004: Do Not Disturb

Contrary to what the two nearby thought, Corosa was fully awake. Or, at least, awake enough to hear what they were saying. The sound of their voices was the most he could absorb from the outside world at the moment.

"Are ya ever going to leave him alone?" That sounded like the mastersmith, to Corosa, because if he listened carefully enough they did share the same voice.

"And why would I be as stupid as to do that?"

"Seems to me like there are a lot of other injured-like, too."

"None of them as bad off as this."

"Why, what's the matter?"

Corosa stopped listening then, falling back into an uneasy sleep.

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When he woke up later, two things became apparent to him at once: the fact that he could not see, and the fact that it felt like someone was twisting his arm off. Corosa made a noise somewhere between a curse and an uncontrolled scream, all at once trying to move, grab his fractured arm, sit up, and rip off whatever was over his eyes.

"Oh, shit--"

Someone heavier than him slammed him back down, rendering him immobile. "Damn, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. Dammit! Oy! --Someone get that priest back in here!"

One word drilled its way in through Corosa's mind, even past the pain.

In?

Again he tried to pull the blindfold off, but another hand closed around his and yanked it away.

"Can't be doing that now." It was the mastersmith.

"Where?" Corosa demanded. It was hard to make much of his surroundings when he could not see.

"We haven't moved you." The voice was almost too sure, too honest.

"You have," Corosa insisted, panic rising like bile in his throat. He tried to remember what happened that rainy night, but could not recall anything.

He wrenched himself free and slammed his palm upwards, hitting the mastersmith's face. Teeth dug into his skin--were they teeth? They felt too sharp. The mastersmith yelped in surprise. Corosa would have lashed out with a second strike if it were not for the pain. The other man seized the opportunity, using it to trap Corosa's hand against the wall.

Wall.

"Get me out of here," Corosa hissed. In his hysteria he tried to swing his right hand up, and sent a fresh wave of agony screaming up his arm.

Noises. Edge of the world. Between life and death. Echoes of people long dead, the roar, the splintering, the cracking. Timber and oak and stone, saturated in anger and hate and an overwhelming lust for revenge. All here again. All back. All around him. And this time he could not run.

"Let me out!" Corosa's voice crescendoed into a scream.

"Can't do that," the other said. "Now will you fucking--oh gods, finally."

Footsteps. A new voice. "Did he--"

"Yes. Now get him back to sleep before he kills himself!"

Corosa made one last effort to break free before his mind plunged back into unconsciousness again.

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At some point in his sleep, Corosa's mind wormed its way out of the dreamworld; that, or bits and pieces of his surroundings wormed their way in.

"What the hell are you doing?

"I don't like the looks of this."

"No shit. It looks like ass."

"That's obviously a sign that it's not healing."

"You are shitting me. After all this time? All that trouble we went through trying to keep him asleep? And it's getting worse?"

"You spent too long in that desert. Breaking it again didn't help."

"Can't you do something about it?

"I don't know."

The real world faded away again and Corosa returned to dreams and nightmares that would slip into oblivion as soon as he woke up.

-------

"Why doesn't it hurt?" Corosa asked, finally admitting to himself that he was confused. He'd been confused ever since he woke up to find himself not inside the city, where he'd thought he'd been, but in the surrounding forest. Far from any sign of human civilization, save for the mastersmith, who had gotten him into this in the first place.

Neither of them had brought the change in setting into their short conversation. Yet.

And nor had they ever discussed their appearances.

"What'd he do?" Corosa asked, referring to whoever had been taking care of him.

"Don't ask me," the mastersmith asked. He had been irritated ever since Corosa woke up, too, and it did not take much for Corosa to realize that the other man had been having problems. With exactly what was a mystery.

Corosa glanced at his arm, wrapped in bandages, and decided that 'a priest did something' was a good enough answer. But he could not look away. His curiosity about how it was healing was getting the better of him. He only turned his head when he began to feel slightly sick, his imagination getting carried away. Watching the grass sway in the wind was infinitely better to pondering the state of his arm.

Next to him, the mastersmith pulled out an unlit cigarette and started chewing on it.

"Things aren't looking good," he said, folding his hands behind his head. "You obviously ain't having any problems with blood loss now, but the arm itself..."

"What?" Corosa asked, when the other did not continue.

The smith shrugged. "We'll see in a few more days. The priest thinks he might be able to do something about it."

When enough time had passed for them to move on to another topic, Corosa said, "I'm not going back there."

His statement elicited a hollow laugh. "The hell. You're insane. Try running, I dare you."

Corosa pushed his hair out of his eyes. "I can't go back in." The knowledge that he would be, very soon, was enough to make him feel nauseous.

"You won't even know you're back there." The smith had transferred his cigarette from his mouth to his hands, weaving it in and out between his fingers, but still refusing to light it.

Corosa chewed on the inside of his cheek. "You can't do this," he said, words monotonous. He knew, too, that he was in no position to defend himself. That would be a different matter if he was armed, but he had no idea what had happened to his weapons after he'd been brought into Izlude.

"Listen," the mastersmith said, voice abruptly becoming sharper. He flicked the cigarette away. "I'm the one who got you into this shit in the first place--if you try blaming that wolf, I swear I'll bash your head in. Okay? Good. And since I got you into this, I swear I'll get you out, too. Whether you like it or not."

Corosa bit back his reply that the mastersmith was only making things worse.

-------

"What'd you say?"

"Nothin'."

A pause, and a long sigh of frustration.

"I thought you--"

"I sort of did. But I just couldn't. It's a hard thing, you know." Then, "This isn't going to end well."

"I'd suggest you stay out of his way, then."

-------

When Corosa finally came to again, he could see nothing. Again. But more important than even that, he felt nothing where before he had at least felt pain, and that was what sent him into a panic.

Before he could move, someone had pushed him back down by his shoulders. There was a slight depression in whatever he was lying, suggesting that whoever was holding him down had straddled him as well. Just in case.

"Why the hell do you keep waking when you aren't supposed to?" the mastersmith's voice demanded.

"I can't - " Corosa swallowed, and, so as to not alarm the smith, slowly reached for his right arm.

He found nothing. Not until he walked his fingers upwards. Jolts of pain streaked through his body when he finally brushed against the stump of his arm.

They'd cut it off at the elbow.

For a moment, Corosa's mind went perfectly blank.

"You--" he snarled, the word ripping itself out of his throat, stripping flesh as it went.

Corosa whipped his good hand up in the hardest backhand he could manage. His knuckles smashed against the mastersmith's jaw, but the smith only swore and spat. He did not loosen his hold, or say anything in response. Not immediately.

The only sound in the room was their breathing. And the silence stretched on until Corosa wanted to hit him again.

"You didn't see it," the other man finally said, voice low. "The infection was spreading too fast. All they could do was slow it down, not stop it, and that wasn't going to do shit for you. They couldn't let it keep going."

Corosa grabbed a fistful of the smith's shirt and yanked him close, teeth bared, but he could not think of anything to say.

The anger started to vanish. It disappeared, burying itself deep in his chest where all his anger went to fester.

"Then I'm done here," Corosa said, voice deadened, mind falling to blankness again.

A short pause. "I'll get you out."

Corosa felt his mouth twitch. He almost wanted to laugh.

His words became mechanical answers. "Thank you..."

"It's Satero."

"...Alright, Satero."

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AN: Updates will be sporadic for the next two weeks or so (as if they aren't already). Exams, yanno? D: