Darkness at Noon
Chapter 6 - Winter in My Heart
Egon rubbed his eyes in irritation, trying to make the equations he had scrawled on the margins of his drafting paper clear again. For the fifth time in approximately the last five minutes he tried in vain to clean his glasses in an effort to stop the world from spiraling out of focus. His eyes threatened to close of their own accord, but he just could not afford that. Even if it had been over 24 hours since he had last slept.
"Dr Spengler, are you alright?" Roland asked quietly from the table on the other side of the lab. Light pooled around his hands, illuminating the thrower he was checking the wiring on. It hurt to look at and the light had a halo so large he couldn't actually see Roland.
"I'm fine," Egon muttered, turning back to his equations. He felt disconnected and it was hard to remember why he was even doing the math anyway.
Heels clacked on the floor, heralding Janine's entry. He recalled the hastily bandaged cut on her forehead and knew why he was running the numbers again. The trap had a major malfunction, and without the physical remnants to examine he would have to run a probability on it and try to narrow down the potential failure points, and then examine the other traps for such said failure points.
Tedious, tiresome work. The smell of coffee near his elbow roused him. He had not even been aware he had closed his eyes.
He noted that a hand was still attached to it and followed the arm up to Janine's face. Her eyes were a tad puffy. Had she caught something? He wasn't contagious; at least he was reasonably sure he wasn't. 98.6% sure. Surely she was not infected by Achira as well. That would be...horrible.
She must have caught his growing concern because she bit her lip and shook her head slightly, shifting her eyes to look over her shoulder.
She didn't want the kids to know.
He tensed, grabbing her wrist before she could turn away, and made a frantic gesture at his own face. This was serious, he had to know.
She shook her head again, holding up her free hand in a complacent gesture. No, that wasn't the problem.
He let the air leave his lungs in relief and let her wrist go, patting it lightly in apology for gripping too hard.
She turned and left, gifting him the faintest of sad smiles before fleeing for the hallway.
He watched her retreating back before looking back at the coffee, still hot enough to steam subtly.
If only...
He took his glasses off and set them on the tablet. He needed to stop staring at the numbers for a moment - just a moment - to collect himself. The idea that Janine, or any of his students, might die from this same consuming disease was frightening at best. The air swam in front of his eyes.
If only...
If only the equipment was still in functional condition. If only that subway had not been built. If only they had not been forced to close. If only he had not driven her out of his life all those years ago.
If only he had more time to fix his mistakes, his transgressions against everyone he cared about.
If only he could have just one of those things, he might have led a better life.
But of course, nothing was ever so simple as 'what if' scenarios laid them out to be. He ran his hands through his hair, feeling the sweat plastering it to his scalp and neck. It was impossible. He was running out of time and he could not save them.
"Dr Spengler? Sir?" Roland's hand touched his shoulder tentatively.
When he looked up Roland's face was clear in a sea of vague shapes, covered in throbbing boils. They were dying. All of them were dying, and he could do nothing to stop it.
He wasn't entirely sure of when he had blacked out, but it must have been so because he had mysteriously been transported to the couch. He fumbled around for his glasses blindly and found them, the frames bent and badly reshaped. He allowed himself the briefest of moments to congratulate himself for getting plastic lenses and wire frames for easier repair before readjusting them and putting them on. A few new scratches lingered on the edge of his vision, but they were easy enough to ignore now that he saw a note that had been left on the table.
It was unmistakeably Janine's tidy script, but written in a hurried fashion.
E,
Got equipment checked, figured you needed the rest. Have gone to bust Achira, back before you know it.
We'll be careful, don't worry.
- J.
Egon flipped the note over to check the backside for additional details.
Stop worrying.
Damn the woman for knowing him too well. If things had gone differently, he might have married her someday. No, he amended, he would have. He would have married her and given her everything and anything she wanted of him. But, like 'what if' scenarios, 'would haves' were just as idealistic and unrealistic. Selfish even.
By God he was sick to death of being realistic, but someone had to be. Not that it meant that it did not still hurt like an open wound. His eyes felt damp and watery, but he shrugged off the feeling. There was no room nor time for such things as feeling sorry for himself. He had chosen this. Above all else, all the 'might haves' and 'would haves', he had chosen to live this way. For the good of everyone.
He checked his watch for the time and cast around for a clock to confirm. Two hours. Two whole hours he had been lying here uselessly asleep. He stood and stalked back to the lab, ice creeping down his spine. He had not finished the probability equations, which meant that the checking of the traps may have wasted precious time, if it had been done properly at all.
If the traps did not work, it would be his fault. Hopefully they would exercise caution in their entrapment procedures. If they did not, well, it did not bear dwelling on...
He suppressed a shudder. It was not that he personally feared death as a concept; in theory it was just the passing of life from one form to another. He felt oddly...ambivalent about the idea as a while. He understood that death was frightening to most. He had been afraid of dying, violently afraid, but not of death. They were two entirely separate pictures in his mind. Death was the cessation of physical existence, dying was the process by which it occurred. Which may or may not be violent and painful.
The fact that he would linger in this place after said physical cessation was a boon and a bane. His soul was bound to this location so that, even if he were to be on another plane, he would still be linked to the firehouse as a permanent guardian over the containment unit. For a long time he had toyed with the concept of actually banishing spirits to other planes, but it had not panned out in the long run.
Binding was possible, so long as a focal source could be found, but the magic was complicated and tricky at best. He brought a hand self consciously to his eyes and bumped his glasses back up his nose. Someday, before a natural death, he would likely be blind. At least he might not have to go through that at this rate.
Really, the worst of his problems was the leaving behind. He could not accept death with open arms with so much left to do. Had there been no one who needed him, it would have been that much easier to just cross over. But right here, in the moment, he was needed and entirely useless for what he was needed for.
He sat down in his chair, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. He itched at his arm, where the curse was spreading to his hand. He would need to get more opiates onto it soon, but for the moment the itching was growing all over.
He stood and rubbed at his neck idly to relief the tingling that was spreading through his skin. This was unexpected. He reached for the bottle of cough syrup and unceremoniously slathered it over the scaled green patches he could reach. The itching was nearly unbearable in just the few steps it took to get to his table and he had to resist the urge to claw off his own skin.
He closed his eyes and gripped the bottle, trying to put his mind somewhere else.
The itching did not cease, despite his best efforts to remove himself from the situation. He retired back to his chair, hoping the pressure against those patches he could not reach would help to sate the terrible crawling sensation.
It was then that he looked down at his arm and realized the opiates were no longer doing what he expected, and that the crawling sensation under his skin was a literal crawling. Then the boils burst and bat like creatures ripped out of his flesh violently, heading for the nearest window enmasse and breaking through it into the cold night air.
Egon did the only thing he could do in that moment.
He screamed in agony.
Winter in My Heart is a song by VAST.