I regain consciousness after what feels like only a meagre amount of heartbeats –seeing as though I've nothing else to pass the time with, not knowing my realm, nor the time –the passing of, more like- in whatever realm I have been cast down to- to some sort of room which seems to be adorned with blinding lights. I don't open my eyes, yet I can feel the ruthless light penetrating even behind the skin on my eyelids. I shift, and warrant myself a small, painful grunt.
It seems as though those who have taken me captive have disregarded any means of healing me. Appallingly, my captors haven't taken notice to my stirring, and are babbling about some nonsense in a strange dialect, one not familiar to my own tongue. Soon, however, I begin understanding, their language translating in my mind with what little archives of magick my body supplies. At least that part I don't have to control, I think as I gently flex each of my fingers as to make sure they are still there. Else I'd be more lost than a Frost Giant in Asgard's castle. Without a guide.
The thought of a Jötun wandering about in my old home sends soft bits of amusement through me, but are mercilessly killed off by the memories that flash behind my eyes of the angry Asgardians that left me in the hands of whatever creatures living on this realm. I attempt to move again and another grunt comes from me. The metallic taste of blood floods over my tongue once more, and I spit it out, hating the taste, as if my own blood could mock me for being the helpless lump of a god I am now.
This time, however, the ones who hold me captive notice my stirring, and their words become clearer in my dim sense of hearing.
"…Think he's waking up!"
"…Fell from the sky. Don't know how he survived that."
"Is he dangerous?" Worry tinges this one's voice, and I can feel their gaze flicker to me.
"I don't think so. Doc says he's badly injured." The same voice from the beginning, the one calling to me after I fell. At least he acknowledges my injuries. Though what stops them, I'm not sure.
"What I don't understand is why the Director brought him here." A higher pitch above the bass of the others.
"…No help at all…" Nothing but a mutter to my ears.
The voices fade in and out, and I briefly wonder if the higher pitched voice – I assume it is female – speaks of me. However, as the last voice speaks, I know she does not, but of some other nuisance.
And there I knew, before even having to open my eyes to see the ones surrounding me that I was on the middle realm. The one I'd hated for its simpleminded inhabitants, the one I'd thought was obviously more insignificant than even the Jötun realm. I realised with a growing anger that Heimdall had sent me to Midgard as my punishment.
I allow my eyes to slide open and furrow my brows as the piercing light burns them even though I have only opened them a crack. A few gasps sound around me, and I can hear the scurrying of those who were speaking earlier. I snort as I can vaguely scent fear from the one who questioned their own safety. But as I attempt once more to move, I am greeted by a sharp stabbing pain in my arms, my torso, and one of my legs. I'm broken, I want to mutter to the stupid Midgardian. What harm am I going to cause you that won't affect me in turn?
However my awareness doesn't last long as an icy current slides its way through one of my injured arms and throughout my entire body. The last thing I feel is the pain dulling where my injuries are most dire and am afterwards dredged in the darkness that always seems to wait for me as I sleep, submerged in the hollowness of my dream world.
I hear once more the sounds of the voiceless screams that plague me in my sleep and I am terrified. I can hear the piercing shrieks of those unknown to me, their sounds crawling up the flesh of my arms, quite literally. My body refuses to acknowledge the need to move, to run, and instead stays still, allowing me to watch in horror as the skin on my arms writhes, then suddenly bursts open.
Blood is everywhere.
I can taste it, can feel it on my body. The muscles ripple where the skin has broken, and my fingers start twitching uncontrollably.
The screams grow louder.
I am forced to watch my body rip itself open, all but my face, and my ears begin to bleed. My torso is naught but bone and muscle, each throbbing movement causing more of the crimson stuff to spurt out of my body.
I part my lips to let out a scream of my own, and am jarred into my true existence in the real world.
My eyes flutter open and my breathing is stunted, partially by the wounds I have sustained in my torso, partly because of the shock. My eyes sting, but I grit my teeth behind my lips, forcing myself to cope with what horrors now repeat in my waking mind. A few more Midgardians speak, but this time I do not bother to attempt to decipher their choppy dialect. Instead I am focussing on my surroundings. For what I can figure out, my arms are still loosely secured in the Odincuffs, which, needless to say, angers me quite a bit. After all, what good are they now, with no magick to suppress behind their metal grip. I attempt to move, but my body is angled in an awkward position and the pain from my simple movement causes me to take in a sharp breath.
"Oh," I mutter, my voice naught but a raspy breath, causing the mortals to bring their eyes on me, and me to want to stab them out. "that is new." I refer to the pain I feel, for I have never felt any-thing quite like it.
The Midgardians widen their eyes, as if not expecting this once Asgardian to speak, not true words spoken in their ugly language. I stave off the urge to roll my eyes at their surprise and attempt to move once again.
And a smooth voice slices through the small murmurs that have begun to echo around me as I have spoken, making me stop in my painful struggles.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"And so it is a good thing that you are not," I retort, rolling my eyes this time before craning my head towards where I hear the voice. Pain in my neck stops me from turning all the way, so I settle for just moving my eyes.
"Good for who? You? Or me?" I find the face, the mouth moving with the words spoken. He is slim, as I am, with dark hair and blue eyes. He wears dark clothes with some sort of emblem on it. I resist the urge to reply and instead let my own eyes fall over the broken mass of my body. I resist the urge to retch. How did I become this way? This weakness, brittleness of my body, crumpled by a single fall. It brings a sour taste to my tongue and I curse softly, the ancient words sweeping from my lips and into the ears of those who listened closely enough.
"You've noticed then, I take it, that you're really in no position to move. Or speak."
The voice breaks my thoughts, and I brace the pain to scowl up at him. "I'd rather you quelled your words. They make my head ache."
The man ignores me and continues.
"Risky fall, huh? Where did you come from?"
"I suppose you will hear nothing but the answers you desire." My tone is tasteless.
"Your little light beam forget you halfway?" He continues to ignore me.
"And what of my condition? Do you not attempt to heal those who break their bodies from tremendous falls before you question them?" My voice rises, overlapping his query with one of my own. The extra force I am required to put into my voice hurts me, and I wince.
"Y'know, the guy does have a point," comes another voice, unmistakably male. I turn to see the voice's face. He too has dark hair, though it is lighter than the other's. His eyes are brown, and around his mouth grows facial hair that is strangely styled in my eyes.
This coming from one of the few male Asgardians without such.
In his hand is a glass of some sort of amber liquid, and he looks dressed for occasion. He speaks again, momentarily distracting me from guessing what his purpose is.
"How would you feel if you suddenly fell halfway through your light beam o' destiny and were captured by weirdo freaks who kept asking you questions?" The man takes a sip from his glass before continuing. "Speaking of, who are you weirdoes, any-ways?"
"Mr Stark, remember that you are only hear to deliver your weapons to the director and—"
"Uh-huh. But guess who said I could come visit your poor mistreated visitor?" the man called Stark retorts, his gaze travelling to the other man with the blue eyes. "Thaat's right. Now make yourself useful and fix this guy up."
Wordlessly, the other male complies, shouting orders to those who surround me. I relax a bit, only to realise grimly that the one called Stark has stayed behind. I furrow my brows in question before asking him in a hoarse voice, "Is there something I can assist you with?"
To that, he chuckles, and I briefly consider believing this man is more insane than I. "No, not really. You're the one who needs assistance. Oh, yeah, and maybe some manners? I mean, I did kinda just help you. And lied for you. Definite lying happening here. And these fools believe it!" He takes another draught of his drink, and I blink as I take in his words. Lying? "They'll believe just about any-thing, especially if their beloved director is included in it." He speaks as though he has had previous experience in such situations.
"I see," is all I can manage to rasp. The pain I feel whilst talking has intensified, to say the least, and I grow weary from the exertion.
"Not even a thank-you," he responds with a curt laugh. "figures. You don't strike me as the thankful type. Am I wrong?" I feel his eyes bore into me, as if demanding an answer, though softly.
I nod, the knot in my neck making me wince once again. My mouth stays shut, and my eyelids begin to droop.
"Once they're done, there's no doubt in my mind they're going to pepper you with questions. Might even lock you up in, well, I dunno, space jail I guess. But that's if you're a hostile threat or whatever." He snickers, as though the thought of me being hostile some-how amuses him.
I bite back an angry reply as he continues.
"Worst-case scenario, they'll probably ship you off into the outside world if they don't see you as a potential threat. Which means, I guess, that they'll be watching you? I don't even know who these people are."
His voice begins to irritate me now. I just want to sleep, can he not see that? But apparently he can-not. Thankfully, the original captors have returned, for surely Stark would have talked my ears off. The man who demanded answers from me approaches Stark with hesitance.
"We're going to have to ask you to leave," comes his shallow words. "at least until we are finished. If you wish to speak to the prisoner, then you may personally walk him to the conference room."
Stark just laughs and raises his glass in some sort of salutation for fare-well. "I'll see ya when I'll see ya!" And then he turns, allowing himself to be ushered out of the room I am in. Too soon am I greeted once more by the icy feeling spreading from my arm and coursing through my body.
Too soon am I placed into the prickly arms of the world of my haunting dreams, the recurring memories playing even in my wakefulness.
Too soon for me to beg and rasp out my shallow plea, that I do not sleep.
The nightmares rip me apart, tear at my soul each time I close my eyes. My wounds from previous times fester and I bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming in shock and disgust. A jarring at my ribs, my eyes flooding over with a red film, before it slowly fades to black, as I feel it do so to my veins.
My arms bend at awkward angles, my legs are clawed at by the vicious darkness, as if to release it from my body. A pressure on the back of my neck tells me not to turn around, for fear that the thing that possesses me—for I am sure now that it does—has reared its head and awaits my eyes, eyes that are blind to all.
Something pushes its way into my side and I attempt to feel at it, only to find that my arms in their strange positions, are being restrained by the same creature that holds my neck.
You can-not escape, a voice echoes in my mind, one that I have never heard, nor has a clear sound. You can never escape, Loki. Your body forever harbours this darkness. It is a part of you.
I shake my head. It isn't. It never was.
Yet my visions of the redness, the blood that courses through my veins, twisting with black return to me. Is this what the voice means? What it tells me? Or is it worming its way into my very core? Trying to defeat me from the inside out, so that I have no means of controlling myself, should it take my body?
This time, my screams echo through my room as I awake, eyes bursting open with shock and anger and fear, fear coiling in my abdomen and my arms and legs.
I take a few gasping breaths, and as I do so, I realise that it is easier for me to breathe. My arms are unscathed, save for a few minor scratches and bruises. I am laying on my back, and I see my chest rise and fall normally, no bone jutting out of my pale skin. I wear a thin piece of cloth that covers the majority of my body, and I take a moment to feel the wholeness.
Though I know this peace shall never last, as it never does, I slowly sit up, awaiting those who must ask their questions.
However, my mind is overflowing with confusion, as the one named Stark is the only one who appears.
His drink is gone, and his expression is soft and tentative, as though he looks at a small creature. There is no doubt about it now. My stomach sinks with dread as he carefully approaches me, holding a hand out as though to help me.
I fear my scream that pitched me into the world of the waking was not the solitary noise I made while unconscious. The worry in the other man's eyes clearly states this.
What I want to know, however, is why I see curiosity in those brown orbs. Does this man, who barely knows me, want to know what happens when I sleep? Does he wish to figure out what keeps me up all night, past the point of tiredness?
Does he want to know of the darkness I harbour within my bloodstream, a darkness that refuses to let me go, and promises to take over once my defences are cast away?
A/N: Sorry for the wait, though I doubt any-one really cares. Because, well, it was only one chapter. I have been waiting for the internet to be turned back on, as well as experiencing a little bit of at home issues. Though, not to worry! I have the internet and my laptop has graced me with it's love again!
Onward, updates!
-KL
