Jecca Mehlota (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jecca_mehlota) wrote2009-03-08 11:54 pm
jecca_mehlota) wrote2009-03-08 11:54 pm
Entry tags:
Original: Okame-verse: In The Blood
Title: In The Blood
Author: Jecca Meitahn /![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twilit_wanderer
Wordcount: 1,400
Rating: T-ish, I guess...? I never know how to rate these things!
Warnings: Potentially disturbing, distinct lack of sanity
Summary: The time between Hotaru’s first and second meeting with Jade.
Disclaimer: Jade (who spends the entire duration unconscious and is never actually named here) is mine. Hotaru Okame is not, but I was given free use of her by her creator.
Notes: This was going to be longer, but it decided it wanted to be in two parts, so I decided to finish this up, code it, and post it. Looked over byaerinity (thank you again!).
Memories are funny things.
She remembers blood.
Blood, and a pressure against her ears – a sound. A voice? Pain and terror, but not the cause. Panic. Rushing. But mostly she remembers blood.
The blood is still there, an important reminder that something happened – something real has happened and she can’t quite figure out what or how or why.
She’s standing in an unfamiliar room full of unfamiliar people, and there’s blood everywhere. Her hands, her arms, her legs and feet. She can feel it drying on her clothing, matting in her hair. On her face.
She doesn’t remember how she got there.
She doesn’t know whose blood it is.
An image has been burned into her mind’s eye. A woman – her eyes are narrowed, mouth twisted in a grimace. She is alive.
She doesn’t know who’s speaking to her now, either, just that this woman is not the same person. Her outfit – uniform – is white and crisp and clean, and her mouth is bright and moving, but there is blood singing through her veins and the message is lost over the sound. Her expression speaks of urgency, but her eyes are disinterested voids.
She wants to ask where the woman is – the one whose blood she’s wearing – but her voice won’t make the words.
The other woman – the wrong woman, the uniformed woman – is still speaking, though, oblivious, so she moves to pass her, find the owner of the blood. It’s important. Why can’t she make that clear?
She’s stopped. The other woman blocks her path, directs her – over here, follow me. This way.
The corridor is a throbbing whirl, and the room at the end of the journey is empty.
Wrong, she thinks, still unable to force words out. No, this is wrong. Wrong room, wrong place. Where does the blood go?
The woman – the wrong woman wrong wrong wrong – indicates something, still speaking, then reaches out and takes her hand when she doesn’t respond to the useless prompting. Directs her to… something.
Blood. Blood again, rushing, running off her skin – out of her skin?
Scream.
Scream.
She screams.
Hands reaching, grabbing, pulling, pressure, heartbeat – heartbeats – more hearts beating than should be possible – thundering in her ears, voices – what are they saying? – running footsteps?
Cold.
She wakes up again (three times, now) to find herself standing in another unfamiliar room. Hospital, her mind supplies, and she accepts it without question. She doesn’t remember how she got here, though.
She doesn’t recognize what she’s wearing. The outfit is white, crisp, and clean. Like the one the woman from earlier had. It’s not hers. It’s wrong.
The ringing is gone, though.
She’s staring at her (clean) (pale) hands, torn between confusion and amazement, when someone speaks.
“-dy?”
She jumps and looks up to find – a nurse, maybe? The woman is wearing a light blue outfit and looking at her a bit warily.
“Oh,” she says then, for lack of anything better, adds, “Sorry.” Her voice cracks, and she’s not entirely sure what she’s sorry for. It feels like she’s acting out a script.
The woman smiles reassuringly at her and says something in an understanding tone before turning and walking away.
She follows without thinking.
(Maybe it feels more like watching someone act through their own eyes.)
The woman in blue starts talking as they go around a corner, and she nods, feels more than hears herself replying. She’s not sure what they’re talking about, just knows that it’s important. Important that she hears this information. Important that she proves she can have a conversation.
As they head up a flight of stairs, she scratches at one ear, wondering why none of the words are making sense. She should be able to understand them, she knows that, on the same level that she knows who she is, where she is, but none of it’s making sense.
As she wonders why she doesn’t find her situation to be concerning, her head nods itself and her lips quirk up in a smile as she makes a comment.
The woman laughs. She understands what that means, at least.
They pause outside an outline in the wall with a transparent section (how strange, when there’s another one right there in the larger section) and an odd protrusion –
– door, she remembers. It’s called a door.
The – nurse? – finishes speaking before standing aside to let her in. She ducks her head and says something else. She knows it’s not a repeat because the words feel different in her mouth. The emotion is familiar: gratitude.
Her arm raises and she waves her fingers before entering the room.
The door shuts behind her with a sharp, startlingly loud click, and she jolts, sounds suddenly rushing in, almost overwhelmingly. She shakes her head slightly as the fog in her head lessens a bit. The sensation is different, but familiar. Things sound a way that they haven’t in –
Days? Years? Maybe even longer than that.
Memories that don’t quite feel like her own, conversations she doesn’t remember holding but which feature her voice, her questions, slowly rise up. The woman outside, her name is Kelli. She’s not a nurse yet, still training. This is the emergency wing of the medical center in – The doctor who’d come in a few times had – The walls in her room were white and empty and – Venom – Your sister is – Running at impossible speeds, considering what she was –
She opens her mouth as if to shout and presses her fingers to her temples, unable to keep up. The flow of information slows to a more manageable level.
She can’t remember what was driving her here to this room. (Is this the right room? How will she even know?)
The bed.
There’s someone in the bed, attached to and hidden by tubes and charts, and she can’t begin to see who it might be, but it doesn’t matter.
That’s her. That’s her, her, her, that’s the –
– that’s the blood, that’s –
Her breath catches and she blinks, shakes her head again, takes a cautious step forward. Nothing happens (of course not, what was she expecting?), so she advances until she’s standing next to the cot.
She’s not sure. The memory she has is of eyes, and this woman’s eyes are closed. She thinks the hair and mouth might be right, but she’s simply not sure.
She rests her chin in her hand, thinking, when the pulsing, the whispering, the noises in her mind suddenly drop out completely, leaving nothingness.
A startled gasp escapes her as her knees buckle, and she gropes mindlessly for – anything, something stable. She finds a chair and collapses into it, holding her head, digging her fingernails into her scalp. She leans over, drawing into herself so that she’s nearly leaning on her legs, fighting the urge to shriek, fighting the sudden urge to vomit.
It was hard before, but it’s even harder to think now, not having to fight to hear herself over the constant stimuli. The silence is distracting and terrifying, and she wants it to just stop, to go back to being normal.
The clarity of the sounds around her is painful, and she shudders every time either she or the woman before her breathes, trembles at the sound of her own body rattling in the chair. Her own voice, whimpering in agony, is so loud she wonders why no one’s come rushing in yet to see what’s happened.
Even with everything that’s happened to her recently, only now is she afraid she’s going to die.
Panic rises, prompting the urge to flee, but she can’t get her feet stable on the floor while sitting, and she’s pretty sure she’s stopped breathing because the noise, the noise of it, the noise of lungs, filling and emptying, it’s too much, but her pulse is pounding, pounding, pounding and still…!
The silence is there.
Part of her, small and buried, but so calm even in her fear that she can’t help but reach down for it – part of her longs to just sit and revel in it.
She forces in a deep breath and closes her eyes, presses the palms of her hands against her eyelids. Waits for her body to stop shaking.
Counts her own inhales, exhales. Inout, inout.
Slower.
Inout.
Inout.
Slower.
In. Out.
In.
Out.
Hotaru opens her eyes and discovers that, for the first time in seven years, she can see.
*END*
Author: Jecca Meitahn /
twilit_wandererWordcount: 1,400
Rating: T-ish, I guess...? I never know how to rate these things!
Warnings: Potentially disturbing, distinct lack of sanity
Summary: The time between Hotaru’s first and second meeting with Jade.
Disclaimer: Jade (who spends the entire duration unconscious and is never actually named here) is mine. Hotaru Okame is not, but I was given free use of her by her creator.
Notes: This was going to be longer, but it decided it wanted to be in two parts, so I decided to finish this up, code it, and post it. Looked over by
aerinity (thank you again!).Memories are funny things.
She remembers blood.
Blood, and a pressure against her ears – a sound. A voice? Pain and terror, but not the cause. Panic. Rushing. But mostly she remembers blood.
The blood is still there, an important reminder that something happened – something real has happened and she can’t quite figure out what or how or why.
She’s standing in an unfamiliar room full of unfamiliar people, and there’s blood everywhere. Her hands, her arms, her legs and feet. She can feel it drying on her clothing, matting in her hair. On her face.
She doesn’t remember how she got there.
She doesn’t know whose blood it is.
An image has been burned into her mind’s eye. A woman – her eyes are narrowed, mouth twisted in a grimace. She is alive.
She doesn’t know who’s speaking to her now, either, just that this woman is not the same person. Her outfit – uniform – is white and crisp and clean, and her mouth is bright and moving, but there is blood singing through her veins and the message is lost over the sound. Her expression speaks of urgency, but her eyes are disinterested voids.
She wants to ask where the woman is – the one whose blood she’s wearing – but her voice won’t make the words.
The other woman – the wrong woman, the uniformed woman – is still speaking, though, oblivious, so she moves to pass her, find the owner of the blood. It’s important. Why can’t she make that clear?
She’s stopped. The other woman blocks her path, directs her – over here, follow me. This way.
The corridor is a throbbing whirl, and the room at the end of the journey is empty.
Wrong, she thinks, still unable to force words out. No, this is wrong. Wrong room, wrong place. Where does the blood go?
The woman – the wrong woman wrong wrong wrong – indicates something, still speaking, then reaches out and takes her hand when she doesn’t respond to the useless prompting. Directs her to… something.
Blood. Blood again, rushing, running off her skin – out of her skin?
Scream.
Scream.
She screams.
Hands reaching, grabbing, pulling, pressure, heartbeat – heartbeats – more hearts beating than should be possible – thundering in her ears, voices – what are they saying? – running footsteps?
Cold.
She wakes up again (three times, now) to find herself standing in another unfamiliar room. Hospital, her mind supplies, and she accepts it without question. She doesn’t remember how she got here, though.
She doesn’t recognize what she’s wearing. The outfit is white, crisp, and clean. Like the one the woman from earlier had. It’s not hers. It’s wrong.
The ringing is gone, though.
She’s staring at her (clean) (pale) hands, torn between confusion and amazement, when someone speaks.
“-dy?”
She jumps and looks up to find – a nurse, maybe? The woman is wearing a light blue outfit and looking at her a bit warily.
“Oh,” she says then, for lack of anything better, adds, “Sorry.” Her voice cracks, and she’s not entirely sure what she’s sorry for. It feels like she’s acting out a script.
The woman smiles reassuringly at her and says something in an understanding tone before turning and walking away.
She follows without thinking.
(Maybe it feels more like watching someone act through their own eyes.)
The woman in blue starts talking as they go around a corner, and she nods, feels more than hears herself replying. She’s not sure what they’re talking about, just knows that it’s important. Important that she hears this information. Important that she proves she can have a conversation.
As they head up a flight of stairs, she scratches at one ear, wondering why none of the words are making sense. She should be able to understand them, she knows that, on the same level that she knows who she is, where she is, but none of it’s making sense.
As she wonders why she doesn’t find her situation to be concerning, her head nods itself and her lips quirk up in a smile as she makes a comment.
The woman laughs. She understands what that means, at least.
They pause outside an outline in the wall with a transparent section (how strange, when there’s another one right there in the larger section) and an odd protrusion –
– door, she remembers. It’s called a door.
The – nurse? – finishes speaking before standing aside to let her in. She ducks her head and says something else. She knows it’s not a repeat because the words feel different in her mouth. The emotion is familiar: gratitude.
Her arm raises and she waves her fingers before entering the room.
The door shuts behind her with a sharp, startlingly loud click, and she jolts, sounds suddenly rushing in, almost overwhelmingly. She shakes her head slightly as the fog in her head lessens a bit. The sensation is different, but familiar. Things sound a way that they haven’t in –
Days? Years? Maybe even longer than that.
Memories that don’t quite feel like her own, conversations she doesn’t remember holding but which feature her voice, her questions, slowly rise up. The woman outside, her name is Kelli. She’s not a nurse yet, still training. This is the emergency wing of the medical center in – The doctor who’d come in a few times had – The walls in her room were white and empty and – Venom – Your sister is – Running at impossible speeds, considering what she was –
She opens her mouth as if to shout and presses her fingers to her temples, unable to keep up. The flow of information slows to a more manageable level.
She can’t remember what was driving her here to this room. (Is this the right room? How will she even know?)
The bed.
There’s someone in the bed, attached to and hidden by tubes and charts, and she can’t begin to see who it might be, but it doesn’t matter.
That’s her. That’s her, her, her, that’s the –
– that’s the blood, that’s –
Her breath catches and she blinks, shakes her head again, takes a cautious step forward. Nothing happens (of course not, what was she expecting?), so she advances until she’s standing next to the cot.
She’s not sure. The memory she has is of eyes, and this woman’s eyes are closed. She thinks the hair and mouth might be right, but she’s simply not sure.
She rests her chin in her hand, thinking, when the pulsing, the whispering, the noises in her mind suddenly drop out completely, leaving nothingness.
A startled gasp escapes her as her knees buckle, and she gropes mindlessly for – anything, something stable. She finds a chair and collapses into it, holding her head, digging her fingernails into her scalp. She leans over, drawing into herself so that she’s nearly leaning on her legs, fighting the urge to shriek, fighting the sudden urge to vomit.
It was hard before, but it’s even harder to think now, not having to fight to hear herself over the constant stimuli. The silence is distracting and terrifying, and she wants it to just stop, to go back to being normal.
The clarity of the sounds around her is painful, and she shudders every time either she or the woman before her breathes, trembles at the sound of her own body rattling in the chair. Her own voice, whimpering in agony, is so loud she wonders why no one’s come rushing in yet to see what’s happened.
Even with everything that’s happened to her recently, only now is she afraid she’s going to die.
Panic rises, prompting the urge to flee, but she can’t get her feet stable on the floor while sitting, and she’s pretty sure she’s stopped breathing because the noise, the noise of it, the noise of lungs, filling and emptying, it’s too much, but her pulse is pounding, pounding, pounding and still…!
The silence is there.
Part of her, small and buried, but so calm even in her fear that she can’t help but reach down for it – part of her longs to just sit and revel in it.
She forces in a deep breath and closes her eyes, presses the palms of her hands against her eyelids. Waits for her body to stop shaking.
Counts her own inhales, exhales. Inout, inout.
Slower.
Inout.
Inout.
Slower.
In. Out.
In.
Out.
Hotaru opens her eyes and discovers that, for the first time in seven years, she can see.
*END*