she repeated. She could feel the plastic frames tucked into her hands, and she fumbled them onto her face. Her hands were shaking, she noted. Why were they shaking?
Squire was screaming. Her legs swung off the bed-she was in a hospital bed?-and her feet hit the floor. The stranger grabbed her arm, restraining her. "Miss, you need to stay in bed, you're in shock and you shouldn't be up."
"My friend is screaming and you expect me to sit down?" she demanded.
"We're doing everything we can for him. The sedatives will kick in shortly and we'll be able to operate."
"Operate?" She blanched. "Wh-what are you talking about? Why are we in the hospital? What happened?"
"That's what we'd like to know, Miss. Your ID says Vivi Kimura. Your friend is identified as Arthur Kingsman, and the ID on the body said Lewis Pepper."
Stars burst behind her eyes as her head throbbed. Had it been throbbing this whole time and she'd just noticed? She wobbled, and the stranger-Doctor, she corrected herself-laid her back down. "What happened to Squire?"
"It looks like he was mauled by an animal. We're doing all we can for him, but did you see the animal? Mr. Kingsman is unable to answer at the moment, and it would help us to know what attacked him."
Vivi shook her head. "I didn't see anything, we were just driving around, and suddenly I'm here. Did we get in a wreck?"
"No, the van is intact. We're having it towed from the cave."
"Cave?" Vivi echoed.
"You were found just outside a cave with Mr. Kingsman. We received his call, but he passed out by the time the ambulance arrived. Your dog is being kept in the pound until you can reclaim him."
"But we weren't at a cave, we were driving!" she insisted. "Arthur and Mystery and me, we were looking for a good haunt to stakeout."
"And Mr. Pepper," the doctor added.
Vivi stared blankly at the man. "Who?"
"Mr. Pepper. His body was recovered from the cave."
"I'm sorry for him, but I don't know who that is. He wasn't with us."
The doctor studied her for a moment. "Miss Kimura, have you been drinking tonight? Have you ingested any recreational drugs?"
Vivi's shoulders tensed. "I take Lamictal, nothing else, and I don't drink."
The doctor nodded, taking notes on a clipboard. "Any trouble with PTSD or dissociation?"
"I thought you were a doctor, not a shrink," she snapped. "No, none of that. What's going on?"
"I'm going to need the name and number of your prescribing psychiatrist." He deflected her question with unsettling calm.
"Fine, where's my purse?"
He handed her the large blue purse, and she dug through it. If she could get to her cellphone, she could call Lance. Squire would need him right away. Maybe she could get Kay to come too, she always knew how to calm him down, and he'd need all the support he could get. After she gave the doctor her psychiatrist's number, of course.
Her hand hit hard plastic, and she retrieved her phone from the depths. The casing was cracked, and a line split down the image on the custom cover. She frowned, peering at the cartoon on the back. It didn't look familiar. When had she gotten a purple alpaca on her phone?
Pain split down her skull to the base of her neck and she fell back on the bed, gasping. She could hear the doctor calling for help as darkness sucked at the edge of her vision. Hands searched her arms for veins, poking needles into her skin as she slipped farther into darkness.
…..
Note: THIS IS A NEW FIC COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO THE THICKER THAN WATER SERIES. Going to experiment with quite a few things here, from concepts to style. Ongoing feedback appreciated, so I can adjust if it doesn't work or make enough sense. Also, I made that quote up. Demeter said no such thing. But she did curse the sirens...