.. .. ... ... .. .. . . . . .

Fingers twine around your wrist, holding your arm steady.

Breathe, breathe. Stop shaking.

The tension in your mind diminished after you awoke from your sleep. It is intensifying again, tightening like a collar around your neck, cutting off proper thoughts and reasoning. Your eyes dart from side to side, expecting the shadows cast by the bright overhead light to take life and become the manifestation of the fear that seeks to destroy you from within. You soothe yourself with a fresh breath of air. Each inhalation is preceded by a reminder to draw in a clean breath and empty yourself of stale air from the last failed attempt at replenishing your strength. Your right arm raises to stroke your left arm higher up above the injection point, and the scientist gives you a dull, annoyed glance.

"Don't make me sedate you."

You sigh, turning your head away to gaze at the crisp white wall that faded to gray in the shadows. You force your muscles to relax before another injected fluid commands them to. You hate the feel of the sedatives, your weakness is splayed out for the world to see and you haven't the wit about you to keep your shoulders up. It's bad enough to have to put up with one injection that night, much less two as punishment for your failed attempt at keeping yourself in check.

The sterile sting of rubbing alcohol on the cotton ball feels like an ice cube against your skin as the man cleans your arm in preparation. A grunt is his only reply as you involuntarily shift your arm in the tight hold of his hand in reaction to the chill. Annoyance mists in his young brown eyes, as if he would rather be doing anything but this.
{So would I,} you think dimly. Does he believe you enjoy this?

It's not this bad every day. Today there's a tension in the air - no, if it were merely in the air, it would be discarded quickly. This tension throbs in your temples and rushes through your veins, its electricity through your head and your heart and your soul, deadening your senses and quickening your breath. It's like a murmur of souls in your ear, constant, unabiding to your pleas, unapologetic to your cries.

You only cry in silence. Anything more falls under shame worse than the pain itself.

Your nerves jolt and suddenly your vision narrows on the silver fang that penetrates your skin and violates your blood with whatever venom it may hold. Your breath is caught, the stale air held into your deadened lungs and the fresh air suddenly too far from your reach. You struggle, without reason, your body summoning an outer energy and you thrill at the new sensation. The vice-like grip on your wrist tightens and the needle empties its substance into your system.

As the last droplet goes in, you thrash away. The needle has no time to be pulled out before it is torn out by a hand that feels very much not your own, but surprisingly at second glance, indeed is.

The man knits his eyebrows and his lips part in shock. Blood trickles from the wound, painting the marble table in vibrant red speckles. The overhead lighting is reflected in the bloody mirrors, and annoyance turns to anger. You disregard the pain as a shudder runs through you.

You raise one dangling foot and push against the slick marble table, shoving yourself back and leaving a red smear on both the surface of the table and your underfoot. Suddenly, your senses become shockingly acute and the smell of your own blood sickens you. {No, no no...}

The scientist eyes you with a look deserving to a maniac, yanking your wrist forward with anger-fueled force, trying to get your body under control, something you can't even do yourself.

One of your frighteningly not-uncommon panic attacks, but this one is horrible. Your pulse is pounding like a drum against that hand squeezing your wrist. The droplets of blood keep spilling forth, repulsing you further and further. Your head pounds, the icy tinge of alcohol soaked flesh painted scarlet beckons your eyes and locks them to the spot where the injection took place. You shudder, teeth clamping together until not even fresh air can slip in. Your lungs start to cramp with starvation. Your eyes fall closed, only a crescent of green visible under heavy lids. You barely notice when your hand tightens around the man's wrist.

He gasps quietly under your strong grip, tugging away minutely at first, testing your strength, then harder and more frantically as your fingers tighten.

"Stop it, Sephiroth."

The words do not translate. Your eyes are fixed on the red splotch on your arm that long since quit producing blood. Your lips part and you exhale a long hiss of repressed, dead air.

"Stop, I said. Are you listening to me?!"

Years seem piled on your shoulders. Your heavy body slumps forward, but still persistently your feet shove you backward until you feel the spackled, prickly wall against your back. You've drug the scientist with you. Your knuckles are turning white from the pressure with which you squeeze his wrist. Your vision is white. Your thoughts are white, like snow. Drifting. Torrential. Nothing.

"Stop, stop it!"

His voice is nothing more than a distraction. It will stop soon enough.

"Let me go, I said stop!!!"

"...stop."

The voice was soft as silk, a mere breath on the wind. You realize it was your own. The word seems alien on your numb lips. You say it again.

The man looks at you with widened eyes, and tugs away with more fear than you've seen or felt in eons. But then again, your memory at the moment, is dead. There is no past. Only now. Only breaths, only blinks. Squeeze harder. Don't let go. No pain. No hurt. No fear. Only now. Breathe.

"Oh, shit, jesus! Let me go. Let me go let me- -"

The man finally buckles under the pain as the first crackle of bone splintering destroys the thick air like a fire devouring oxygen. Your mind is nothing but a buzz. You squeeze harder.

crackle...

"Augh..!"

Finally, the door swings open. Your eyes snap up from their disillusioned state and your white hand recoils from the now purple flesh of the man's wrist. Your hand lays delicately over your heart as the rhythm slows.

The two scientists, both female, gaze down at the obvious evidence of your crime. One stares accusatorally at you, the other in utter shock, both with traces of fear in their spirits. It frightens you the way you can read them at the moment with a mere thought, as if you can taste what their minds are saying to themselves, no barriers barring you back, not even physical.

Your lips quirk up into a smirk. You can't seem to decide why, but your soul is pleasured as their attention slowly drifts off of you and onto the man's shattered wristbone.

You curl your legs up and rest your head on your knees, idly rocking yourself from side to side while the excitement transfers from you to those fluttering around the man who made far too much noise for simple cracked bones.

"Stop, stop stop stop stop stop..."

The word is like feathers across your lips.

-: back :-