Garbage - "Medication" (DJ Halcyon Hydra Recovery Remix)
Wednesday
She doesn't say anything. She's still near death, to be honest, even if her friends have averted it and saved her (for now). As such, it might not be surprising that she doesn't speak. Lena sat there in the car of a dead woman next to Serafine as Sid and Grace took them away from the place where they had both spent—
Was it really only nine days? How is that possible?
Indeed, nine days…at least for Lena. She had never thought to ask how long Sera had been there. It doesn't matter anyway; Callum wouldn't have told her the truth. He would have told her anything she wanted to hear, and in her desperation she would have bought it.
These thoughts don't come through her head though, as she's driven off to a Verbena's private practice. In fact, as she sits there huddled in a bloody hoodie that will have to be discarded in short order, she's not really thinking anything at all. Nothing rational, anyway. The DJ leans her forehead against the car window, feeling the cool glass against her sweltering forehead and stares at the road.
It's not the road that she's seeing, though. Since that moment—that horrible moment that surges ahead on a full week of nightmares to dominate her mind—she has only seen, felt, heard one thing. Or one sequence of events.
The magic is gone, the paradox has already ripped into her pattern and slipped away. But her mind—that wonderful, fear-saturated-mind—has its own methods and madnesses. And thus, she relives Eric's death again.
And again.
And again.
And so she says nothing. She has nothing to say.
-----------------------------
Thursday
The hallucinations should have receded by Thursday. And they have. But still, she dreams. And when you're still as sick as Lena and Sera are and your body needs time to recover…is there that much of a difference?
Well yes, there is. She is awake for periods of time, after all. And she is lucid during that time, when this strange doctor who introduces himself as a Verbena and a friend of Sid's tends to her. She is suspicious at first. Paranoia has taken root deep in her brain and she doesn't trust anything yet. How does she know this isn't just a trick? Maybe they moved her because she'd become too defiant, they needed to trick her long enough for the disease to finish its course.
These are the accusations she shouts at the poor man while she's awake. But in truth, they don't have the full strength of conviction. She can feel the symptoms abating. She knows that she's getting better, and everything that Luke says rings through. So she submits to his care, silently and passionlessly. Her passion is all drained out of her.
And as soon as she can, she sleeps.
Friday
She's awake, and she is lucid, and her fever is beginning to lower. She has a little more energy back, and this is when she informs Luke, just in case she doesn't know, of her…additional condition. She apologizes as she says it for not saying anything further.
He tells her that it's okay, and that he knows. He's taking proper precautions. She nods a little, saying nothing. She doesn't know if that makes her feel better or worse.
She refuses to see visitors, should any come. She tells the doctor that it should be a precaution, because she's still coughing up blood. Cured or not, she's still capable of delivering a biologically-administered death with every convulsion of her lungs…and this one not even Sid can cure so quickly. It's better if they just stay away until she's back to a semblance of normality.
Luke points out that there is a window in the door that they can converse through, if they need be. Lena just shakes her head and rolls to one side, wraps the blanket she's been given over herself and shuts her eyes. She won't sleep, but she can try. Or perhaps pretend. Or try to pretend.
Saturday
She is up earlier than she expected. Before anyone comes around to check on her, she's seated on the floor. Somehow, despite the (admittedly lessened) slight aches and pains that dot her body, she's pulled herself into the lotus position and is focusing inward. She feels well enough to try and so she tries to use magic for the first time since inside the Hydra complex.
If someone asked her (and if she were being honest), she would say that she was terrified of this. Lena's felt paradox's sting before, felt her magic go awry. Never like that, though. It was the convergence of so many terrible things all at once. She would never admit it, but in her waking moments over the last few days since her rescue she's thought about what it would have been like if she'd never Awakened. She's done that before, but not like this.
However, as much as she is scared of it, she needs to be safe for others to be around before she can leave. And she needs to leave this place. She's been in a medical facility for far too long now.
So she focuses herself inward. She listens to her heartbeat, her own personal reflection of the Lakashim. And she lets her consciousness take her from her heart into her blood…diseased blood, but primarily only the disease she knows. The one she's lived with for years and the one that will kill her in the end, not the one that very nearly beat it to the punch. And as her thoughts travel through her veins, she finds all those nasty symptoms…the remnants of what Hydra is doing to her body. She has to let the cure do the work on the disease itself, but her symptoms…those she will get rid of. She's really tired of coughing up blood.
Sadly, she's not done spitting up stuff. But this last one, doozy as it might be, will be the one that grants her freedom. She leaps to her feet and nearly trips getting to the biohazard disposal container. What she spits out…it's not quite blood. Oh, it's blood…that is in there. But there's more. It's black and oily, interminably hot. All the symptoms, given physical form and forced out of her body through the safest exit. Lena retches over and over, expelling the remainder of the symptoms.
And when she's done she slams the lid shut, ignoring the new ache of Paradox racing through her bones. That will go away quickly enough. What's important is, she's no longer symptomatic. And she can leave.
She is good enough to tell Luke that she's leaving. She doesn't want her friends to worry about her, after all. They may come checking on her, and she can't handle that right now.
She slips on a pair of clothes that were brought for her. She doesn't know whose they are, and she doesn't know who brought them. She doesn't ask. After she asks after Sera's condition (for the umpteenth time since she's arrived here), she thanks the good doctor and walks out.
Her eyes wince at the bright sky. She hasn't seen it in almost two weeks. But the sky. The air. For one moment she almost (almost) smiles, eyes drifting shut as the sensation.
She's free.
-----------------------------
"Jesus."
Those are the first words when she sees the state of her apartment. It turns her stomach to see, objectively, what she was doing to herself. Curled up on plastic—on fucking plastic —next to her bed and leaving her deadly spatters of blood all over it like some kind of Typhoid Mary. She looks over the scene…the spots in the carpet, covered in bleach where she wearily worked under her fever to clean up (poorly) every spot of blood she spat up around the place. The non-functional laptop. The garbage can full of week-old pathogen-infested phlegm and plasma.
Her lip curls, her feet refuse to step in any further. She can't be here. This is too much. It's all just too much for her mind to handle. The smell of disease. That tang of death.
And now she's throwing up again. New stomach acids added to the old and the rest for a disgusting mix.
The emptying of her stomach, though, fills her resolve somehow. It's as if that last retch was the last thing she had to give in this world, and there's nothing more for her to lose.
Cleanup of a normal flu is disgusting. This is a thousand times worse. Covered as much as she can, she doesn't bother scrubbing. Anything in the apartment that has blood on it is piled into the garbage can. It's mostly clothes, some papers, a few personal items. Some of those personal items can never be replaced. But they have to go.
By the time she's done, the can is filled. Just one thing left to do. It's difficult to get it down the stairs without spilling anything, but she manages. She carries it to the alleyway outside her apartment and dumps the whole thing in a bigger, metal garbage can.
And then out comes the lighter fluid. She's remarkably calm as she takes what amounts to most of her possessions and douses it in accelerant. Her expression is blank when she lights a match and tosses it inside. And she stands there, watching it as it burns away, taking one disease with it and leaving another behind.
That night, she checks into a hotel. Her lease will be broken by the end of the week. She can't live there anymore.
And I wanna take you down
But your soul cannot be found
It doesn't matter much you see
'cause your disease is killing me
Saliva, "Your Disease"
But your soul cannot be found
It doesn't matter much you see
'cause your disease is killing me
Saliva, "Your Disease"
Wednesday
She doesn't say anything. She's still near death, to be honest, even if her friends have averted it and saved her (for now). As such, it might not be surprising that she doesn't speak. Lena sat there in the car of a dead woman next to Serafine as Sid and Grace took them away from the place where they had both spent—
Was it really only nine days? How is that possible?
Indeed, nine days…at least for Lena. She had never thought to ask how long Sera had been there. It doesn't matter anyway; Callum wouldn't have told her the truth. He would have told her anything she wanted to hear, and in her desperation she would have bought it.
These thoughts don't come through her head though, as she's driven off to a Verbena's private practice. In fact, as she sits there huddled in a bloody hoodie that will have to be discarded in short order, she's not really thinking anything at all. Nothing rational, anyway. The DJ leans her forehead against the car window, feeling the cool glass against her sweltering forehead and stares at the road.
It's not the road that she's seeing, though. Since that moment—that horrible moment that surges ahead on a full week of nightmares to dominate her mind—she has only seen, felt, heard one thing. Or one sequence of events.
The magic is gone, the paradox has already ripped into her pattern and slipped away. But her mind—that wonderful, fear-saturated-mind—has its own methods and madnesses. And thus, she relives Eric's death again.
And again.
And again.
And so she says nothing. She has nothing to say.
-----------------------------
Thursday
The hallucinations should have receded by Thursday. And they have. But still, she dreams. And when you're still as sick as Lena and Sera are and your body needs time to recover…is there that much of a difference?
Well yes, there is. She is awake for periods of time, after all. And she is lucid during that time, when this strange doctor who introduces himself as a Verbena and a friend of Sid's tends to her. She is suspicious at first. Paranoia has taken root deep in her brain and she doesn't trust anything yet. How does she know this isn't just a trick? Maybe they moved her because she'd become too defiant, they needed to trick her long enough for the disease to finish its course.
These are the accusations she shouts at the poor man while she's awake. But in truth, they don't have the full strength of conviction. She can feel the symptoms abating. She knows that she's getting better, and everything that Luke says rings through. So she submits to his care, silently and passionlessly. Her passion is all drained out of her.
And as soon as she can, she sleeps.
Friday
She's awake, and she is lucid, and her fever is beginning to lower. She has a little more energy back, and this is when she informs Luke, just in case she doesn't know, of her…additional condition. She apologizes as she says it for not saying anything further.
He tells her that it's okay, and that he knows. He's taking proper precautions. She nods a little, saying nothing. She doesn't know if that makes her feel better or worse.
She refuses to see visitors, should any come. She tells the doctor that it should be a precaution, because she's still coughing up blood. Cured or not, she's still capable of delivering a biologically-administered death with every convulsion of her lungs…and this one not even Sid can cure so quickly. It's better if they just stay away until she's back to a semblance of normality.
Luke points out that there is a window in the door that they can converse through, if they need be. Lena just shakes her head and rolls to one side, wraps the blanket she's been given over herself and shuts her eyes. She won't sleep, but she can try. Or perhaps pretend. Or try to pretend.
Saturday
She is up earlier than she expected. Before anyone comes around to check on her, she's seated on the floor. Somehow, despite the (admittedly lessened) slight aches and pains that dot her body, she's pulled herself into the lotus position and is focusing inward. She feels well enough to try and so she tries to use magic for the first time since inside the Hydra complex.
If someone asked her (and if she were being honest), she would say that she was terrified of this. Lena's felt paradox's sting before, felt her magic go awry. Never like that, though. It was the convergence of so many terrible things all at once. She would never admit it, but in her waking moments over the last few days since her rescue she's thought about what it would have been like if she'd never Awakened. She's done that before, but not like this.
However, as much as she is scared of it, she needs to be safe for others to be around before she can leave. And she needs to leave this place. She's been in a medical facility for far too long now.
So she focuses herself inward. She listens to her heartbeat, her own personal reflection of the Lakashim. And she lets her consciousness take her from her heart into her blood…diseased blood, but primarily only the disease she knows. The one she's lived with for years and the one that will kill her in the end, not the one that very nearly beat it to the punch. And as her thoughts travel through her veins, she finds all those nasty symptoms…the remnants of what Hydra is doing to her body. She has to let the cure do the work on the disease itself, but her symptoms…those she will get rid of. She's really tired of coughing up blood.
Sadly, she's not done spitting up stuff. But this last one, doozy as it might be, will be the one that grants her freedom. She leaps to her feet and nearly trips getting to the biohazard disposal container. What she spits out…it's not quite blood. Oh, it's blood…that is in there. But there's more. It's black and oily, interminably hot. All the symptoms, given physical form and forced out of her body through the safest exit. Lena retches over and over, expelling the remainder of the symptoms.
And when she's done she slams the lid shut, ignoring the new ache of Paradox racing through her bones. That will go away quickly enough. What's important is, she's no longer symptomatic. And she can leave.
She is good enough to tell Luke that she's leaving. She doesn't want her friends to worry about her, after all. They may come checking on her, and she can't handle that right now.
She slips on a pair of clothes that were brought for her. She doesn't know whose they are, and she doesn't know who brought them. She doesn't ask. After she asks after Sera's condition (for the umpteenth time since she's arrived here), she thanks the good doctor and walks out.
Her eyes wince at the bright sky. She hasn't seen it in almost two weeks. But the sky. The air. For one moment she almost (almost) smiles, eyes drifting shut as the sensation.
She's free.
-----------------------------
"Jesus."
Those are the first words when she sees the state of her apartment. It turns her stomach to see, objectively, what she was doing to herself. Curled up on plastic—on fucking plastic —next to her bed and leaving her deadly spatters of blood all over it like some kind of Typhoid Mary. She looks over the scene…the spots in the carpet, covered in bleach where she wearily worked under her fever to clean up (poorly) every spot of blood she spat up around the place. The non-functional laptop. The garbage can full of week-old pathogen-infested phlegm and plasma.
Her lip curls, her feet refuse to step in any further. She can't be here. This is too much. It's all just too much for her mind to handle. The smell of disease. That tang of death.
And now she's throwing up again. New stomach acids added to the old and the rest for a disgusting mix.
The emptying of her stomach, though, fills her resolve somehow. It's as if that last retch was the last thing she had to give in this world, and there's nothing more for her to lose.
Cleanup of a normal flu is disgusting. This is a thousand times worse. Covered as much as she can, she doesn't bother scrubbing. Anything in the apartment that has blood on it is piled into the garbage can. It's mostly clothes, some papers, a few personal items. Some of those personal items can never be replaced. But they have to go.
By the time she's done, the can is filled. Just one thing left to do. It's difficult to get it down the stairs without spilling anything, but she manages. She carries it to the alleyway outside her apartment and dumps the whole thing in a bigger, metal garbage can.
And then out comes the lighter fluid. She's remarkably calm as she takes what amounts to most of her possessions and douses it in accelerant. Her expression is blank when she lights a match and tosses it inside. And she stands there, watching it as it burns away, taking one disease with it and leaving another behind.
That night, she checks into a hotel. Her lease will be broken by the end of the week. She can't live there anymore.
A constellation of tears on your lashes
Burn everything you love, then burn the ashes
In the end everything collides, my childhood
Spat back out the monster that you see
Fall Out Boy, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)"
Burn everything you love, then burn the ashes
In the end everything collides, my childhood
Spat back out the monster that you see
Fall Out Boy, "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)"
"The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules."
"Good men don't need rules. And today's not the day to find out why I have so many."
"Good men don't need rules. And today's not the day to find out why I have so many."