Chapter Twelve: Respiration

Note: I'm going to go ahead and dedicate this arc to Owen Hamze, V's likeness actor. He's been going through a lot lately, and it parallels what happened in this fic in an eerie kind of way, as far as violence goes. Fiction aside, I hope he's alright. Domestic violence is awful, and I'm sorry he's been having to go through what he's been going through.

(-~-)

Breath.

The ability for the human body -and many times much less human bodies- to intake the oxygen that they desperately needed to survive. The vital yet invisible literal lifeblood of the body that most beings couldn't survive without, at least not for long. Without a simple but complex combination of molecules and atoms, nothing living was sustainable, and it was something that most everyone went through every day of their lives without giving a thought to unless they possessed a condition that made it difficult to them to do so. And up until that day, it had been something that he had never really thought much of, aside from the various times that he'd felt his lungs burning and his oxygen-starved body swaying and aching from a lack of it.

V missed the moments when he didn't have to think about something so precious as though it were a privilege; the times when all he had to do was inhale and he was greeted by something so basic yet so essential to his very existence. Only the dead didn't require it, as far as sapient beings went, and they would all be dead without it if they were deprived of it for very long. Their limbs would become limp and their essence would leave them, the useless sacks of flesh, adipose tissue, and muscle they had once depended on becoming nothing more than a negative impact on the carbon footprint. A heavy weight that meant nothing without blood circulation to carry vital components to their bodies that were needed to do literally anything. And what was one of those components?

Oxygen.

How he missed it now, given the state that he was in. How had it come to this? The darkness had pulled him under, his jump amounting to nothing in the very end other than to condemned him to the murky depths. Was it enough that the nefarious individuals who had sought to take his life from him for whatever purpose they served would now be deprived of their satisfaction? He hoped so vainly for the brief second that he was able to think before the air was stolen from his lungs and the light was stolen from his eyes. Never in his short life had he experienced such staggeringly cold water, not even in the moments that he had been forced into the river as a child. How distant that those days behind the menacing walls and buildings that he had once called home felt now. He imagined that the proprietors would feel a great sense of accomplishment and relief if they could see him now. How sure they would be if they could see him falter and fail that they had succeeded in crippling him so that his supposed evil nature could never be acted upon. They had thought that he was cursed then, and at this rate, he was almost ready to believe it now. But no. He would rather die than give them the satisfaction, even if they were right or they had no way of knowing. That was the only victory that he could see himself achieving over them in life.

Living virtuously and prosperously was simply out of the question.

As he faded into blackness, he remembered seeing the night sky. How purple it had been, so beautiful and full of stars. If this was how it had to be, then he was thankful that it was the last sight he'd been granted the privilege of seeing. It was a small source of comfort to know that he could at least be at peace in this environment, none of the pain, sorrow, or. He wasn't ready or willing to accept it, but he was willing to accept that some choices weren't choices, and that the crushing existential horror that he felt in that moment would pass as quickly as it came regardless of what he had to say about the matter. Or at least that was what he thought. Who was to say what would actually happen at that moment. He wasn't even sure what he believed, or if he believed in anything at all.

But before he could ponder this, everything went completely black, and the world became still.

(-~-)

Morgan had been sitting there for hours, watching as the gurneys brought in person after person, doctors and nurses writing up and filing reports with grim efficiency and even grimmer expressions on their faces. This was all such a terrible mess, wasn't it? Such a preposterous waste of life. And all for what? The temporary amusement of a few random madmen? Was that all this was? All that she'd lost her grandparents for?

People wandered about, filling the space around them with the sounds of footsteps, heavy breathing, and. Paper folded out of her line of view as relatives and well-wishers as well as horrified onlookers and shocked spectators filed down the corridors in a horrified rush to find out what had become of the people who had once resided in the small town of Lympha. She had never been so hyper-alert and yet completely distant before in her entire life, and there wasn't a single thing that she could do to lessen the terror that she felt growing inside of her. A simple but all-consuming question eating away at her like an infection deep in her bones.

Where on earth was he?

Despite the fact that she had sat quietly and diligently in precisely the spot that she would have expected to have seen or heard something by now, there had been nothing. She eyed one of the nearby guards who had been stationed near her, the man glancing over at her as though he simply knew what she was thinking at that moment. Sympathy and annoyance were both present in his face in equal measure as he turned to face the young woman who had helped to make his eventful day even more eventful for the last two hours or so since she'd arrived in a crowded van along with a bunch of other disheveled strangers.

"Look, little lass. Before you ask me again, no. No, I've yet to hear anything back from my superiors about the matter at hand, other than the fact that they are combing the woods for any signs of them." He paused, noting her dismay and hopelessness, her small shoulders falling as the gravity of the hopelessness that she found herself in weighed heavily on her. Perhaps crushing the last remaining remnants of a young and probably traumatized girl's hopes to find her missing friend was not the best use of his time. "Look… Extra patrols have been despatched, and they are doing everything they can. That's all I can say. I'm sorry. Really."

Morgan nodded and sighed heavily, her elbows sliding forward as she used her open palms to cup her moist face, shivering as she finally allowed herself to begin to lose hope. "I know, sir. I know. I've just got to tell him that I'm sorry and that I'm grateful for everything. I've just gotta say something. I can't live with it. With what he did for me. No, not like this. Not like this."

But just as quickly as she'd begun to lose what little hope she had left, something caught her eye.

(-~-)

As if possessed by some otherworldly force, V felt his body lift up out of the frozen grass, his from soaking wet from the water that the ice had thinly concealed below its glossy, reflective surface. Every part of him down to the very marrow in his bones ached, and yet he felt no pain. He was freezing cold, but his body felt strangely warm. Although he was soaking wet, he didn't feel the weight of his body as he dragged himself forward, his lungs emptying themselves of an impossible amount of water. It was as if the late had attempted to convert him into a part of itself, and there was nothing that he could to do escape the agony that he felt every time he inhaled and found his lungs practically frozen.

It was as if his body were compensating for his lack of mobility, a subconscious part of his brain noting that he was practically floating along despite the fact that he was heavier than he'd probably ever been. His skin prickled from the cold only to immediately become warm again even as the icy wind blew against him. His eyes watered only for the water to freeze and then become strangely warm given the circumstances. By all accounts, he should be dead. But it was as if he simply refused to lay down and die, some part of him too cold to freeze; his entire being fighting his condition in a way that seemed otherworldly and foreign to him.

Despite the fact that he couldn't feel his right leg, he carried on. It was a numbness that he was familiar with, akin to the way that a limb felt when it went to sleep only much worse. There was a part of him that was sure that he would never be warm again, his body far past the reasonable threshold for hypothermia. While he wasn't a medical expert, he could tell that much, and he remembered reading somewhere that once you started to feel warm because you were so cold, that that was the correct time to let panic set in since you were more than likely doomed. Medical science was incredible, but it could only do so much against odds like that. And despite everything, he still wanted to live. Maybe if he dug deep enough, he could continue forward just a little while longer?

One of the key issues with this plan was that he was simply walking aimlessly with no particular destination in mind. His feet carried onward like they knew where he was supposed to go despite the fact that he had literally no idea where he was going or how he was going to get there. It was surreal, but he didn't have the strength or the willpower to act against whatever force drove him towards whatever his destination would turn out to be. That coupled with the fact that he seemed to be flashing in and out of consciousness meant that he couldn't keep going much longer despite his seemingly inhuman drive to do so.

His skin begged and pleaded with him to be covered with something, anything to stave off the elements, but he couldn't oblige it. And as he carried on at a questionably rapid pace give his condition and the elements that battled against him, he couldn't help but acknowledge the reality of the situation that he found himself in. something was genuinely unnerving about the amount of ground that he'd managed to cover in such a short amount of time. If he looked down at the ground, he wasn't even sure he'd find evidence that he'd walked there. It was almost as though he'd simply moved his body to that location without his permission or direct input, and he didn't know how to explain why or how it had happened, or the energy to object to it. He was simply there now, and that was all he could do about it.

Before long, against all odds, he saw the lights that lined the main highway, his mind trying and failing in his strangely energetic state to comprehend how he'd managed to walk here. It didn't seem possible, yet here he was. Was it possible that he'd simply died and was now stuck in some strange idealistic limbo? Most certainly so, but he somehow knew that wasn't the case in this situation despite the fact that stringing together any kind of coherent thought seemed nearly impossible. He exhaled heavily and stumbled forward, relieved and yet totally unsure as to why as he approached the road, eyeing it in a way that implied that he drew some measure of relief upon seeing it like it would offer him salvation of something. But perhaps that wasn't too off base considering what happened only a short moment later.

The very instant that his legs finally became weak and he felt himself swaying unsteadily, V heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. By that point, he was too weak to even feel the fear that he knew he should have felt at the prospect of encountering what could be his enemies again. All his mind could focus on was the searing pain in his right leg and the full-body throbbing that threatened to sap every ounce of strength he had left. And as the patrol car came barreling into sight, V felt an ounce of relief was over him like a tidal wave as he hit the pavement and everything went black for the second time that day.

(-~-)

For a moment, all he could hear was the roaring of an engine, a vehicle that was too light to be the truck that had held him against his will spiriting him away to some unknown location. He vaguely remembered seeing lights along the street in the misty night sky, the fog that encompassed the area making everything brighter than it should have been. It was like he was caught in a fog machine, and all he could do was close his eyes again, despite the fact that he wasn't really sure he'd actually opened them. All around him were the sounds of machinery and engines, and he wasn't sure when the two became separate entities.

Then came the second set of lights, this time directly over his head as he felt himself moving forwards towards something. Warmth encompassed him as he registered the low hum of something unfamiliar near him once he stopped, his brain attempting to pull its self from the fog that he now metaphorically found himself stuck in. There was some part of him that knew that he was indoors, but he didn't have the slightest idea how he knew that. Maybe it was the inviting warmth that he imagined he'd feel if every nerve ensign that had the misfortune of being attached to his skin wasn't screaming like he'd been lit on fire. He wanted to muster the energy to speak up and say something about his condition to the other human beings who he could only imagine were around him, but he couldn't, so instead, he focused on the rhythmic spinning of the wheels below him as they passed over a skip in whatever surface they found themselves on every few seconds or so.

Much to his surprise, he found himself stationary shortly thereafter, an obvious change in texture drawing him from his semiconscious state back into a more dreamlike level of consciousness. It was as though he'd just gone from laying on pavement or something equally as rigid and unyielding to being swaddled by the clouds themselves, his body not used to being in such an ergonomic state. It was strange, but not at all unwelcome. And finally, he registered the voices that he was willing to guess had always been there. At least two figures were standing somewhere nearby, and from what he could tell, they were discussing something pertaining to him.

"I'm sorry, you said his internal temperature was what now? That can't be!"

"You know, that's what I said! So I went and check again, and sure enough, it was right."

"Everything I've ever been taught says it's impossible to come back from an internal temperature that low! And you're telling me that he's, what, just on basic support? No Hypothermia, Renal System failure, or Frostbite or anything?!"

"Look, I didn't say it made medical sense. I said that's what happened. He just got incredibly lucky. I don't know how else to even put it. It's literally a miracle that he isn't frozen solid right now. Aside from some kind of undefined injury to his leg that we're currently investigating, he's going to be totally fine somehow!"

"Well, geez. I'm happy for him, then. It's about time we got some kind of positive news today. It's good to see that at least one of these poor people is going to pull through and come back from the brink. Everything is such a mess. It's a tragedy. I'm gonna see if that poor kid needs anything."

They were doctors, and he was in some kind of emergency room. Suddenly everything became so clear to him as he peered over at them quietly, some part of him curious to hear what they had to say and equally unwilling to ask out of fear of being delivered a bad outcome. He was still alive, and he'd made it out of that place, even if he didn't know who had found him and brought him the rest of the way. He would have to thank them in the future if he was able to. But as the reality of where he was and what he'd just experienced set in, so did an undeniable wave of relief and undefinable grief.

Somehow against all odds, he was still alive. He'd managed to escape with his life after everything had stacked the odds against him, and he was somewhere safe and warm and dry where those psychopaths couldn't reach him. And he had no idea how to process that. But as soon as he could, he would. And then he would go and find Morgan. To see her safe; to know that she was in good hands would bring him closure. But for now, he would allow himself to rest and recover. Something told him that whatever was going on with his leg was going to prevent him from going anywhere anytime soon, and so it was best to let his body take its natural course and for him to relax and recover as best as he could.

With the day they'd both had, it was the least he could do. And he hoped that wherever Morgan was, she was doing the same. Something told him she wasn't far off.

(-~-)

This chapter hits different now. Yikes.

Phew! It's been a while since I've written a chapter this early in the morning. Well, time to go to bed! It's Monday morning now, and I have things to get down tomorrow so that I can go to bed on time and get up Tuesday morning to write again lol! Literally, my entire life schedule revolves around the release schedule of this fic now. It's crazy, but it's the only thing giving my life structure during this quarantine. And yet, in spite of it all, I'm just glad that I have time to write again. Gosh, it's been forever.

If you haven't already, check out the link I posted at the end of the last chapter of the fic. I'll be taking submissions from now until the end of time, so that might be fun for you. And to the FF.N readers: do you actually exist? My statistics and stuff don't work, but I haven't heard from you all in about 30 chapters. Everything alright?

Anyway, see you all on Friday, and remember: I adore you all! Take care and stay safe!