Hello friends. I just have one thing to say:
Try not to cry.
Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Eoin Colfer. I own the doctors though.
…beep…beep…beep…beep…
'Oh……..ow.'
Pain. Not enough to force away consciousness.
But, damn, it still hurt.
…beep…beep…
'A heartbeat… My heartbeat?...'
The murmur of darkness. The beep of my heart. A smell…
Slipping away again…
'Good…I'm tired anyway…'
Fade…
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Pulled back, barely aware, by voices.
"…heart rate elevating slightly, but blood pressure and brain activity normal. No reds on the monitors and we'll recheck his blood content in half-an-hour to make sure the pain-killers aren't affecting his protein levels."
"Good. It's been at least thirty-six hours. He should be waking soon."
The first voice spoke again, a hint of regret in his voice. "When he does, he'll really wish he hadn't."
The second sighed. "Yeah. We lost the other one yesterday. He didn't even make it to the clinic before he was gone."
'Lost?...Who…' Slow molasses thoughts. The first spoke again, a lower murmur.
"I heard there wasn't much left of him to lose."
A wave of nausea spread through his body. He couldn't speak, couldn't move. That smell again. The smell of clean weakness and helplessness. He could feel soft material under his fingers, but couldn't move them. Light burned his eyes, even under heavy lids. The voice spoke again.
"There wasn't. He lost both legs and his right forearm in the explosion."
'…Explosion…'
He started to slip away again. 'No,' he thought desperately, trying with all his might to hold on to consciousness. 'No.' He fought against the trance that tried to lull his mind away. 'No!' He heard the voices again, not understandable, but it didn't really matter anyway. Their tone was enough. The tone heavy with pity, remorse, and a hint of selfish relief. It hadn't happened to them.
He grew angry, an anger that quickly morphed into a furious energy. He suddenly became completely aware.
"NO!"
Trouble sat rapidly upright in his bed and shouted at the top of his lungs. Panicky adrenaline pumped solidly through his veins and his eyes snapped open against the harsh light of the Haven clinic room. The walls echoes with his shout and the two doctors in the room rushed towards him. He caught a glint in one of their hands and howled at the ceiling. He didn't know why. Their mention of an explosion made him picture that horrific scene again. The blinding wall of fiery light engulfing his brother…Grub…
"Grub!" Trouble shouted like a madman, and the two doctors tried to restrain him as he fought to get to his feet. A burning, overwhelming pain shot through his right leg and he cried out again. Two arms tried to hold his own down. But his hardened muscles greatly overpowered those of the other. The doctor, who was a thin, frail elf, was launched across the room in Trouble's rage. The second doctor was a toughened gnome who managed to keep a longer hold on Trouble as he struggled. The poor elfin Commander shouted and fought.
Then, suddenly, he felt dazed and calm. He felt as if his arms had been soaked in honey, and his struggles soon ceased. He fell back onto his bed and was silent, staring up at the white ceiling dreamily. The thin doctor, breathing heavily, got up from the floor and brushed himself off. The other threw away the need he had just used on Trouble. He wiped his forehead and turned to the thin elf doctor.
"He's awake," the gnome said, a tad unnecessarily. The other just looked at him. Then they both looked back at their patient.
Trouble's eyes were glazed, half because of the drug, half with sadness. His tongue was weighed down with painkillers, as if his mouth was full of syrup. 'An explosion,' his dazed brain thought weakly. 'Grub…'
"Grub…" he croaked quietly to the ceiling. He didn't see, didn't register any of his surroundings. The image still stained his mind, the pain in his leg still burning, his hand shaking. His heart ached. He felt lost.
The elfin doctor recognized the name. "Grub?" he echoed, and picked a portable record screen up from a bedside table. "As in Captain Grub Kelp?"
Trouble looked slowly, tiredly down at the thin doctor. After a few moments of heavy silence, he whispered, "Grub."
The doctor tapped some commands onto his record screen, calling up some windows. "Grub Kelp… Ah, here."
Trouble's heart rose to his throat. Then the doctor frowned and it sank to his feet.
"Yes, it's like I thought," the thin elf murmured. Trouble felt a stab of panic pierce his heart. He sat up and swallowed the panic, coming out of his stupor. "Yes… You were his older brother by twenty-seven years, and also his Commander in the LEP."
Trouble grew even more worried. "What's happened?" he said, unable to keep the tremble from his voice.
The doctors looked at each other hesitantly. It was the worst thing they could have done. Trouble immediately cradled his head in his hands, shuddering. The gnome ran his fingers through golden brown hair and sighed. "I'm afraid… we… didn't get to Grub in time. He was barely alive when we found him under a pile of burnt debris that used to be the walls of you LEP break room."
Trouble was thrown into a dungeon of misery. He clutched his head tightly in his hands, his throat closing in on itself. His eyes were squeezed shut, preventing stinging tears from falling. He tried to halt the growing wall of grief he felt, but it was like trying to catch a waterfall with a toothpaste cap.
The elf doctor spoke softly, voice heavy with remorse. "He lost three limbs in the explosion. If it's any consolation, he didn't suffer."
'Yes he did,' Trouble thought angrily. 'He suffered every minute I ignored him, every minute he thought he wasn't good enough, every second I ….objectified him. And it's my fault he's gone. Mine. He's dead because of me. All because of me. I made him go get my coffee, and now he's dead. All because of me. My fault. He's gone…and it's all my fault…'
Trouble didn't realize he had been mumbling all of this aloud until the doctor laid a hand on his shoulder. "Now, that's enough," he said. "Of course it's not your fault. No one could have prevented this."
The LEP Commander tried to compose himself. He wiped his eyes and shrugged the doctor's hand off. The last thing he wanted now was pity. He couldn't grasp the whole of what had happened. Not yet. His own self pity would have to wait until later. He had duties to fulfill to the LEP. His emotions had to move down on his priority list for now.
At that thought, Trouble's heart gave a mighty lurch. Even dead, his brother was pushed aside for later.
Trouble cleared his throat, driving that thought from his head. He automatically felt a sense of authority, even if it was hollow and meaningless. An instinctive leader. People depended on him to make beneficial decisions. Including his brother.
"What was the extent of the damage?" He managed to keep a steady voice, but it was as if his spirit was disconnected from his body. The voice was barely his own, the icy, commanding shell barely holding.
The doctor didn't expect Trouble to be so direct and tripped over his words. "Well, --the -- the entire -- your Police Plaza exploded and some of the surrounding buildings caught fire."
Trouble felt another wave of nausea and winced. Fires when you lived underground were not pretty. "How many fatalities?" he forced out through a clenched throat and gritted teeth.
The two medical fairies exchanged glances again.
"How many people died?" Trouble said loudly. No matter how terrible, he had to know. The pain in his leg started to throb again and he could feel the painkillers start to wear off in various places on his body.
The gnome doctor came closer to Trouble. Trouble noticed for the first time a name tag on his breast pocket that read, 'Doskal Keight, Doctor of Psychology, and V.P. of DA.' 'Hmm,' Trouble thought bitterly. 'Disaster Aftermath. Pretty serious shit.' Keight was a built fairy with golden hair and green eyes. His brow bent with the burden of bad news. When he spoke, he formed his words into slow, careful sentences.
"You are among the thirty-seven survivors our search team found in the rubble."
'Thirty-seven?' Trouble thought, alarmed. 'There are more than that in Recon alone.'
"Six of those survivors didn't make it to the clinic alive." Keight continued, regret littering his eyes and voice. Trouble tried to ignore the fact that one of these was his brother. "The seventy six others were found dead in the rubble. Our young demon warlock, who calls himself N°1, tried to revive them, but managed the life of only one. Thirteen more are missing, and Police Plaza is completely destroyed."
Trouble fought to hole down a wall of dizziness that made his stomach clench. 'How?' he thought helplessly. 'How could so many people die?'
He swallowed his misery and croaked, "Wh-What caused the explosion?"
Keight managed an even deeper frown. "A bomb, we think. We found no physical, mechanical evidence of one, such as the detonator or pieces of the casing, but our scanners did pick up high amounts of explosive residue. We also found Opal Koboi dead on the charred street, about forty feet away. She's undeniably the cause of the explosion, because she is the only of the fairy race with the ability to make an explosive that large."
Trouble realized that as he listened, his breathing had grown heavy and shaky. The right side of his body felt as if it was still in the fire, but he was numb to it. Opal Koboi. 'Of course,' Trouble thought with spite. She was the only fairy that was cruel enough to still make explosive devices. She was arrested over two centuries ago when explosive material had been found at her lab in Atlantis. She easily escaped the clutches of the law with some over-charging hot-shot lawyers, but was forced to give all of her material, prototypes, and research to the LEP or suffer a long sentence behind laser bars. Of course she hadn't given it all up.
And now, after committing something so evil, Koboi was dead. But Trouble wasn't satisfied. She should have lived to face her consequences. She deserved more than death. She wasn't even worthy of something like that.
Trouble closed his eyes, trying to push away his building rage. A sudden thought slammed into his brain like a blood-thirsty troll. 'Holly.' He nearly flew out of his hospital bed in remembrance. Only the fiery pain that overtook his body and Doskal Keight held him down.
"Let me go," Trouble grunted through teeth. He had to know. Holly couldn't be dead. She just couldn't. The loss of his brother was bad enough. If he lost both of the people he had ever cared so much for, that he would no longer have any reason to live.
"No," Keight said, with surprising authority. "You have suffered massive amounts of burns to the right side of your body, and you have lost the use of your right leg temporarily. You won't be able to walk for at least a week. And even when you do start to walk, the burns on your hip and thigh will make it excruciatingly painful. You're not leaving this hospital for at least a month."
Trouble blinked at the commanding tone the doctor's voice. He was used to giving orders, not taking them. Trouble slowly lay back on his bed, obeying like a lectured child. After a moment of silence, he closed his eyes again and whispered, "What happened to Holly Short?"
The elf, whose name tag read, Harbor Petsen, Resident, consulted his record screen again. "Captain Holly H. Short. Twenty-one years in the LEP, nine years in her rank 'Captain.' Main affiliate in the Artemis Fowl cases over the last seven years, three of which she was missing, in the demon island Limbo. Resigned from LEP duty for four months before that after the accusation of murder from former Commander Ark Sool."
Trouble almost screamed. "I didn't ask for statistics," he snapped. "Is. She. Alive?"
For a few moments, there was no sound except for the beeping of the monitor with every thump of Trouble's heart. His leg throbbed with a burning pain, but he barely felt it. His internal grief greatly surpassed his external. The loss of his brother was forever branded onto his heart. His brown eyes would never hold that daring sparkle again.
Harbor Petsen looked up from his record screen, a tired frown on his brow. Trouble felt his heart go icy cold. 'No, please,' he thought. 'Not her.' He felt the sting of more salty tears. 'Not her.' The same persistent, desperate thought drove through Trouble's mind until the doctor's words fell upon stubborn ears that wouldn't believe them anyway.
"Captain Short was found…dead in the ruins of Police Plaza."
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Floating…
My world, myself…
…light as a feather…
…tickles like one, too…
My limbs feel like hollow steel…
…but about to float away any second.
Darkness…
Silence…
Why can't I move?
Please review, even though I know it was basically just super-long rambling about nothing.