I was surrounded by trees with sounds coming from each direction. I couldn't tell where or what the noises were coming from, which was odd, because I could always recognize things easily. Something wet hit my face I think it was rain because it continued to pour down, soaking my face. I laid my ears flat against my head so water wouldn't go down them. Even though it felt wet, when I actually tried to feel for it, it was as if there was nothing there, as if I were only seeing it. I'd never felt rain before though, so maybe this was what it was like. Something tugged at my mind, something I was supposed to know and all of a sudden everything fell from beneath me, the ground I hadn't felt under my feet started tumbling, and everything turned black. I was falling, though I couldn't see my arms or legs flailing around me, all I could see was nothing below me, my head tingling and loose, the feeling a rush.
Then everything was different. There was no plummeting feeling anymore, my head was still, and my eyes were closed. A dream. I loved dreams, they were my escape. I kept my eyes shut tight and didn't move. If I moved, that would draw attention to me, Mayuri would see me and he'd do more ridiculous things to me. I inhaled just barely…no one was here. There wasn't anyone in my cell next to me. Where did they all go? Venturing a little, I breathed deeper, the scent of this place…it didn't smell like chemicals and death, so I wasn't in the lab? Where was I now? I slid my finger across whatever I was laying on, it felt textured and soft, and realization hit me once more. I was where that orange-headed shini-human had taken me. He'd carried me here, hadn't he? Why was that again-ow, oh fuck! That was why, because of the fucked up stitches…from escaping Mayuri's lab, where the few of my kind were killed.
I was on alert. Just because he'd…saved me didn't mean I trusted him, wherever he was. Cautiously, I opened my eyes to look around. I could move now, I felt better then I ever had before, a strange sense of triumph filling me. I shifted my back in just a way so I wouldn't rip the bandages, stiffness gone with a satisfying 'pop'. I patted the wrappings, smoothing them down, and twitched my tail to make sure it was there. It's strange, but I think it's a cat thing to be paranoid about whether you still have your tail. I readjusted my skirt-short thing, tying a knot in it so I wouldn't have to hold it up, my tail re-attaching itself to my thigh. My ears felt sore from being bent under the head-tie thing, so I pulled them out from under it to rub them. It's embarrassing to admit, but I had to resist the urge to purr. After a few minutes, I tucked them back under safely.
I stood carefully incase I fell, my nose twitching…my nose, oh shit, my nose. It was so obvious now, my nose was different, the tip of it split and pinkish like a cat's. I'm just so glad I don't have whiskers. I was alone in the room, so I looked around. There was tile on the floor, cold and hard, the color was a light blue matching the walls. The tile was streaked with blood, so was the door and part of the blanket I'd laid on. The hole in the wall covered with glass led to the outside world, I walked over to it. Looking out, it was still dark outside. So I couldn't've been asleep that long. I came closer and peeked down, the ground was far away, and there were lots of other glass covered holes along the building.
I heard the door swing open, that man walking in again with a bucket of red tinged water and a mop stained crimson as well. He walked across the room, oblivious to my staring, opening a different door, dragging the blood soaked equipment behind him. Silently I followed. In this room, which was tiny and cramped, there was a toilet white sink, as opposed to metal, and a faucet protruding from the opposite wall over a basin. He turned the faucet on and dumped the bucket over, scarlet water pouring out, then he rinsed the mop till the water ran clear. I noticed he was no longer in the shinigami outfit, instead in something that looked more human, fleshy body and all. He went towards the sink, running his hands under it, for they were bloodied too. When he looked up into the shiny reflective surface above the sink he jumped and turned to face me, "it looked like a murder scene down there, so I went to clean it up a few days ago -That's all I need is a trail of blood leading to me apartment -, I'm just now rinsing my stuff off.". I wasn't stupid, I could figure that out.
"did you skin your nose or something? I didn't get a great look, but it looks like scar tissue…" I nodded, going with whatever little scenario he came up with to explain it was so much simpler, and better for me.
"I think in a few days you'll be able to speak. That thing around your neck probably severed a few of your vocal cords though" I would…be able to talk? I'd never heard my own voice. This made my hatred melt away, something different replacing it. not happiness, but that neutral feeling. Like when you see everyone around you with something, they use it all the time, but it's something you don't have, and hardly know what it is. I felt as if he had just given me this thing. Another surge of feeling pulsed through me, I felt drawn to this spot, or maybe that spot closer to him. Who knew?
"I bet you're starving. The muscle lining around your stomach looked swollen from what I could see, and you look sunken in" I could tell he was itching to ask what happened to me, but I couldn't tell him. By the time I could speak though, I'd be gone. I could heal fast, the stitches would be dissolved in a few days. I couldn't stay here because of the proximity to the gate I opened, if they even linked that to me…I'd be brought back and slaughtered, something I was not planning on doing.
He wagged a finger at, signaling for me to follow him out the smaller room and out the door. Once it shut, I glanced around his 'apartment' he called it. Smeared blood from yet another door with a silver dead bolt on it led a trail on the floor to where I stood now. I must have enough blood to paint the walls with. Turning back around at a clinking noise, I saw him dumping a box of…something into a clear bowl. Most bowls I'd seen were filled with dead organs from used specimens. He poured a white liquid over it, and handed it to me. What the fuck was this? My face remained the same though. I'd learned not to display thoughts on my face. He handed me a metal object with a dented flat end.
"it's cereal? Eat it" he was giving me food? Why was he being so…naively kind to me? Could there actually be a person like this in the world?
I sniffed it carefully for poison, and finding none I stuck my small tongue out to taste it.
"y-your tongue's...blue?" really? I'd never seen it before, so this was news to me, but there were plenty of freakish things about me, so it wasn't that much of a shock that Mayuri would find this funny.
The white substance was cold, and I pulled back from it sharply. It got all on my nose and I twitched it trying to get it off. Now I was irritated, my tail itching to twitch and show my annoyance, it jerked against my thigh.
"…would you prefer toast?" what was toast? I'd never had food before; we always had IVs with nutrients and what not in them injected into us every month. I was used to that, I didn't want the needle though.
"go clear a place in my clutter to sit" I looked around. I was adept at many things, killing, jumping high up, holding my breath, fighting, almost anything, but as soon as I saw what he meant by clutter, I labeled it impossible. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere was piled with huge books and stacks of papers, in the midst of all the mess there was a square chunk of sophisticated looking plastic entangled in wires and cords which had pens and more sheets of paper and novels piled on top of it. Inching forward, I made my way to the least atrocious part of his quagmire, and pushed a few things away from the corner I claimed. Most of the papers were hand written and smudged, some of them typed. Most of the books had the word 'Medical' on them, dictionaries, research books, encyclopedias. Medical…that was why he knew what he was doing.
"I'm studying so I can pass the next exam coming up. I plan on being a doctor…I dunno though…" I couldn't care less. He hands me one of the two brown squares in his hands. He takes a bite of his and motioned for me to do the same, this toast thing is crunchy, and barely tastes like anything. Whatever.
I didn't eat the rest of it. my throat didn't hurt anymore, the taste of blood had vanished…maybe-
"so what happened to you? Why are you in such shitty shape?" once again authentic concern was present, but how the fuck did I answer? Strangely, I wanted to. More then anything, I wanted to tell him the hell I went through. I didn't know why…but I didn't want his pity, more simply I think I wanted his understanding. He tossed me one of the sheets of paper, this one blank, and a pencil. He wanted me to write?... I'd learned to read, but I'd never held a pencil before. Oh well, first time for everything. What the fuck, ne?
"well, eh, what's your name?" name?... I was an experiment, my label was specimen 37. though I'd come to calling myself Shiro because I'm completely white. It was a self-loathing thing, I hated being like Mayuri, yet I called the most attention to the feature that made us similar.
It held the pencil sloppily and loose in my hand, it wiggled and slid across the page.
S-4-l-r-0, sloppy as fuck, but it wasn't my fault. He didn't look at the paper but instead asked me more questions. Heh, maybe he didn't care.
"where did you get hurt like that? Who did that to you?"
F4r f4r 434y- far far away, aw fuck, I couldn't even read it. oh well, he's a doctor, they're supposed to write like this every day. I looked up at him expectantly ready for whatever else he was going to ask.
"who did that to you? Why were you…so-..dissected looking?" he was back to that vomit face again…and he wanted to be a doctor?
B3c4u23 I 4m h473d. because I am hated. Don't get me wrong, I know how to spell, but I'd never even held a pencil before! Of course it looked like shit.
He asked a few more questions, and I gave him my answers. When he finally took the sheet back and read through it his expression was a mix of confusion and amused annoyance.
"goddamn, your handwriting is worse then mine…" he mumbled. I wish I could mumble. Obviously my mordant answers weren't satisfying, but he didn't press it, I was impressed…mildly.
"you've got your wits about you…of course you were asleep for five days straight…"
What the fuck? F-five days? Holy shit…what if-? No way-, but why-?
Everything was jumbled up. if I was asleep for five days…that was almost two weeks in Sereitei, which meant…they weren't coming after me? I closed my eyes breathing deeply, taking in every scent within a two mile radius, if any shinigami were here, I could smell them. They had the smell of a soul-a really toned down sickly sweet smell of rot and mildew- and a scent all their own, something indescribable but purely the essence of 'shinigami'. There was nothing. All I smelled was pollution, human and far off enough that I didn't have to go, eau de hollow, which in this case was good.
If no one was coming to get me after a week, then…did that mean they think I'm dead? I'm not going to die? I could…stay here with this human-gami? For some reason this thought stayed with me, that I could stay with this person, the first to do something…nice for me, the person who in a way, saved my life.
"you don't like toast either? Picky-ass starving people" he wanted me to eat this food? Okay. I bit into eat, being careful not to show my cat-like teeth, and looked up at him. We looked…so much alike. If he had cat ears and a tail and this screwed up nose, and was bleached white, we'd be exact copies. Oh how Mayuri would've loved that.
Mayuri stood over the pile of dead shinigami.
"how interesting..." he was very interested in these deaths, he wondered how they'd died. could there be a type of terminal virus that makes them kill themselves? his eyes sparkled at the thought.
"sir" that annoying frail voice sounded, "one of the zanpakutou on the lost shinigami has the glowing markings on it, which means it was used to open a senkaimon"
alas, it wasnt a self-killing virus after all, how boring.
"and there are only five rotting remains left in that pile, out of the six...at least that's what we think, seeing as all that's left are skeletal remains..." damn
alirght for a third chapter? eh, eh?
