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cloakandclaw) wrote2007-12-17 03:57 pm
cloakandclaw) wrote2007-12-17 03:57 pm
Dying
Some nights, he doesn't even bother with the ritual of undressing, knowing full well that he'll be awake and clothed again in a matter of hours, if that long. It seems to be an exercise in futility: thirty years should be enough sleep for anyone, but it wasn't really sleep. It was more simply... not living. The passage of time became so irrelevant: it could have been thirty days or thirty hours or thirty centuries.
Still, one would suspect that after all this time, he would have come to grips with the multitude of scars beneath his clothes. At the time the coffin lid closed to seal him in darkness, he was unaware of them. That didn't happen until one night shortly after he'd joined Cloud and his party; they'd taken rooms at yet another inn in yet another city. Often when they did this, there would be little or no electricity, or he would opt not to sleep but to stand guard. That night, however, the room was his own and power was abundant and hot water was flowing, and everyone else was either sleeping or drinking and it had been a long, long time since he'd indulged in a hot bath. There was a reasonable order to things: draw the bath, let the tub fill, prepare the room, set things aside. He undressed by the side of the tub, unconcerned, and stepped into the water. It felt strangely... relaxing, as if he shouldn't quite be allowed this kind of thing. The water burned -- almost -- so nicely against his skin; he'd been locked not only in a basement for three decades but in a coffin within that basement and perhaps cleansing should have been the first order of business after that but... catch as catch can, he took what he could get. Of course he'd taken care of himself before that particular night, but nothing he'd set aside time for, specifically. A quick shower: hurry, get ready.
It wasn't until he sank into the tub that he felt the stinging over his abdomen and looked down and saw...
...that's right, he was shot there. He recalled -- with great lack of passion -- the bite of the bullet as it ripped into his body: that sharp white light of intense heat, searing and strong, followed by the incredulous moment of disbelief. You let yourself get shot. What kind of Turk are you? You let yourself get shot. He also remembers the floor rising to meet him, or rather his body falling to meet the floor, turning his face to look at Hojo but not really seeing him. Things got hazy then, along with the growing warm wetness seeping from his midsection. The abdominal aorta runs through there, beginning at the diaphragm and running vertically, a direct line to one's heart. Shoot somebody there and they're dead in a matter of minutes: standard training taught that much. Warmth turned to chill and chill to cold as the floor echoed with more footfalls and a voice: what have you done?
Lucrecia's voice, the last sound he ever thought he'd hear. Trying to prop himself up, his hand met a small ocean of blood and slipped, and that was all he knew... until sometime later. If that was death, he was clearly in Hell. Claws for hands, everything swimming in a sea of black and red, the primeval scream all around him certainly issuing from his own lips...
Suffice it to say that night in the bath wasn't the only time he'd looked at the remnants of the gunshot wound to his abdomen, but it was the first opportunity he'd had to examine it in any kind of detail. The scarring went far beyond a simple bullet wound: jagged raised lightning bolts of tissue radiated up and to both sides, up the left side of his chest to his heart, across to just right of center and the skin... it didn't look quite alive. Small flat red lines played across flesh that lay discolored, dead. There in the supposed comfort of the bath with plenty of hot water and electricity and a surfeit of privacy, he closed his eyes and turned away from himself, from what he'd become.
Since that night, he's spent both less and more time in contemplation, both with and without the brutally unforgiving accompaniment of mirrors. For a long time he thought he'd just imagined the moment of his death but now, well... he's not so sure. If one were to find him in a conversational enough mood and put forth the question, he would answer that he's died and been... regenerated, reanimated, call it what you will. It's the only explanation he has for his continued survival, for his thirty years spent bereft of any formal signs of life. By all rights, he should not be here... but he is. He lives, he breathes, he eats, he sleeps. He harbors an increasingly virulent series of beasts, of monsters, somewhere inside. The necessities and pleasures of life are his for the taking, but he's loathe to indulge: he lost his life because he failed to protect Lucrecia, and he's back now to atone for that grievous error.
And every time he sees what he's become, every scar is its own new death and serves as a grim reminder that he still has such a long way to go.
Still, one would suspect that after all this time, he would have come to grips with the multitude of scars beneath his clothes. At the time the coffin lid closed to seal him in darkness, he was unaware of them. That didn't happen until one night shortly after he'd joined Cloud and his party; they'd taken rooms at yet another inn in yet another city. Often when they did this, there would be little or no electricity, or he would opt not to sleep but to stand guard. That night, however, the room was his own and power was abundant and hot water was flowing, and everyone else was either sleeping or drinking and it had been a long, long time since he'd indulged in a hot bath. There was a reasonable order to things: draw the bath, let the tub fill, prepare the room, set things aside. He undressed by the side of the tub, unconcerned, and stepped into the water. It felt strangely... relaxing, as if he shouldn't quite be allowed this kind of thing. The water burned -- almost -- so nicely against his skin; he'd been locked not only in a basement for three decades but in a coffin within that basement and perhaps cleansing should have been the first order of business after that but... catch as catch can, he took what he could get. Of course he'd taken care of himself before that particular night, but nothing he'd set aside time for, specifically. A quick shower: hurry, get ready.
It wasn't until he sank into the tub that he felt the stinging over his abdomen and looked down and saw...
...that's right, he was shot there. He recalled -- with great lack of passion -- the bite of the bullet as it ripped into his body: that sharp white light of intense heat, searing and strong, followed by the incredulous moment of disbelief. You let yourself get shot. What kind of Turk are you? You let yourself get shot. He also remembers the floor rising to meet him, or rather his body falling to meet the floor, turning his face to look at Hojo but not really seeing him. Things got hazy then, along with the growing warm wetness seeping from his midsection. The abdominal aorta runs through there, beginning at the diaphragm and running vertically, a direct line to one's heart. Shoot somebody there and they're dead in a matter of minutes: standard training taught that much. Warmth turned to chill and chill to cold as the floor echoed with more footfalls and a voice: what have you done?
Lucrecia's voice, the last sound he ever thought he'd hear. Trying to prop himself up, his hand met a small ocean of blood and slipped, and that was all he knew... until sometime later. If that was death, he was clearly in Hell. Claws for hands, everything swimming in a sea of black and red, the primeval scream all around him certainly issuing from his own lips...
Suffice it to say that night in the bath wasn't the only time he'd looked at the remnants of the gunshot wound to his abdomen, but it was the first opportunity he'd had to examine it in any kind of detail. The scarring went far beyond a simple bullet wound: jagged raised lightning bolts of tissue radiated up and to both sides, up the left side of his chest to his heart, across to just right of center and the skin... it didn't look quite alive. Small flat red lines played across flesh that lay discolored, dead. There in the supposed comfort of the bath with plenty of hot water and electricity and a surfeit of privacy, he closed his eyes and turned away from himself, from what he'd become.
Since that night, he's spent both less and more time in contemplation, both with and without the brutally unforgiving accompaniment of mirrors. For a long time he thought he'd just imagined the moment of his death but now, well... he's not so sure. If one were to find him in a conversational enough mood and put forth the question, he would answer that he's died and been... regenerated, reanimated, call it what you will. It's the only explanation he has for his continued survival, for his thirty years spent bereft of any formal signs of life. By all rights, he should not be here... but he is. He lives, he breathes, he eats, he sleeps. He harbors an increasingly virulent series of beasts, of monsters, somewhere inside. The necessities and pleasures of life are his for the taking, but he's loathe to indulge: he lost his life because he failed to protect Lucrecia, and he's back now to atone for that grievous error.
And every time he sees what he's become, every scar is its own new death and serves as a grim reminder that he still has such a long way to go.