Nightshift 62: Morgue

[she_is_ruin]

If not for the cold seeping into her body, Yomi might not have bothered coming out of her slumber. The darkness in the depths of her mind was warm, safe; she was cradled in oblivion, comfortable, the same feeling she had had as a girl during dark winter nights when she had sat in front of the space heater and father had told her stories. Home. She didn’t want to let that sense of belonging go. She craved it in secret places she didn’t know she had.

But like the tide, the darkness was slowly receding to reveal what waited underneath--an onslaught of sensations that resembled a beach littered with thousands of shards of broken glass. There was no safe place to step on that dead soil. Every time Yomi’s mind brushed a sharp edge it released a starburst of pain, and she badly wanted to go back, to return to that sea of gentle nothingness where nothing could hurt her.

And she couldn’t hurt anyone.

Wait, why did that sound so familiar? Had she been the one to think that? Why… would that…

Her fingertips and toes were sore from the cold, and the discomfort strangling her nerves was what drew her back into her body more than anything else. Something wasn’t right. Many somethings. Her body hurt in unusual places, and there was something soft on her face that cast her shallow breaths back against her skin. Her heartbeat was audible in her ears. With the darkness all around her, it almost enough to convince her she was still in that comfortable place from before. But it wasn’t the same. Reality demanded attention and it nagged at her like the hum of a live wire.

You’re not--

What? Whose voice was that in her head? She wasn’t what?

It was with the fumbling of a disoriented child that Yomi ended up stretching her hand along the cool metal surface underneath her. It extended to the left and right of her, then up, up above her head and over her in a suffocatingly tight formation. She slapped at it softly. No give. There was still something covering her face and she worked it off until it pooled at her collar, letting in a caress of cold air. A sheet or a blanket, she thought.

The moment she opened her eyes properly, she opened them to an impenetrable blackness, and that confused her the most. Why? Why was she here and why did it hurt? It made sense if she couldn’t see anything, because you couldn’t see anything when you were--

Were…

Wait. Wait a minute!

When you’re dead. And you’re not dead. You’re still alive.

Yomi couldn’t breathe and although she opened her mouth to suck in air, nothing came. No, she couldn’t possibly be…? She dug her fingertips in with more purpose, but the metal of the chamber around her was solid and gave her no answers. A shrill sound left her and it was the sound of her own voice, high and rough with panic, that positively let her know that it was true, that this wasn’t death or even life after death. She was still alive. Oh god, alive… But no, no, no one could have survived what had happened. Her body had been broken and scattered, too much for the sesshouseki’s debilitated healing to repair. No human could have put her back together. Could be holding her together.

She wasn’t alone in the coffin-like unit, and that knowledge made tears spill from the corners of her eyes.

Bucking upward only served to bang her head against the shelf, but Yomi didn’t stop--couldn't, not with terror climbing her throat with burning hands. She thrashed, beating her fists against the sides and roof until she could feel her bones begin to bruise and heal and bruise all over again, the blows seeming to fall into a rhythm with her internal protests: no, no, no, no! That was when the screaming started. The screams were not sounds of a sane person claiming their second chance, but the wild shrieks of something that knew it shouldn’t exist. A part of Yomi felt that if she could scream hard enough, it would just go on and on and on and she would die from a lack of air before she had to face another moment as she was. Alive.

This couldn’t be happening, it couldn’t, not again. She couldn’t still be… here!

Comments

[lovecraftcomplex]

Their knight in a shining hoodie seemed confused by her description, but Yomi didn't. It was the first intelligent reaction Rose had seen from her, although it wasn't much of one. Perhaps she kept her brain in her chest and it was still regrowing.

No, that was too ridiculous, even under the present circumstances.

The man was still busy helping Yomi, which probably meant that clothing was the extent of the assistance she could expect from him. Not that she'd expected anyone at all to come help her. Or expected anything at all, being dead. Still, it stung a bit, and the final grudging offer more so. She drew the tattered shreds of her dignity (and his sweatshirt) around her and declined.

"I can--" walk, she was about to say, but then Ilia and Seishin burst through the door, and it was time for a:

> 2xAWKWARD REUNION COMBO

[rocksthecourt]

[skipping Yomi with permission]

Before the girl could really answer, Klavier's attention was immediately drawn away by the sound of people entering the room. His immediate reaction was that of dread. His weapon was well beyond arm's reach, and if it turned out they were a threat, he would have to hope he could get to it before their "guests" did.

Thankfully, that seemed entirely unnecessary. A woman's voice was the first to call out. Not in hostility, but in shock and amazement. A man did the same, and both rushed over to the girl. Rose, evidently. Apparently, they knew her. Had they... come for her? There was a sense of relief in that thought. It had nothing to do with him, yes, but it was a wonderful display. The girl had friends here. There were people who cared about one another enough to come searching. And in the light of tragedy, it was always a comfort to know there were those who cared for you. He was thankful Rose had such people here. Not all did.

With Rose's companions here for the girl, Klavier turned his attention back down to Yomi. Yomi who was still distressed and didn't look like she even had the willpower to move anymore even if she wanted to.

He paused for a moment as he looked at her. The floor was freezing and probably wasn't making anything better. But one step at a time. Her wound was in her chest... and back. Bending and standing wouldn't be fun, but once she was finally up, it would be easier to maintain that. ...True to his word, he slowly pulled her up into a sitting position. "Careful."

[she_is_ruin]

Flecks of dappled sunlight on the ground. The hospital in Tokyo. The glinting glass ceiling in the Coliseum. Memories cascaded through her, of places she had been… places she had been destroyed and remade and destroyed again.

She remembered how alone she had felt in the other hospital after Mitogawa had attacked her. The nurses had fed her, bathed her, and cleaned her wounds, but it had been with the mechanical professionalism reserved for a patient, not a person. She remembered wanting just a little bit of kindness, to have someone take care of her and soothe her fears. Her, the girl who had never once needed someone to take care of her in her life. And here, now, in Landel‘s Institute the same fear was pressing in. There was a part of her craving that human touch again in the manner of a terrified child.

But it was wrong to want it now, more wrong than it had been before. The loneliness, the alienation… these were things she had earned for herself. Klavier’s attempt to help her was a waste of his time. It was too late to put things right…

Compared to the commotion of more people bursting into the room, Klavier’s request that she sit up was an insignificant discomfort. In the dim light provided by his flashlight, she saw flashes of legs, heard their footfalls thudding on the floor. Who? Who was here now? To Yomi, the strangers might as well have been screaming at the top of their lungs; their presence made her nervously hug the folds of her sheet to her chest. Every sound seemed to go straight through her like a shard of glass.

She didn’t want to move, she wanted to curl up in a hiding place where not even the sesshouseki could find her. But Klavier was pulling her and before she knew it she was upright. It hurt, it was true, but she had done worse struggling inside the drawer. No matter what she did, though, the pain would eventually fade as the sessouseki healed her--that was a blessing, if nothing else.

No, it’s not. It’s not.

Yomi stared at Klavier. How long until she stopped caring who he was?

[rocksthecourt]

There hadn't been any outward indication of pain, so he decided there probably wasn't enough of it to worry about. A good sign. But he really wasn't liking the fact that she wasn't really talking. Even if she was complaining, it'd be better than nothing at all. At least then he could better gauge her state and might be able to help her feel better.

When he noticed her looking at him, he perked up with an encouraging smile. Maybe they didn't know each other well enough to really say they were friends, but he was still here for her. And it was good that she know that. It was also a good way to try getting her talking again.

"Good. How bad is your wound? Do you think you'll be able to stand up?" ...They shouldn't stay in here. It could still be dangerous and Yomi needed to get warm. Carrying her probably wouldn't be a good idea, though. He couldn't tell how much of it had healed and how much hadn't, but it was a big wound. They had to be careful.

...He really wished he knew more about this sort of thing. Both how to deal with medical emergencies and how to talk to someone going through extreme trauma. This was more something his subordinates would deal with than he himself. So all he could do was try, really. Hopefully it would be enough.

[she_is_ruin]

He smiled, and it made an icy fist close around her heart. Oh god, to think she had finally thought it was over. Now there was a man tainting himself even more by tending to her in her… fractured state, if it could be called such a thing.

Yomi shuddered, more out of horror than the cold. What about any of this was “good?”

Bringing the back of her hand to her face, she brushed at her wet eyes. Regardless of self-consciousness, on a practical level Yomi knew she couldn’t stay the way she was forever, not with people around her. Wounded or not, she was still a magnet for danger. But trying to collect herself brought on a whole new set of dangers: the more she cleared her head, the more space the sesshouseki had to stretch itself out. Was there no way to make it stop? Was there no way to get one of these people to finish what Albedo had started?

Though if it was the Institute itself that kept bringing her back, then there really was no hope left.

Forming words that made any sense seemed a task far out of her reach, but Yomi tried, which only made her cough up more sticky fluid. With it came the sudden, irrational fear that she was back to before, vocal chords broken, forced into unwilling silence; when she touched her throat, however, there was nothing there. No bandages. No mass of scars. (No Mitogawa whispering the words to her destruction.) She had to remember that physically, the only thing wrong with her was what Albedo had done. The rest was all in her head, and it would pass. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

So she tried again, emitting a rasping sound. After screaming, words felt inadequate.

“… Why… are you here…?”

The words were faint, barely more than a breath.

[rocksthecourt]

It seemed like she was starting to gather her bearings a little. Yomi lifted her hand to wipe the tears from her face and attempted to answer him. That only led to a brief coughing fit... with blood. She had coughed up blood. Damn it. Did that mean her wound was bleeding internally? ...What did one even do for something like that? Was there anything? Think. ...Well, she should probably stay upright so there wasn't any risk of her choking or--

Then she tried speaking again. A horrible rough sound came out before she finally managed to whisper out words. Why... are you here...?

...It was an odd thing to ask. Reasonable, but odd given the circumstance. One would think she'd be more worried about her state or what had happened than asking something like that from the outset. That was more something to ask once one stopped to consider the details. He blinked in consideration.

"I came to see whether you were here or not." Well, her and another, but he was very optimistic about the other not being here. "Fortunate that I did, too." He looked her face up and down, trying to read the expression there.

[she_is_ruin]

To see… ? Now that she’d recognized she was not dead after all, some parts of her situation had come to make sense in the back of her mind while she’d struggled with her resurrection. (Yes, resurrection, that was a good word for it.)

She was not dead. She was in a morgue. She was in Landel’s Institute. These things, they were a hard truth, but she couldn’t deny them.

But the rest… Klavier’s reason for being there… no, that didn’t make any sense at all. There was a part of Yomi that badly wanted to retreat into the fog shrouding her mind; she bowed her head, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip so no sound could escape. In a place of death, there was so much relief around her. Klavier, relieved to find live people. Relieved to find her. And the others, relieved to find the girl. So happy that what had been done had not been permanent, that the girl had survived. If only her circumstance could call for such happiness. But every time she came back, things only became worse.

Yomi shook her head. No.

But there was a still a question that needed asking. There was something important in the man’s words, something that didn’t add up. He had… come looking for her body? Had he known she would be here, alive or dead? More to the point, he was free. The barriers in the Coliseum had had to have come down for him to be with her now.

“It happened,” she gasped. “The fight, it ended? You got out.” With her eyes opened wide, there seemed almost no contrast between her pupils and the violet of her irises.

She had to have died in that case, hadn’t she?