The Bat who Couldn't Fly
Prompt: Write a story called 'The Bat who Couldn't Fly'
Summary: Thirteen would never really be able to spread her wings.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR 'THE DIG'
Remy Hadley was known for being a nocturnal creature, though one might wonder at when she actually had time to catch some sleep. Working all day and getting drunk every night definitely wasn't a lifestyle which had allowed for a decent number of hours' rest. Though she'd normally managed to hide it, Remy was a very tired person – so much that she'd even gotten caught hooking herself up to an IV to cure a hangover.
That was no longer the reason for the shadows under her eyes. She now sat in a jail cell, her home for the next six months, staring through the tiny crack of a window with tears streaming down her cheeks, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. Her hands were trembling, but by no means because of any advancing chorea symptoms. These tremors were a symptom of a massive overwhelm of guilt, sadness and frustration.
She'd euthanized her brother. His blood was on her hands and she would never be able to shake that awful feeling that she was the reason for a life being lost. She knew she'd had no choice, not when he was writhing around in his bed, his mind and body so violently out of control, his eyes begging her to end it because his life just wasn't worth living anymore. She would have wanted him to do the same for her, had their situations been reversed.
Indeed, she knew that when her time came, she would be alone. Though she was glad about this – for she'd deliberately avoided befriending people so as not to hurt them with her imminent demise – she was tortured by the fact that when her time came, there would be no one willing to push the plunger; no one to take away the agony and sink her into obliviousness.
She crumbled to the floor, curled up in a tight, defensive ball, sobbing her heart out. She might be in jail but at least she was able to be herself, for it's not as if any of the other inmates would look twice in her direction. There was no need to hide here. And she could no longer hold in the pain she felt every single day of her life since she'd been positively diagnosed with Huntington's disease.
Before her diagnosis she'd known she'd be a good doctor. In the days where she'd been oblivious to her shortened lifespan, she'd allowed herself to believe that she'd live a long and happy life and become a successful woman. That had failed after she'd gotten her diagnosis. Rather than becoming successful, she'd turned to drugs, alcohol and one night stands just to forget about her pain for a few short, blessed moments. She'd allowed herself to spiral out of control, and now here she was: an inmate in prison because she'd pled down to drugs, having murdered her own brother.
She would never be able to spread her wings now. All her life choices had been taken away as her disease had begun to rule her life. She was like a bat without wings; a nocturnal creature who couldn't fly; and she felt trapped and miserable. Whether God existed or not, she cursed Him for putting her soul into a sick body: It wasn't fair that she couldn't live a normal life like all the people who surrounded her; wasn't fair that she was the one who had to suffer, and not them.
She knew what her colleagues would say if they found out she was in jail – colleagues, not friends, for she'd never gotten close to any of them except Foreman, and look at how that had turned out. They would be angry with her – not because she was in jail, but because she was wasting her life when she should be trying to make the most of what few years she had left. But they weren't the ones with Huntington's. They didn't understand what it was like knowing that you would never reach fifty years old; that soon you would slowly and painfully begin to lose control of your body, and then your mind, as the disease took over and your nerves degenerated. They didn't understand that the drunken one night stands had been the only thing that was enough to cause her to forget. That during those precious night hours she was able to feel something that vaguely resembled happiness.
There would be no more forgetting, not now that she was in jail. There would be no alcohol or drugs here, and certainly no one night stands. Now those precious night hours had turned into her worst nightmare as she was forced to sit by the window, awake and tortured by the awful thoughts of what she'd done to her brother; of what would eventually happen to herself. Any dignity she'd had as a free woman had quickly vanished as she was reduced to nothing more than a crying, sick inmate.
She sometimes questioned why she didn't just kill herself now to end all the pain and misery, but that answer was fairly obvious. Despite how shit her life was, Remy was still terrified of death. It's why she'd spiralled so far out of control in the first place. She cursed God for putting her in this horrible situation – one where her life was nothing but pain and misery, but where she didn't have the guts to put an end to it. The poor creature was doomed to suffer the consequences of her disease until the day it finally killed her.
The bat would never fly for its wings were clipped. Instead Remy would have to suffer the fate of the cards she was dealt with from the day she was born.
For one terrifying moment, Remy Hadley wished she'd never been born in the first place.