✿ Character → Carla Radames
✿ Word Count → 1,111
【Ms. Brightside】
Sleep-something unattainable for her.
The chair she is sitting in is utterly uncomfortable-textured white plastic. A helicopter rumbles in the distance. She curls her tongue along her gums, bored. The beat of her heart is rapid and constant, fueling the abnormal heat of her skin.
She glances at the digital clock on the desk near her untouched hospital bed. 4:22 A.M. Just an hour, maybe two if she's lucky, before she'd be pacing. That's what Dr. Derek Simmons called it. 'An unattractive impulse compelled by nervousness.' Thing is, she isn't really nervous, as he calls it-she'd looked up the definition of 'nervous' in the dictionary today. If anything, restlessness is what she feels, restless and hungry.
For what, though?
Smacking her lips absently, she studies the fleshy sound. Sharp. Abrupt. Her tongue rolls over her teeth. Dr. Simmons doesn't like her doing that, either. Just today, he'd reprimanded her for eating with her elbows on the table. A cold frown thins her lips into an inky shadow. He'd said that a woman of her stature would never do such a thing. Something about this annoys her. However, the desire to please him had felt so natural.
"Derek..." she speaks the name, slowly, tasting it.
He'd scolded her when she'd called him by his first name. Something about that seems so familiar, too. Heaving a sigh, she extends her feet out from under her and skims her toes along the floor. Cold-the linoleum is as cold as ice. Her eyes crawl along the room with vague interest.
Today had also been the day that Dr. Simmons had given her a name. I guess that means that today was important... She slides off the chair and walks to the window. The sky is a hazy orange from the facility lights, making the moon a shadowed sickle of red.
Red...
"Derek likes that color." She whispers absently.
Even though he'd berated her for using his first name, she has decided. She will not stop. Disobedience-he called it. Something about the word makes her lips curl upwards.
He'd told her that she is to wear red. Always. Something about the color itself irritates her; however... during the afternoon, she'd watched some of the scientists dissecting a nameless plaything of Derek's. She remembers having drown out his voice as he'd been explaining something about her schedule, and the sudden desire she'd felt when she saw the gleaming red wetness of exposed muscle.
A primal excitement and a deep-rooted hunger had permeated through her-engulfing her mind with need, a malicious need. It stirs in her even now. Her heart shudders. What is this? She licks her lips. Whatever the feeling is, she likes it, a lot.
"You'll only ever achieve your desires through me, Ada." Derek's voice reverberates through her mind, making her strangely... angry. "I am your conduit to life, all of it."
He's said that to her more than once... and it's beginning to make her blood secretly boil. She swallows thickly. Over the past two weeks, she'd learned to read and write, she'd taught herself simple mathematics, and she had found herself becoming more and more fascinated by the color red-shimmering, warm, wet red.
A blurry memory floods her thoughts. The voice is distant... as if separated from her by water. "You are my porcelain doll."
Blinding hot rage-it inundates her thoughts, burning away her flesh and making her heart race. She suddenly feels sick. Her feet are already responding, lurching and stumbling for the lavatory at the other side of the room. She doesn't even bother to flip on the light as she bursts through the door and falls to her knees at the toilet. Shivering and jerking, she vomits. Bitter. Hot. The contents crawl along her throat almost leisurely-sick.
"Fuck!" she groans. Another word that Derek forbid her from saying. "Fuck you, Derek." That felt good. She smiles, slow and feline.
It's strange how she wants to obey him, every word, yet a deeper part of her just wants to... She inhales the scent of her own bile, acidic, overpowering. It reminds her of him, poisonous, yet overwhelming. She wants to taste him, lick his lips... and eat his flesh.
The realization startles her and she jumps to her feet too quickly, making her head spin and her heart hammer painfully against her ribs. "I... hate... him." She mouths the words carefully, indulging in their profound weight. Hate-such a strong word... like love. Love. I love to... hate him. The thought makes her giggle.
But... why?
She looks about the small rectangular room, her eyes hesitating at her reflection. Something about it felt wrong. Why? She'd noticed the feeling a few days earlier, but decided to ignore it. Now...
Moving forward, she plants her palms firmly on the washbasin. In this inky darkness, she can still see the glistening white of her eyes. Her skin is so pale... porcelain. That's when she notices something dark and dripping at the top of her forehead near her hairline. It looks purple in this low light.
Blood?
She tilts her head curiously and reaches up to feel it. It's warm, really warm. Bringing her index finger to her lips, she tastes it. Coppery, hot, and vaguely salty. Blood. She closes her eyes momentarily, enjoying its flavor.
Though, why is she bleeding? Her eyes snap open. Had she hit herself while stumbling in here? She frowns, her sharp gaze focusing back on the bizarre dark trickle of blood. How...?
A sudden and alien desire to scratch at it teases her thoughts. She scowls... but then, an eager smile spreads along her lips. Shimmering, warm, wet red. Her fingers are curling and rough, nails scraping impatiently, tearing. The pain is liquid and warm beneath her flesh, blossoming like thorny roses along her nerve endings.
What's underneath?
Her movements are jerky-fervent-as she rips away the flesh. Everything burns. All of it is so acute, sensations overpowering. She laughs despite herself. However, as she pulls the last strip of flesh away, her laughter is choked by an eerie sensation of familiarity.
What's beneath her face... is another face. Though, this isn't her face... No.
Those pale blue eyes... not mine. Those thin modest lips... not... That silvery blonde... NO!
Her fist splinters the mirror into a disjointed array of boundless reflections-a spiderweb of the same disbelieving face. Her face. The face of... Ada Wong.