A/N: My finals may not be over (RIP to my GPA) but my beta's are, which means we can deliver unto you another update. Yay Sue! These chapters are getting longer and longer each time.
Chapter 16
? days since last feed
You're trapped.
You don't know what this place is, an unending void that echoes in the place where your soul used to be, the darkness that holds your arms and legs pinned against your fragile body until you can't even breathe. There are phantom touches that ghost along your skin, raising prickles where they run, soft and invisible and present though you try and twist away. They return and return, probing, and eventually you give up trying to resist.
Time has no meaning here, not really. You spin through space, blind as a newborn child, seeking anchor that never comes. Thoughts flow through your head like water, passing freely through the hardness of your skull and the membrane it protects. You think you feel something on your back once, soft and warm, but it disappears before you can cling onto it. It stirs a feeling that might be disappointment but is too vague to hold any true meaning at all.
Eventually you stop spinning in a way that flings your liquid thoughts from your head, leaving yourself floating in nothingness. You aren't sure if your eyes are open because there's nothing to see, but you open and close your hands regardless, curling in on yourself and letting the darkness that's become warmer envelop you. Your stomach doesn't hurt anymore, your limbs fuzzing until you can't distinguish one from the other, and your eyes close for so long you don't notice the light that comes. The warmth increases until it's smothering and you wonder if this is what dying feels like; losing yourself, becoming a whole out of pieces.
You wouldn't mind at all.
They take you from the warmth with a needle.
You bolt upright, gasping, your unused muscles firing and cramping from your cheekbones to the arches of your feet. Figures around you jump back and your vision refuses to focus, hazy and unsure, but your nose doesn't lie to you. They're there, flesh and bone and blood and oh God you're so hungry, you're so fucking-
You swipe at one of them but your arm jerks, caught to your side, but you don't think of trying to unbuckle it. You just try again and again, harder each time, struggling against your restraints without any clear goal. Their scent makes your teeth ache and your muscles spasm and your stomach twist in on itself, warped and empty and disused, but someone tries to press at your forehead and the snap of your jaw almost takes their fingers clean off. They mutter between themselves but you don't understand the words, don't understand anything at all except the hunger that screams at you in the moments when you can hear past the own groan in your ears.
Eventually the two figures in white give up and retreat, leaving you alone with another one whose smell rings something distant in you. The woman watches you with eyes sharpened by distrust, hard like flint and twice as wary, the skin around her mouth pulled into a tight frown. You snarl and lunge for her, caught again in your chains, but you blindly follow the beat of her heart regardless. She says something but her words go through you, passing through the hole in your stomach, meaning nothing at all.
She comes and goes but you stay the same, salivating, straining for a taste of her flesh. No one else has tried to approach you and you hear them by the door, scared away by the groan that rattles you apart – it echoes through the halls, rebounding on itself until there are hundreds of people like you, caught in their own personal prisons. Your thoughts are wiped clean, consumed with the animalistic burning of want that keeps your wasted body from fading away.
One day, she gets closer.
The chair screeches as she draws herself up to you, so close to touching; you can feel her breathe on your face and your shoulders moan with how hard you pull, snarling, jaws opening and shutting and foaming. She remains passive even as her pulse beats so steadily under the hinge of her jaw, and in another life a memory would pull itself from the depths of your diseased mind, soft and sacred, but that life has died and rotted in the center of your chest, never to come out. There's a rustle by your other ear, a clang and a soft curse; the scent of blood fills you, making you dizzy with desire, and you swing your head over to the previously unseen figure in the room. He clutches his hand and the expression on his face is prey, waiting to be taken, but the woman barks something and he scuttles out the room to escape your frenzied eyes.
All the while the woman watches, her flint-eyes narrowed in thought.
She leaves you alone for a long time in the darkness and you lie there, so very weak, so very hungry; an animal caged and emaciated, waiting for time to run out.
So tired you glare at the ceiling, not realizing she's above you until the smell of blood so sweet rouses you – before you can snarl she has one hand in your tangled hair, yanking your head back, and the other pressing something to your mouth. You go to growl and she tips it forward, letting the contents spill down your ravaged throat.
Blood.
You sputter in surprise, swallowing out of instinct, but she keeps feeding you as your growling quiets into a desperate gulping noise, straining upwards for more. It pours down into your stomach and the warmth that settles there is real, bringing life back every part of you. You don't even bother to breathe until she's done, placing the glass to the side, and you fall back onto the bed you've been chained to and exhale so deeply you wonder if your lungs will collapse.
When you open your eyes again, the world isn't the same. Things have shifted – the strange, fuzzy objects over there are a chair and a desk, the things chaining you down are handcuffs, the warmth against your legs is a blanket. You feel a pillow underneath your head, a hospital dress on your skin, and every single wound and scrape that hasn't yet healed. Your cracked lips burn when you lick them, but the metallic tang refuses to leave your mouth. You remember your name.
"Are you done?" The sound startles you and you almost scramble from your bed until you rattle, cemented in place. You wince as your joints protest the sudden movement, so used to the state of decay you've fallen into.
"W-where," your voice is so hoarse it barely sounds human, gravel in your lungs, "where am I?"
"Safe," promises the woman, and you know you aren't going to get much more than that. "They almost shot you twice, but those pansies in HQ don't understand proper risk-taking. They think going a few clicks further out is considered daring. Amateurs."
You take a glance around the room, the brief glimmer of your reflection in the mirror beside your bed taking you by surprise. It's hard to tell the colour of your skin underneath the dirt that's accumulated, mud that's fused itself into you; your hair is a dull tangle of leaves and muck and even through it all you see the way your eyes, the only splash of colour in your face, peer out through two sunken eye sockets. You gingerly attempt to touch your cheekbone, razor-sharp and fragile, but your handcuffs keep your arms pinned half-way.
"Been a long time since I've seen anyone your size," she adds, face unreadable. "Thought malnutrition was going to get you before HQ."
Your temples throb and you grit your teeth, willing away the headache that creeps up onto you. Being able to think for the first time in months is overwhelming, fragments of memories and sentences yanking themselves into alignment with a suddenness you can't predict, shoving the past two seasons into clarity that you wish you didn't have. You almost long for the nothingness, the feeling instead of thinking, but you've spent too long being an animal and have to find balance in the sliver of space between.
It still takes you a long time to piece words together into sentences, slow and sluggish, but you try.
"How... how long..."
"Were you here? Only a week."
There's a window that overlooks the outside world that's ghosted in white, smothered underneath a thick blanket. Frost bites at the windowpane and snowflakes swirl down; your inhuman eyes see the guards by the gate and their noses gone red with the cold.
"W-winter?"
"It's January. Colder than the Devil's asshole."
You swallow, barely registering when she pushes a glass of water into your hands. Your numb fingers grip the glass, cool and smooth, but you make no move to drink from it.
"Kid, as much as I'd like to let you wallow in whatever sad internal monologue you've got going in that disturbingly corpse-like head of yours, you've got some things to answer for."
She meets your frown with furrowed eyebrows, cleaving lines in her pale skin seen many wars.
"The only reason the bureaucrats that try to run me out of this hellhole haven't come barging in to blow the rest of your brains out is because I'm protecting you. Not because Sue Sylvester's gotten sentimental in her post-century years, but because you knew something you shouldn't."
A slight understatement.
"W-when?"
"When I picked you up, you mentioned someone I knew," she crosses her arms over her chest, and everything in her aura screams power. "You've got one shot to explain why."
Your mouth opens and closes a few times, scanning your eyes over her uniform. Armed forces. Military? You have no idea. Your eyes run over the name stitched onto her breast pocket and your mind pings with a memory, a girl with golden hair and eyes like lightning who leaned over you when it was raining, blood pooling out of your mouth and her repentant hands gripping an axe that's seen the end of so many-
"Q-Quinn," you sputter, looking at the woman again in disbelief. "You... Coach."
She frowns, and a flicker of emotion crosses over her hardened features.
"Quinn Fabray?"
"Calm your tits, Fabray."
"She said," you cough, settling back into your bed, "you'd b-be alive."
Something in her softens a little, her shoulders drooping ever so slightly.
"Damn right. Sue Sylvester trained her Cheerios just like she trained herself. Of course my first in command would still be alive."
"She... she h-hit me with an axe."
Two blonde brows raise, and you cough, letting her raise the glass to your mouth. "Sort of."
"Did Fabray do this to you?"
You glance over yourself, the blood and muck and sweat sticking together, and laugh bitterly.
"My dad did."
Sue doesn't quite know how to take that and you look out the window, eyes trained on the horizon you can see through the sprawl of trees. You vaguely remember passing through Canada, though god knows where you are now. If it wasn't for the towering pines that stretch further than your eyes can see, the cold would make you think of the Arctic; unyielding and unending.
A rustle of fabric pings by your left ear and you've lost the interest to look, but Sue settles by your side and the closeness of her makes your body cry out its confusion – you're still hungry, always hungry, but calm enough to accept her presence as something other than a potential meal. Her flesh smells so sweet but it's tempered with something you can't put into words, something that stirs an uneasiness within you, and your mind stays quiet.
Paper is placed into your palm – you don't have to even close your fist around it to recognize the tag you've kept with you for all this time, safe and sound. The wetness has eaten around the edges and smeared out most of your name but the curl of the B is visible in what you now recognize as your father's handwriting, so sure and steady though it's writing out your eulogy. You clench your jaw, wincing as the sting from your neglected teeth make your gums pulse.
"Is this yours?"
Her voice, so void of disbelief, makes you lick your lips. You nod.
"It says Brittany. O-or, it did. Maybe I'm not... Brittany anymore."
After a moment, you frown.
"Where did you...?"
She pulls out a small plastic sack full of unidentifiable objects. There's a dull clink that sounds wrong from everything else.
"These were in your pockets. Most of the paper's just mush now, but that was still intact, as well as a few-"
She draws out hard plastic and your reflexes surprise even yourself, jerking towards her with a suddenness that makes her whip out her gun. It points to your temple and your abdomen burns at the memory, but you've gotten over being threatened. You never die with enough certainty to make it count.
"Sorry," you mumble insincerely, looking at the vial just out of reach with an intensity that feels foreign to you. "Do you have the other?"
Sue eyes you for a moment before putting her gun away, grunting something about blondes before fishing the other vial out and placing them in your lap. This must have been what Quinn gave you, safe and sound from the others and whoever they would meet in their journeys. You run your thumbs over their tops, the stench of one mixing with the other.
Liquified death, clutched in your hands that tremble and shake.
"You can't let them have this," you murmur, pressing them to the hollow tilt of your belly. "Bad things."
She eyes you like you're halfway to insane but still agrees, and you finally feel yourself relax under her intense stare. Someone that listens... a strange novelty.
"As much as I'd like to chit-chat, you smell like an old batch of Mexican food that's been out in the sun for years, and the gases are starting to make me go blind. Someone'll come around and make you look human again while I make some calls."
Sue gets up to go but you manage to catch her fingers before the handcuffs jerk and stop you.
"A-are you coming back?"
"You're my mess now, Crazy. I couldn't get rid of you even if I wanted to."
She leaves, but you're smiling ear to ear as the if lingers in the air.
…
A nice old woman comes in a little while later and manages to undo your handcuffs, seemingly unbothered that you've collectively made all the soldiers that've dealt with you soil themselves at one point in time. She talks about her cat who would fight her tooth and nail for a chance to escape the water but always got bathed anyway, so she didn't think you'd be much of a problem. You listen raptly to her stories, letting her soothing, crackly voice lull you into a sort of trance. When she wheels you into a stack of showers and guides you to sit on the bench, you barely make a sound.
The only time you see any sort of uncertainty is when she takes off your hospital gown. Despite the change of clothes muck has been cemented to the inside, and peeling it off your skin reveals wound after wound that spells out your life story. She touches at your seams with her thumb, stroking the numb skin with an apologetic murmur, before letting her fingers wander to inspect the bullet wound. You let her, too tired of hiding to care.
Eventually she turns on the spray and directs the nozzle onto your weather-beaten skin, the water turning brown as she methodically washes away months of delirium and neglect. You physically feel yourself emerging from this carapace you've hidden yourself inside, each layer of dirt washed off a weight that lets your spine unfurl, your fingers lengthening. She cleans between each and every toe, the backs of your ears, a washcloth gingerly making its way across your bony chest and around the wound that made a monster out of you entirely. In the reflection of the water droplets you see a thousand refractions of a girl who's lost her way, and you barely recognize your own body as human. Every breath brings your skin taut over your ribs, dipping into the spaces between, the flutter of your lungs a membrane away.
The human machine is so fragile.
You obediently open your mouth as she brushes your teeth and your gums bleed and bleed no matter how gentle she is, drooling over your chin and splattering on the tile floor, but you make no flinch of recognition. It's such an insignificant pain that it doesn't even register in your head, pushed so far away with her caring hands.
(Good hands, you realize later. You'd forgotten what they felt like.)
It's when she gets to your hair that she frowns, inspecting the tangled knot it's become. Once well past your shoulder-blades, it's gathered awkwardly to one side and knotted all the way to the back of your neck, covered in leaves and mud and sweat. She washes off the worst, but she isn't a miracle worker.
"I think I have to cut some of it off," she admits sympathetically, but you shrug.
"You can shave it."
"Winter'll get cold real quick, especially with no fat on those bones."
She ends up cutting to just below the nape of your neck and spends what seems like hours combing out the knots. When the ordeal is over your skin is crimson from scrubbing and you startle when you look in the mirror, so unused to seeing a reflection that resembles the girl you remember.
It's so, so obvious how frail you are.
You softly touch the hinge of your jaw, running the thin pads of your fingers over the protrusion so hard it could wound. It reminds you of Santana a little, how her face got longer and sharper when her grin became cruel. You didn't see it much towards the end – her softness won out.
(You miss her more than words can say.)
When she deposits you back in your room she wishes you luck and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead, subtly forgetting to lock your wrists back into their chains. For the first time since waking up all those months ago you pine for your mother, no longer just a smear in your memory. You hope the frozen north is treating her and your sister with the kindness they deserve.
Time slips by as you doze in and out, light flickering and receding on your walls. Sue returns at the first light of dawn, roused from your sleep by the decisive boom of her heavy boots on the tile, and you're wiping the grit from your eyes as she strides in, all firm posture and taut muscles and raised chin that says just try me.
No wonder Quinn respected her so much.
She waves her hand and this terrified looking boy (and that's all he is, no older than 16) skitters into the room, plopping some sort of tray on your lap before darting back out. The stench of his fear lingers thick on your tongue and you swallow in the attempt to will it away, but it doesn't wash away completely and the familiar growl starts in the back of your head, demanding. It's easier to push away for now.
"You've made a name for yourself, Crazy," Sue tells you, plopping down in her chair. Even that movement seems calculated. "The recruits are terrified of you."
"Why?" you ask quizzically, but then frown. "And don't call me that."
"Am I wrong?"
Not really, and you shrug in defeat.
"They heard you snarling like you saw an autographed poster of Britney Spears – a few of them don't even want to be in the same hall. So much for being discrete."
You finally look down in your lap – there's a small bowl of what appears to be oatmeal on the tray, as well as a can of syrupy peaches and a few strips of beef jerky. Your stomach rumbles more out of instinct than any true desire.
"I don't need this," you protest, but her stern glare keeps you from pushing it away.
"If you're going to be a functioning member of society, you can't look like you've just stepped out of every supermodel's ultimate fantasy."
Your eyebrows float up in confusion.
"You need to gain weight," she says plainly.
"But I can't."
"You don't know that."
"It never worked."
"I'm guessing that's because you never ate."
Your jaw tenses a little and you glance again to the beef jerky, your tongue making an unsure run across your now-clean teeth.
"Crazy, I made my Cheerios drink a sludge so vile their bowels physically escaped out of their rear ends for years through nothing but intimidation. Do you really think I'm going to let one half-starved zombie fetishist ruin my flawless record?"
Reluctantly you pick up your spoon, dipping it into your sad little bowl of oatmeal. Your stomach rumbles again, more surely this time, and it prompts you to finally take it in your mouth. The texture is some sort of hellish miasma that makes you simultaneously cringe and rejoice, and Sue watches you intently as you pause to decide if you want to finish the rest.
Your stomach howls, echoing around the room, and your spoon digs into the rest of the food so quickly it almost snaps. The bowl is scraped clean in a matter of seconds and you're already peeling off the cover for the peaches before swallowing, picking one out with your fingers and shoving it in your mouth.
The sugar makes something feel wrong and you barely recognize your gorge rising before you're leaning over and throwing it all back up over the side of the bed.
There's silence for a moment as you cough, wiping the back of your mouth, sour sting of vomit tasting a bit too close to failure.
Sue eyes you and the half-empty tray for a moment before shrugging, unfazed by the mess on the floor.
"Seems like you'll be on an oatmeal diet for a while."
Your stomach growls its agreement.
It's hard to know exactly how long you're kept there, but you measure in progress instead of hours.
The first day after you threw up your meal all over the floor you woke too weak to bring the spoon to your mouth, your energy wasting away with the blood Sue fed you long gone. The nice lady that bathed you is there to help, spoon-feeding you like an infant – you're too tired to be ashamed, obediently opening your mouth and letting her think for a while. She says you'll eventually be able to walk again on your own, but the soles of your feet are so thin now that you walk almost directly on the bones, and even pressing them down onto the floor shoots needles of pain through your ankles and calves all the way to your hips.
Sometimes you try and remember the days with John, hanging on him for support as the two of you hobbled through this wasteland of a world. Sue was the one who shot him, made his face ripple and shatter like a flower unfurling into bloom, and though you miss him so much a physical ache starts inside of you, you can't blame her. You just hope he's found more peace than you ever did.
Though she insists she doesn't care about you except to protect herself, Sue visits you nearly every day. The best times are when she comes in with a familiar red glass, warm and thick, and watches you with scrutinizing eyes as you down it like it's the only thing you'll ever love. The human body shouldn't be able to do that, she says, but you stopped being human a long time ago.
The first few days are the worst. Everything cramps and you bloat so magnificently you feel like a round little caterpillar confined in bed, and though you know you can still feel the sharp angles of your hips and can follow the bones of your thighs it makes you feel... inferior, almost. Like once you lose the definition that so defined you you'll lose a piece of yourself, moving further from the Brittany of this new world to the Brittany of the old one. You don't remember much of her, only that nagging feeling of disappointment that drew her to follow her father in the first place. If there's one thing that terrifies you, it's becoming that girl again, the one who didn't know better as she was blindly led into Hell. You aren't strong enough to survive that a second time.
The thought of returning back to that place binds your tongue and saps your energy – you eat, but it's listless. Lifeless. You stare out the window as the nice lady coaxes you to eat, running her wizened hands down your forearms, playing with the bones of your knuckles in the way she knows you like by the soft twitch of your fingers. Despite your progress your stomach hates the way it expands and you find it hard to eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time, no matter how much the world tries to make you get better.
You aren't sure why you feel so hopeless, now of all times when you finally have cause to become human again. It would be infuriating if anger didn't take so much energy, so you settle for mildly disappointed; lucid enough to realize it, but too exhausted to really care.
The doctors that come in to check on you notice the way your eyes barely follow them around the room – they mutter worriedly about infection or brain damage but you can't find a way to tell them that you're just so tired. Words come with such difficulty that it's hardly worth trying, your tongue tripping on the simplest syllables, and the zombie that still lumbers in your chest makes it hard to breathe. They try to connect with you but they're faceless, one of many white coats that have done things to you that are only barely whispered on the fringes of your consciousness. They aren't worth the effort, and you remain silent.
The old lady, whose name you learn is Helga, understands in a way no one else does. She fills the silence you hate but can't manage to break on your own by talking about her experiences before this whole nightmare began. She wasn't anything you expect her to be – not a counselor, or a nurse, or even a social worker, but a prison warden. The woman she'd see walk through the doors of her domain were battered and bruised, she said, mistreated by a society that barely bothered to care.
"Everyone has a story, Brittany," she often says, patting your hand. "Some are just harder to hear than others."
She never feels sorry for you, which is nice. Too many people do that already.
…
"We need to test her," comes a voice from the hallway, and you roll your head a little to better catch the sound. Today was a Bad Day, barely moving, barely breathing, simply letting the blankness of your thoughts and the exhaustion of your body wash over you. They come without warning and leave never as quickly – without survival looming on the horizon it's almost like your body's given up the fight, given permission to die in a place that won't allow it.
You'd tell it to stop, but sometimes your mind agrees. It's not taken to this new world very well. What's the point, really? It'll just end up repeating itself eventually – it always does. You're always alone.
"For what? She's obviously conscious."
"Barely. She's almost non-responsive. Her body should be responding better to the food we've been giving her, even if she isn't feeding herself. There has to be something wrong."
"Newsflash, lab rat, you can't do shit without my consent. And guess what? You aren't getting it. Go play Nazi-doctor somewhere else."
"Master Sergeant, I really think you should consider this. She could have lingering brain trauma."
"Of course she has brain trauma, it happens when people shoot you in the face. Your incessant need to treat her like she's broken is tiring, and you can leave before I do something unpleasant with that clipboard."
"But-"
"Leave."
There's a shuffle of footsteps and you hear her taking up perch beside you, sighing before leaning back.
"Doctors think they know damn everything," she grunts, mostly to herself. Sue doesn't spend as much time engaging with you as Helga does, but she never gets angry at your lack of responsiveness. "Lopez's father always did the same thing, like he thought my training tactics weren't the best in the country. Cruel and unusual punishment, my ass."
Your eyes flick over to her, curious.
Sue raises a brow at your sudden interest.
"She never mentioned her dad's career?"
You give a barely perceptible shake of your head.
"Figures. Sandbags was the second in command of the squad, right under Fabray. I trained them even harder than the other girls because I knew they could take it – and they could. When the others were puking in a corner, those two were running laps in perfect synchronization."
Her eyes flicker momentarily, something like nostalgia flashing for a brief stretch of time before it vanishes, but you've already seen it.
"That kind of training leaves marks, and let's say that Doctor Lopez was... concerned. Tried to put an inquiry on me, even, but the board was so terrified of my bold, unforgiving personality that nothing ever came of it. Doesn't mean he didn't try. Kept saying that kind of strain wasn't good for a teenager's body."
Sue leans forward, smirking.
"But I'll tell you what, Crazy. Those two? They're alive now because I trained them to be soldiers. Machines. Weakness isn't an option."
It explains more than you can understand about her, the way Santana's eyes would go cold and calculating sometimes, and another piece of the puzzle falls into place. You match Sue's smirk with a faint smile of your own, and watch it turn just a little bit softer.
Maybe it explains things about her too.
…
Helga's reading to you from a book whose name escapes you, pillowed in your soft bed that's equal parts a cage. Her good hands have tucked you in and your eyes grow weary as you slowly roll onto your side and watch her, thin-framed glasses perched on her nose, curly white hair shadowing her face.
So lost in mapping her features, you barely catch the next part of the story.
"... when you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
She flips the page, her wrinkled fingers caressing it lovingly.
""Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?""
""It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.""
You blink, staring at the picture of the little toy rabbit on the cover and how the edges are torn and faded, well-used and well-loved.
""Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.""
Ever so slowly your hand reaches out until it touches hers, the first contact you've initiated in so long. She pauses and looks to you, noting the way your eyes are glued to the images on the pages.
"I want to be Real, too," you mumble, voice hoarse and low, and Helga smiles.
"You are, Brittany."
"I wasn't. Not to them."
You aren't sure who you're referring to anymore, but she turns and gathers your hands in her own, laying her wizened palms over your hands that tremor still.
"But you are now. You've always been Real to me."
You suck your lip into your mouth as your eyes sting, blinking away what you think are tears. Helga's face goes so soft and gentle, kind in ways that you can't ever remember, and you only have to tug a little bit before she's climbing carefully into bed beside you and gathering you up into your arms. You're so much taller than her but you curl into her body regardless, arms long like branches wrapping around her frail waist.
She kisses the crown of your head, and a warmth so calm flushes through you it almost puts you to sleep.
"I promise you'll never have to worry about that again."
(And you believe her.)
...
Sue comes in one day with a book, bound and fading at the edges, stained with blood and bold colours.
She settles by your bed as she tends to do and plops it unceremoniously in your lap, startling you out of your half-lucid daydreams. You rub the grit out of your eyes and sneak a glance at her as you run your hands across the velvet-like cover, thumbing over the words that appear almost burnt off.
"Figured this would interest you," she mutters, revealing nothing, and leans back to begin her daily ritual of paperwork.
You stare at her for a few moments but she doesn't budge – sighing, you flip open the first page. It's written in a tight, looped scrawl that you can't quite read, so you simply skim over the text and turn right to the heart of the book. The pages feel strange – too thick for a novel – and you realize that it's actually an album. A formation of girls grin back at you, decked in skirts and bold reds that swirl in perfect harmony against the emerald green grass. It's a gorgeous shot, a snapshot into a life you know you used to have. It reads National Cheerleading Meet, 2008.
Standing front and center is a figure so familiar you draw the picture so close it almost touches your nose. Sure enough, hands on her hips and a brilliant, powerful grin on her face, a younger Quinn Fabray stares back at you. Somehow, the cheerleading outfit suits her better than any of the other girls.
With a frown you scan the other rows, but don't have to look far – just to her right is another familiar image, this time with a sly smirk and narrowed eyes. Santana looks so young in this, barely fourteen, and you study the way age and starvation hasn't yet narrowed the cut of her jaw to make her look meaner. She may have been cruel back then as she claims, but she definitely didn't look the way all survivors look these days. Haunted.
"They weren't joking when they said they were cheerleaders," reveals Sue. "Four time national champions. If I asked, they could still do a flawless handspring halfway across New York."
You debate for a long time, running your fingers along the pages. Flipping through them is watching her grow up, gradually get leaner and more confident, but there's always a ripple in her shoulders that she can't hide. An imperfection you caught glimpses of when she'd hold your hand in a way her allies said she wouldn't be capable of doing. It make your chest hurt.
"We were in New York," you finally murmur. "Too many sick for that."
Her papers rustle as she puts them down and leans forwards, that same familiar disquiet in her scent keeping you docile.
"Is that why you left?"
"W-we lost too much there. We had to go."
"They did, or you did?"
You suck your lip into your mouth and look away, Sam's memory floating into your mind again. You wonder if Mercedes still thinks you're a murderer or if someone tried to defend you. Why would they? You're dead to them.
Literally.
She senses you close again and sighs, shuffling her papers and turning to leave. You almost give her back the album but something makes you keep it, and you stay up late through the night studying pictures of the girl you wish you'd known better. You miss her so much it steals your breath away, partly to blame for your sparse, shaky words, but seeing her so much less guarded soothes the wound that's slow to sew.
It's hard to mourn for a girl that you never knew, but you do it anyway. And if the grief comes from more places than you care to recognize, you don't dwell. It's the first time in so long you've felt something close to a lifting burden.
…
After that night, things slowly start to get better.
It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and some days are still spent mired so deeply in your own head you can't get out. Helga says that the light in your eyes simply... goes out, and sometimes she thinks you've died until she shakes you awake. You think so too, but you keep it to yourself.
It still takes a lot of effort to piece sentences together into coherency because you refuse to speak with anyone but Sue and Helga, but it comes. A man in a white coat says you might have brain damage, doing strange things like shining light into your eyes and making you read a book with bright colours, writing in his little notebook when you confuse words for each other and stumble over your tongue. It makes you feel like you're ten again, sitting in the doctor's office, your father stubborn by your side as she tries to prescribe you to therapy to help with lingering issues. He never believed her and kept you away, and the way Sue looks at the man says the same thing.
When you'd asked her about it in your slow, halting way, she'd raised her eyebrows.
"Do you want to be treated like you're stupid?"
"N-no..."
"Then why are you asking?"
Your frown had made her sigh, pausing in her paperwork she'd brought to your room.
"This is the zombie apocalypse, Crazy. Who cares if you're missing a few screws?" She pauses, studying you. "Or almost all of them."
"W-what if they're-"
"Then you think differently, big fat deal. I picked my Cheerios to be soldiers, not scientists, and I can guarantee almost all of them are still breathing." She smirks, slipping her glasses back on. "You're alive, aren't you? That's more than most of the doctors can say."
You blink, settling back into your bed.
"I know I'm right," she adds into the empty room. "No need to affirm it."
You catch the eye-roll just before you execute it and instead cast your eyes on the books the man in the white coat left, determined to work your way through it by the time he comes back. Sue leans back in her chair, completely immersed in her work.
(When Quinn said she was terrifying, she must have been exaggerating - Sue is many things, but scary isn't one of them.)
…
Midway through The Tale of Peter Rabbit a few days later you're interrupted by a short man storming into your room. Helga, the woman that's slowly been helping to put you back together, pauses and pats your hand before getting up and shuffling out of the room. Sue looms behind him, an irritated presence betrayed only in the slight down-twist of her mouth and the furrow between her brows.
"Is this her, Master Sergeant?" he grunts, and Sue's spine seems to get even straighter if possible.
"Yes, Colonel," she grits out, and you notice the subtle strain around her jaw.
"Good. You're dismissed."
"With all due respect, I'll stay here. She's still... volatile."
Their eyes meet for a few moments, lighting against ice, but the ferocity in her stare makes her a formidable opponent. He eventually shrugs her off and her lips flicker into a victorious smirk for a moment before vanishing.
The man runs his eyes up and down your body, over and over, calculating and cunning. You're all too aware of your gaunt cheeks and hollow chest, your knees that stick out and your ribs that haven't quite filled in yet. You've lost the defined indents on them, like you're caving in from the inside, but they still slide and press and breathe with you. After what seems like an eternity, he raises both eyebrows.
"You're what's gotten my soldiers into a fit?"
"She can be more frightening than you think."
He eyes the picture books scattered beside your bed, The Tale of Peter Rabbit slung over the bedrail. His gaze makes you feel small, eyes dark like Puck's before he tore through your body.
There's silence for a moment, your skeleton crawling underneath your skin.
"What do you want?"
Sue's face remains stone but you see the grin in her eyes when he stares at you in disbelief, painting his face as something much older than it is. He mustn't be more than thirty, the corners of his eyes still smooth, and you wonder how he climbed the ranks so quickly. Twin silver stars adorn his shoulders, but you like Sue's patterns more.
"What makes you think I want anything?"
"People only come when they want something."
He huffs out a breath of air through his nose.
"I came – taking time out of my busy schedule, mind – to see how you're recovering. You need to be able to stand before you fly."
Wait... fly?
"Master Sergeant Sylvester didn't tell you? She's managed to contact a settlement that can better deal with your... affliction."
"Colonel, there's been no agreement-"
"There is as of now." His voice is colder now, final. You feel numb. "You'd do well not to question it."
He doesn't even say goodbye as he strides away, and Sue keeps the stone-face for all of a few seconds before she sighs, her eyes flickering with annoyance.
"Goddamned HQ, thinking they can send a baby to command Sue Sylvester. I didn't train soldiers how to grapple with angry animal-hybrid militants with them watching over my shoulder."
"W-where?"
You don't want to leave this place so soon; you've settled into your schedule of eating and reading and speaking, simplistic things that look more like obstacles to be conquered than mountains to climb over. You're terrified of turning back into what you used to be before they found you, or even what you can still be on Bad Days.
"There's another base a ways north of here. Bigger than this one. It has all the science-y types they managed to save from the zoms."
She shuffles her paperwork, left on her chair. There's an unease in her that makes you cautious.
"Helga wanted you to get stronger before I told you, but Colonel Hardass decided to throw that out of the window. I'm all for blunt force, but a bulldozer in a rotting building doesn't help anyone."
You frown, picking at your nails.
"You know what I mean," she grunts. "You're fragile."
"I don't want to be."
"Then get stronger. It's all you can do."
Your distinct reluctance to leave makes it all that more bittersweet when you finally begin to walk again.
The first few days were a setback as you sunk into yourself, barely listening to the fairytales Helga spun for you, wallowing in the fracturing of your tenuous grasp on normalcy. It took a long time to sum up the energy to work towards the goal of leaving, and even more so to encourage yourself to do it.
Helga takes your hands and you carefully unfold yourself out of bed, clinging onto her for support much like you once held onto John as you teetered through a world gone black with decay. The soles of your feet are still thin and it places uncomfortable pressure on your bones, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to. She strokes your fingers and encourages you with soft sounds, and you take gentle, unsteady steps across the room for the first time in weeks. You're holding your breath and your heart pounds, but once you reach the doorway you let out a shaky sigh that sounds almost like a laugh. She approaches you with a wheelchair but you wave her off, clinging to the doorframe.
"I can do it," you mutter, brows furrowed in concentration. Sue watches you from the side, eyes twin pinpricks of interest, and with her heavy gaze across your shoulders you make it all the way back to your bed without falling once.
The rush of finally being strong enough soon fades when you look at her face, the inevitability of it making you sigh.
"Do I have to go?"
"HQ doesn't want to be responsible for you, Crazy. There's no more negotiating."
The tone in her voice makes it seem like she's tried, and it instills some small sentiment of comfort in you.
"Are you coming with me?"
"Sue Sylvester doesn't abandon her soldiers, kid."
You smile, and for the first time she smiles back.
…
It's a flurry of activity as you're whisked along the corridor, legs clad in jeans a size too big ("they're zeros, Helga had said, and you're too tall for children's sizes") and sweater hanging off your frame. You see more of the base in the five minute ride out to the helicopter than you have in your weeks staying here, and you wiggle your toes in your new boots. The sheepskin lining tickles the soles and makes it so much easier to walk, but longer distances still tire you out. The slight hill you'd have to walk up would be impossible.
Sue strides alongside as Helga wheels you along, eyes bright and sharp. She looks imposing in her uniform, her insignias crisp on her shoulders, and the soldiers snap to attention when they see her. You want that kind of presence.
The colonel is waiting by the chopper and you wrinkle your nose in distaste, wheeling to a stop in front of him. His hands, clasped behind his back, shake minutely with the cold.
"I trust you're ready to go?" he asks, the false sincerity dripping from his voice.
"Not really," you reply flatly.
The colonel blinks for a moment before ignoring you entirely, turning to Sue instead. "You're to return immediately after drop-off, understand?"
"Negative," she replies. "HQ wants me to accompany her and make sure everything is in order."
"I am HQ," he sputters, but she smirks.
"No, Colonel, you're just HQ's hand. Not the brain."
Without a glance back she takes your wheelchair from Helga and runs you up to the cockpit where you move into a seat and strap in. The motor is a roar in your ears and everyone watches as it comes to life, buffeting the ground troops with frozen air. You wave to Helga sadly, sighing as she waves back with that calm smile that always accompanied your frustration. The ground slowly moves further away as you lift up into the air, the tops of the pine trees clearing your field of vision. It's forest no matter where you look, the path down below vanishing into nothingness. A vast arena of silence, home to a staggering number of the dead.
"The last time I was in one of these, we crashed," you inform Sue, gripping just a little bit tighter to the seat. "It was winter too."
"What happened after?"
"I don't remember."
She nods, and the two of you watch the scenery float by. It's unchanging, but there's a certain serenity to it that calms the ever-buzzing undercurrent of unease that anchored itself within you ever since you were told of your move.
"I have to warn you, Crazy. This place we're going to... it looks like your original pack of misfits were headed there too."
You frown. "The numbers they found on the paper?"
She rattles off a list of digits and they sound familiar, and your nod makes her lips pull into a straight line.
"Are they there?" you ask, excitement building in your gut. You'd given up on ever finding Santana again, or Quinn and Tina. Even Mike. They're the only friends you can even remember.
(Is Sue your friend? You hope so.)
"I don't know. I've only been talking to the head of the base and the one who leads all the researchers."
It doesn't even occur to you to wonder what the researchers would want with her.
There's an eventual shift in the air, the metal beast transporting you in its belly groaning as it begins its slow descent. In the distance you see walls towering through the trees tipped with barbed wire, a tower on each end whose gaze encompasses miles of wilderness, and a large, chain gate that seems tiny from your position in the sky. It's a rough triangle area, flaring out towards the back, and your eyes fail to see what's at the far end of the compound. It's the biggest gathering of people you've seen since you can remember waking up, and it's terrifying.
The two soldiers that have accompanied you and Sue murmur to themselves as they get ready to jump down, their hands floating casually over their weapons for an instant to make sure they're secure. From the snippets of their conversation you've gathered it's a military base, formerly belonging to Canada but since abandoned, with the American soldiers taking up posts. You wonder where the Canadian soldiers have gone – maybe north, to their other places high near the glaciers of the Arctic. You don't think you'd be able to survive there, as thin as you are. Hopefully they have a layer of blubber, like the seals that make their home on the ice.
The American flag waves in the high winds next to the Canadian, and you wonder how much of that alliance from the days before still exists.
Unlike last time, your helicopter doesn't come crashing down in a plume of smoke and fire. It's almost anti-climatic, the gentle deposit of its hulking metal chassis on the ground with little more than a dull thunk. The two nameless soldiers jump out, guns pressing to their bellies as their hands cradle the grip, and you plop yourself back into your wheelchair as Sue unfolds herself from her seat.
"Nothing happens until they get through Sue Sylvester," she promises, patting your shoulder. "I've got command here."
"Not HQ?"
She smirks. "Not HQ."
The four of you roll out through the landing bay, bracing against the cold to be led into a nearby building. The soldiers that come to greet you are dressed in the same attire, but you notice their jackets are different, thicker and fluffier. Something they'd taken from the former occupants, no doubt.
Your group shares salutes and Sue barks something incomprehensible – the new soldiers glance at you warily but open the door regardless, and warm air hits your face so strongly you almost suffocate. The halls that greet you are white, void of pictures or colour, and though it's not exactly friendly the lights are on and the distant sound of bustling footsteps makes it seem alive with noise. You suck your lower lip into your mouth; all the heartbeats in this one space turns it into a cacophony of life, breathing and beating over one another, and though Sue had given you more blood before you left your stomach rumbles regardless, growling for prey. The guns they have make sure you wouldn't survive getting shot a third time.
You're wheeled down an endless maze of hallways, maneuvering deeper, and you realize belatedly you've switched buildings entirely. They must be connected somehow... underground? That would explain the dampness in the air as the world dips down a little before resurfacing.
This new building is much like the last, but it smells... different. Sweat and blood and shoe-polish, certainly, but there's another scent that chews at your memory, begs you to remember. You blink, letting yourself drift away in an effort to bring it out of hiding, but that one piece of your life you still can't find refuses to be drawn into the light. It nags you, making your teeth clench and your nails bite, instilling a wariness as you come to a stop in an empty white room. Your two soldiers take up posts by the door and Sue stands, a hand firm on your shoulder, waiting for the footsteps you hear outside to come.
There's one that's wrong, too quick and too light, nervous, and so familiar it hurts-
White coats file in and they're all the same, one nameless face after another, but one of them steps forward and his smell strikes you across the face; all your muscles lock and you can't take your eyes away from how he trembles, tentatively crossing the floor to you, his voice soft and disbelieving and so fucking-
"Brittany?"
Memories lance through you and your mind is going up in flames, just like the helicopter, just like the bodies of your friends, crash crash burn.
"D-dad?" you choke out, and then you remember and everything goes white.
You're in this strange building and your father hasn't spoken since he got you out, John heavy on his back as the three of you shadow your way through the streets. You're too scared to speak, your shoulder running across the brick wall as you dart through alleyways, the shine of sweat on his upper-lip the only thing betraying his nerves. He has to stop for a minute and you finally look around, one hand pressed to your bruised ribs.
"Dad, w-what's going on?"
He huffs, wiping his hair away from his eyes.
"I'll explain once we're safe. Come on."
You get started again and it seems like an eternity before you get to a non-descript building, pressing gingerly to the side. He knocks in a rhythmic pattern and the whole world holds its breath before the door swings open – your father lets out a sigh of relief and ushers you inside where people immediately take John's limp form and lay him out on a cot dragged against the side of the wall. Another man makes to go to you but your father bats him away, taking you by the arm and drawing you aside.
"I need you to go with that man, okay? Just for a few minutes. I need to make sure John's okay."
"What's happening?"
"Britt, listen to me," he kneels down and grabs your hands, "there are things happening I can't explain right now. Once this is over, I'll tell you everything."
"A-are you sure?"
If you see the flicker of doubt in his eyes, it's not strong enough to comment on.
"I'm sure."
…
A week of hiding brings nothing earth-shattering – they take more and more blood from you, half-pints at a time, but no more strange figures trying to hurt you. John woke up and is finally back to normal, cracking all the stupid jokes you're used to. It makes you feel more normal.
The two of you are lounging in your shared room upstairs, his head pillowed in your lap. His skin is flushed red, and the heat of him radiates through your jeans. You frown and touch his forehead when it comes back hot.
"Are you okay? You're all sweaty."
He smiles, never opening his eyes.
"M'fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Head hurts."
There's a bang and the two of you startle, John wincing and clutching his head. A commotion downstairs and you scramble upright in time to see your father burst in, that familiar fear in his eyes like the night you crashed.
"Come with me. Now."
You and John stumble downstairs where all the men in the white coats are milling about the entrance, gripping weapons in their hands. A spike of unease fills you but you're rushed down into the basement – the underbelly of the compound is drafty and you shiver a little, the bare lightbulbs casting a harsh glow on the unfinished space.
"You need to stay here until I come get you, okay? I'll try not to be long."
"Dad, what's happening?" You're starting to get sick of always being in the dark, but what did you expect? It's been like that ever since you volunteered to come to New York with him.
"The sick people are trying to get in. It'll be okay. Just be quiet." He kisses your forehead and dashes back up the stairs, and you hear the distinct sound of a lock click behind him. You swallow, glancing around. What the hell is going on?
John's made himself a bed on the ground and you can see how he shivers from here, his entire body trembling. It's not cold, the furnaces making the space warm and muggy, and you gingerly make your way towards him and sit by his side. His sweat begins to seep through his shirt and you stroke his matted brown hair from his forehead.
"Do you think you ate something bad?"
He doesn't answer, just mumbles something into your skin and clutches his arms closer to his chest. In the crook of his elbow you see a great red ball of flesh, angry and hard, and every movement that jostles it brings a whimper from his lips.
You gently stroke his shoulder and resign yourself to waiting it out.
…
Things go sour quickly.
John starts coughing soon after your imposed confinement and blood comes up in his spittle, great hacking movements that shakes his entire frame. His eyes are glassy, dazed – he hasn't answered a question with any degree of coherency in a while. His fever climbs so high you get too hot just being near him.
When you realize he hasn't woken up in a while is when you really start to panic.
You climb the stairs and bang on the door, calling for your father. Nothing answers you, and pressing your ear to the wood yields no noise. Where are they? The bare lightbulb hums overhead and it's one of the only sources of noise besides the furnace that continues to roar, pumping heat into the space until you're sweating too. You slump against the door, defeated, knuckles raw and cracked from knocking. What's happening? Who are these people? Why are you even here in the first place?
The scientists had been more interested in you than usual ever since you landed, checking on you every hour, taking your vital signs, your temperature, measuring your anxiety levels and your eye movements. The vague headache you've had for days hasn't gone away but hasn't turned into something more, and with each negative to their questions you could see a hope blooming on their faces. Hope for what?
When you eventually drag yourself back downstairs, something's wrong. John's stopped shivering, stopped whimpering, and sweat placidly slides down the back of his neck. You rush to him, rolling him onto his back, and the rise of his chest is so faint you can barely see it.
"John?" you whisper, shaking him. "John, c'mon, wake up."
A thin trickle of blood slides out from his ear, and you watch in horror and it drools out from the corner of his mouth, soon followed by a stream out his nose. Iron fills the air and you gag.
"We've been through worse, you can't do this to me," you whimper, fisting your hands in his band-tshirt, uncaring how it's soaked through with sweat. "You can't leave me alone."
Upstairs, the door creaks open and footsteps thump down the stairs. Your breath shudders out of you, a great exhale of relief, and you run your hands through is sweat-matted locks in what you hope to be a comforting movement. You can't see your father's eyes, but his glasses catch the harsh reflection of the bulb overhead.
"You have to help him," you beg, "he won't wake up."
He kneels beside John and gingerly checks his pulse, pulling the lids of his eyes open. The whites of them have gone scarlet, vessels popping and leaking all over until you can barely see any normal tissue at all. Your father huffs out an unsure breath, unfolding his wounded arm. It's the only thing that stirs some sort of reaction – a faint mumble, displeased but sedated.
You're expecting him to promise help, that it'll all be over soon, but instead he stands up.
"We can't do anything yet," he says regretfully, and it's only later do you notice the tremble in his tone. "It's not safe yet."
"B-but... he's dying!"
"Don't say that, Brittany. John will be fine. You just need to wait a little while longer."
He sounds so sure of himself that you don't know how to respond, and you sit numbly as he kisses your forehead again and thumps back up the stairs. If you could think of anything else, you'd wonder why there hadn't been any sounds of fighting for a long time.
…
You're holding him when he dies.
It's almost peaceful how his chest deflates, stuttering for a moment before going still, a soft wheeze leaving his parted lips. You look up, pressing your trembling fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse you can't find. His body is so hot, sticky with sweat and blood, and it makes your whole front clammy. The shaking travels from your fingers up your elbows to your entire spine until you're vibrating, swallowing down sobs that threaten to leave your throat, dragging his limp body closer until you can cradle him like a child.
His arm flops to the side and you see the angry mass inside of his elbow, a knot of twisted flesh, and you gingerly press against it. It's hard but gives, and when you press enough foul-smelling pus leaks out of the weaker stretches of skin. It looks like a needle mark, one whose infection seeped into his entire body until it devoured him.
You wish you could go back to the start and stay back at home in California with your smart sister and kind mother and fat cat, where the sea was the only thing that mattered, a water dance that embeds itself in you. You long for the waves, tired of the walls that all look the same, and wonder if you're ever going to leave.
Your birthday is soon, you think. Are you going to turn seventeen with nothing to celebrate? You pull John closer and bury your face in his damp hair, wondering if you have anything left at all.
...
You've moved to the side of the room; John's body is starting to smell... strange. It hasn't been long enough to rot but there's an underlying wrongness that makes you edge away, watching him out of the corner of your eye. The past hour was spent banging on the basement door, begging with your dad to let you out, but he still hasn't replied and you're stuck in a room with the body of your best friend and a sense of hopelessness so deep it opens up and drags you away.
You're in the middle of inspecting your chapped knuckles when a shuffle whispers across the space. Everything in you freezes, eyes blown wide like bullet-holes in the dark, and you quiet your breath to a murmur in an effort to hear it again. Maybe it's just a mouse? This place does seem pretty-
There it is again.
You roll up into a careful crouch, fumbling for anything as reassurance. There's an old scalpel on the ground, rusty and jagged, and you grip it so tightly the metal shaft makes imprints on your skin. In this darkness that looms it's hard to see much at all, but the shuffling gets louder and your heart pounds in your throat, making it hard to breathe, and the furnaces grumble as they cast their flickering light until they make shadows. Shadows that move.
Your head swings towards John's body that jerks where it lays, heels digging into the ground for a moment before his hands, previously limp and fallow, curl and relax. Disbelief floods you as the shuffle becomes his clothing shifting on the ground as he struggles into a sitting position, head hung low and still.
"J-john?" your whisper is so tremulous you don't sound like yourself – hope isn't a song you sing much these days, but he's here, you aren't alone anymore, and you can't stop yourself from flinging your arms around his shoulders. "You're alive! Oh my God, I thought you were dead! You w-were dead!"
He doesn't move for another second and in that split moment of silence you hear the strange, wheezing rattle that comes every time he breathes in – it reminds you of something, a stimulus you can't quite place. You rock back on your heels, touching his jaw. "John?"
When his gaze turns to you, everything tumbles into place. Your mind layers the vision of another man over top of him, one with metal bursting from his chest and fingertips so ragged you can see bone, the strange scent and the eyes so clouded and dead, void of comprehension. You scramble back just as he swipes at you, limbs heavy and leaden.
There's no way out, not here, and you weakly hold your rusty scalpel out in front of you as he gets to his feet. John's unsteady in a way he never was, tottering like a toddler who's just learned to walk, and the odd slouch makes his spine bend so far you wonder if it'll snap. He studies you for a second, wheezing and silent, before his jaw drops open and out from his chest comes the most terrifying noise you've ever heard. It's death bent into audio waves, echoing and bouncing, distorting into nightmares so vivid they'll never leave. You swallow as he lurches towards you.
"S-stay back," you hiss, waving your weapon. He pays you no heed and keeps stumbling, arms stretching outwards to grab you.
Your scalpel comes down, embedding itself in the soft flesh of his forearm, but it doesn't bother him at all. He doesn't even bleed.
You barely duck out of the way and scramble to the stairs, slamming your entire body against the door. His footsteps follow you as he makes his slow, imposing way up.
"Dad!" you shriek, rattling the frame. "Dad! Anyone! Please let me out!"
There's noise from the other side of the door but it's faint, eclipsed by your own panicked breathing, and you lose your voice entirely as his hands finally grab you. He's so cold.
You raise your arms to defend yourself but he grabs you left wrist and brings it towards him – his grip dwarfs your limbs and next thing you know you're screaming, pain shooting from finger to skull as he sinks his teeth into your forearm, decimating the muscle and vessels he finds there. It feels like your bones are about to snap in half, that he'll come away with his prize of most of your limb, but you somehow manage to wrench your arm away – at expense of a massive, weeping gash in your skin. Shaking, you thrust your leg forward into his soft belly, sending his unsteady frame tumbling down the stairs.
The pain makes you nauseous and you clutch your injured arm to your chest, stumbling down the stairs and past the body of the boy you use to know as he begins to get up, completely unaffected by the fall that would have killed anyone else. There's a square of shadow in the depths of the basement and you vaguely see the outline of a door swung open into a closet, a lock on the outside. John stumbles to his feet towards you again, mouth covered in blood, and you swallow as you wait.
You don't really have a plan, but the animal that resides in all beings springs into action as he gets close – you jerk back from his reach and shove him with all you're worth, sending him sprawling into the closet. Ever so quickly do you slam the door shut, fumbling with the lock until it clicks. You hear him get up and beat against the door, soft thuds that do absolutely nothing at all, and you let yourself finally slide down to the floor and cry.
...
After about a half hour, you can't cry anymore. Everything's numb. Time passes in a vortex, the endless thud of John's fists against the door mimicking the boom that's taken up residence inside your head. It feels like there's another person inside of you, beating to get out, and your skin is stretching and burning in an effort to keep them inside.
Everything hurts.
All your joints are so stiff and swollen you can barely look up as the door upstairs swings open, a flood of light making you flinch back and whimper. Footsteps slam down the stairs and you know who it is before he even gets near – his cologne makes you gag but you still lean into his touch as he kneels down in front of you, taking in the way your pupils have narrowed to pinpricks.
"What happened, Britty?" he asks softly; you finally place his tone, deception and anticipation, but it's so hard for you to form words, the headache taking your tongue away. If everything wasn't pulsing in time to your heartbeat, you might even feel betrayed. As it stands you remain silent and his gaze travels down your front until it comes to rest on your blood-soaked sleeve, tucked protectively between your knees and your chest. Something anxious flickers in his eyes as he looks around, finally hearing the soft, rhythmic assault against the door.
Your eyes float to the middle of the room where he had hemorrhaged and laid in a pool of his own blood as he died; it trails into the closet where you sit in it, completely uncaring. He doesn't even ask and you know he understands in the cautious way he takes your wrist, pulling it from your body to rotate and be exposed in the light. Your flesh glistens, a macabre crescent moon.
Even with your thoughts scattered and fractured, you know there's nothing he can do. He picks you up, the world spinning out, and you barely catch his words whispered into your ear.
"It's time, Britty. You're gonna be a hero."
Surrounded by the too-sharp scent of his sweat, you just want to stop existing at all.