That was just another nightmare to wake up from. It was unclear how one was able to supersede and conquer the thought of being sliced in half. The constant waking realization that one's body was a mishmash of parts. That the very people funding your recovery and rehabilitation could have you killed at any moment.
What did they want from me? What did I even want from myself?
A simpler thought was to be free of this dingy hospital and back on my legs.
Fighting, swinging.
Moving. Running.
That's what I wanted, to run. I didn't want to run away from my problems, I wanted to face them in a head on, perhaps suicidal, confrontation. I wanted my blade to dance through Dice, the judicial committee, the praetorian guard - to elegantly solve my past with several swipes and pools of blood.
In the subsequent weeks, I'd gotten much, much closer to making that fantasy a full fledged reality. The legs that were attached to my body had gotten stronger, my balance evening out. The drug dosages lowering, the organs cooperating and bonding. This powerful body was mine, even though the pieces were not.
For all her flair, Esternascia was able to thoroughly and (somewhat) professionally guide me through rehabilitation. Though sultry and coy, she was highly skilled and knowledgeable - advising me on the quickest ways to nurture the technology inside me to get into proper shape.
Of course, she expected something for all of this assistance.
Eventually I was moved into my own private room - and with my ability to walk restored, I spent much of my time contemplating the best moment to make my exit.
I'd traded a medical gown for a white shirt and old military academy sweatpants, a messy frizz of a hairdo for a long ponytail. The very tips of my purple hair had become platinum due to the nanobots grey genetics circulating my body.
The rotation of the two suns in the sky drew my eyes to the window, my pale nails scratching against the cheap glass. I reflected heavily on the pain of the past few months, the long walks across the rehabilitation hall, the nuances of my new body - and all the problems that it had caused me.
Somewhere I had buried feelings of shame and hate, much liked I'd buried the deaths of those important to me. Much like I'd buried the death of the Republic. The only thing that kept me standing, walking, perhaps even breathing was the fervent darkness of revenge. Hatred for what I'd become, even before this transformation.
"It's almost time…" my voice was hoarse and tired. It didn't matter how many nutrients I pumped myself with. Or companionship. Or regaining my legs.
I had been tired.
I'd been tired since I left my hometown. Since my father left. Since I shed the dreams of a Republic for something greater. Life was so limited in its chances to make decisions, and the ones I'd made always seemed as if they'd benefit me. They'd benefit those around me - but they didn't.
They hurt people. Tore them apart. They soaked my hands in an intolerable crimson that reflected the shades of our nightly moon.
I was dark, no matter how much I wished to redeem myself as a heroine. I was a killer, and the only thing that had changed was my targets.
I slammed my hand against the window, but it was quickly grabbed by a smooth, feminine touch.
Ester.
"I didn't hear you come in."
"I move quietly…" she cooed, her tongue flitting on my ear.
This is what I'd become. Ester was now my exact match - she was devious, dark, and wounded. She was a broken person, pieced together differently than myself, but still pieced together. She was sinister woman from a sinister people. Her compassion existed, but was masked in lust.
She didn't work here to save lives, she just loved putting broken things back together. And I was the most broken of all - yet the fire in me sought more.
"How is my beautiful soldier doing today? Did you take your medicine?"
"I don't know if I could live without it, to be honest." I laughed a bit, turning to lean against the window as she stood in front of me. Her green eye traced me, her orange hair tied in a tight and professional bun. She placed her hand on my chest, before tracing it up my shirt before massaging my neck.
"Mmm..Perhaps..."
We both paused, in the moment, something like a dark affection laid between us. Warm, brooding, primordial.
"You are going to leave me aren't you."
"We always knew that. You know I have to gain something of myself back…"
"Oh, but I mean permanently." She squeezed my neck tightly, her one eye peering deep into my purple gaze. Was she actually feeling something? Or was this simply the loss of her favorite possession?
"You'll die. You'll fade and burn out my dear..." She massaged again, before letting go and leaning against me, her breasts pushing firmly into mine.
I wasn't sure whether to feel threatened or to blush, but this was the sort of confusion Ester was known to inflict. I crossed my legs, trying to lean back into the conversation as if I was unmoved.
"I don't care about dying. I just want the chance to reclaim what I had before. To make a statement...to let them know I didn't fucking go out quietly. Not with a whimper, with an…."
"Explosion?" her peer widened and she leaned back, cradling her arms around me.
"Exactly. You know very well I can't linger in this place I can't - "
"Fully embrace being deformed? Forgotten? A project?"
"Well, no it's not that…"
"It is that Cecilia. You want to be a full woman. You want to die a full woman. And I don't mean just physically. You want to die remembered as you were."
She was right. I thought that by shedding more blood I could cover my past. I could blanket one ocean of blood in another. Somehow this would make me good. It would redeem me - make me some sort of feminist force.
Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it was less than that - and I just wanted to feel better. I just wanted to feel like this wasn't all for nothing - like not dying there on that cold snowy ground outside my apartment meant something.
That I meant something. That life meant something.
It was more than a dark bleak betrayal of our childhoods. More than a series of hard choices and fucked up realities. More than rusty lights and rat infested hospitals - more than impartial juries and unreliable dictators.
More than…
She leaned in and kissed me. I felt her soft, lush lips impact mine, her sharpened teeth nibbling delicately on my tongue. She moved her's flexibly and with ease, swimming inside my mouth and causing me to lean into her. Her nails dug into my back desperately, with all the lonely darkness that we shared between us.
I separated, moving back and leaning against the window, my heart racing. Without a thought, my legs uncrossed and I allowed her between them, pinning me to the window.
"I do want to be remembered. Part of me wants the swelling darkness, this mourning, this sense of emptiness - it wants it to stay with you. Even if I leave, I'm fucking annihilated - I want you to hold this lust and anger between us."
She licked my neck and reached down to scratch the top of my muscular thigh, her hand easily moving my sweatpants to a more malleable position.
"My little broken thing…" she cooed, looking into my eye and pressing her warm hand against my cheek.
"You are the darkest woman I've met. The only person to come back from half a body - misshapen, broken. Malfunctioning - only fueled by your desire for more blood."
She hissed slowly, pinning her leg against the wall, pressing me in. Her sharpened teeth shone in the dim hospital light as she looked me over.
"I knew the minute I read your record and looked at you. You were just like us. Maybe not fully human after all, Juventus…"
She traced my neck downwards, while her other hand successfully made its way south. She gripped that part with a firm and loving hold, lightly moving her hand warmly across it as she opened her uniform to reveal plump, supple breasts.
"I don't think I've been human for a long fucking time. And in moments like this, I want to throw it away and just embrace all my sins. I don't want to keep fighting...I'm so damn tired!"
I took my shirt off and flung it on the floor, allowing my colder flesh to touch the warm sensation her body. I worked my way out of my sweatpants and panties and kicked them to the side, aiding her hand in stroking the soft skin of the member.
"Embrace it…"
She whispered, leaving me to pleasure myself as she moved her leg down for only a moment, sliding out of her panties and kicking them aside. She quickly kicked her leg back up, forcing my hand off myself and plunging the full breadth of the flesh into herself.
I gasped, the most girlish moan leaving my mouth as I gently suckled on her right breast, teasing my tongue on it as she slammed her hips into me, her tight and inviting warmth swirling me into a vortex of darkness and lust. My hands moved up to hold and control her hips, their desperate grasp guiding her forceful essence into me, the wet embrace tightening and contracting from my touch.
She used her right hand to grab my ponytail and jerk my head back off her breasts, leaning into me as she moved, our lips colliding as she kissed me. Warmth spread from both the top and the bottom of my body, the vicious and forceful rock of her wetness colliding with hardened desire of my most shameful part.
Her thick lower body drove me into the wall, her wanton force and wild desire slamming us against the cheap wooden infrastructure, causing a shelf of supplies to topple over and fall to our feet, ignored.
We separated from our kiss and I leaned over her shoulder, picking up her other leg with aggression and allowing her to fully mount me, plunging deep inside of her as I picked her up. I panted relentlessly, her moans driving me to thrust deeper and harder as her neat and organized bun fell into a frizzy mess, her auburn locks tumbling to the small of her back.
The flesh of her backside rippled and waved, the impact of the tight, wet and constricted insides dripping down onto my thighs and trickling onto the floor.
Ester moaned and hissed wildly, placing her hands around my back, synchronizing our hips and I leaned forward. Our bodies landed nearly perfectly on my hospital bed, and for a moment, I was able to draw outside of her, my purple ponytail tumbling down to almost tickle her nose.
We panted and breathed and I looked deep into the serpentine glance of the sinister nurse.
"I'll remember." She said, with a softness and gentleness that hadn't been in her voice since the first day I'd seen her. Perhaps this was that fragment of humanity she had left.
"Try."I said, and with that I leaned into to kiss her, fully penetrating her quivering, shivering core. I traced her warm insides, feeling them desperately grip, tighten and hold against me. Our flesh merged, and I could feel the pressure mounting as the tender skin on my thick member tingled with a powerful sensation.
I drew out and in, in and out, and her thighs locked my back, pressing me ever deeper inside. The damp ecstasy of her body tugged and pulled, hugged and squeezed.
I didn't even attempt to leave. I let my tongue swim inside her mouth, licking the tops of her sharpened teeth. I let our lips match and flow, our breasts touch and rub. I broke the kiss and moved upwards, pumping into her with full force and effort, letting every bit of her tightened insides stroke me.
I felt the pressure flood from the top of my body to the bottom, pushing out through the my throbbing, desperate exit. At the same time her legs clenched and quivered, shaking uncontrollably as I moved deeper.
We both released, and the cum flowed and descended, every bit of my warmth merging and flushing with hers.
This was different from all the other times.
Drenched with sweat, I panted, each feminine gasp escaping my mouth and contradicting my aggressive actions.
I felt a mix of shame and relief - after all, I never wanted to admit I enjoyed this. But it didn't matter what I was now, the feelings I felt now were distinctly female. I felt wanted, needed, desired.
I felt beautiful for a moment.
I moved myself off of her, watching her twitch and quiver a familiar type of orgasm moving through her. She placed a hand in her hair, before sitting up on the table, grabbing a towel from the edge of the bed.
"My fucking project." She said with a sarcastic twist of her mouth, looking me over as I grabbed another towel from the fallen shelf.
"Who's to say you aren't mine?" I laughed, wiping my body with the towel and preparing for the inevitable shower.
"Me."she teased, cleaning off the bed and gliding towards me.
I just wanted to feel something similar. Our darkness, as different as it may be, is what made this sexual relationship relevant. When the only person who had cared for you was this wounded and damaged woman - you began to see your own reflection in her face.
She was beautifully deformed just like me.
"Come now, time for clean up."
Nothing could wash off this darkness.
But everyone needed it. At least, so I believed.
I wouldn't forget her.
That was the next to the last time I saw Ester. The final moment was her placing a basic security sword in my hands - likely from one of the guards - and her tightening the button on the top of my black coat.
A kiss on the cheek.
"Off you go to recover something."
I tucked the sword delicately in the sash of my coat, smiling a bit and pecking her on the cheek in return.
"I recovered enough here. Now I'm going to try and salvage just a fragment."
She had already released me, turning back to walk into the hospital, her green eye piercing me with a final gaze.
"When you kill them, I want to hear the screams from here."
She smiled and walked inside, and perhaps part of me would have died there. But the very essence of our relationship was based in death and decay. I didn't lose anything - I simply gained the faith that someone gave more than a modicum of a shit.
Now I was off to find Dice - that, and my way into the heart of our Capital. Still, they'd likely find me first, a possibility I was absolutely prepared and delighted for.
The hospital was a short way from the subway, and that was the first place that I'd take myself. It connected directly with the core of the city, and after a few security checkpoints, the Capital. My chances of making it there undetected and without combat were slim, but it was only six in the morning, and I figured my encounters would be just as scarce.
I was on borrowed time, and I'd kill every single person who cost me a second.