Dream 001 || haemoglobin is the key | to a healthy heartbeat
{Could you will yourself not to dream about something? Jace was determined to try. To think about anything else but her, anything that might prevent those dreams from being broadcast to a network of strangers... and Alec.}
{It almost worked, completely.}
{Almost, but not quite.}
He had done it. He'd killed Agramon, faced the Fear demon and lived.
And now he was wandering through the metallic interior of the ship, because he had to find his father. Had to stop him. There was something bizarrely mechanical to his own movements, in tune with the groans of the boat, the creak of the catwalk beneath him.
His hand came away from the railing, sticky and warm and wet. He brought it to his nose, inhaled a scent he knew too well for a seventeen year old. Blood. It was everywhere suddenly, on the railings, the floor beneath him, covering the walls, which now seemed to contract in and out like a living, breathing thing. His breaths moved in time with the ship's, with its groans and wheezes. He pushed through it, blood up to his ankles, to his knees, and he knew that this much blood couldn't come from one body. Five bodies. Ten. A hundred.
A city's worth.
How many would die if he failed?
Not this one. Lying there, Simon isn't even Simon, isn't even anything other than a body, a limp corpse, caked in blood, all wrong, all that blood on the outside, none on the inside. His throat is all but torn out, the gash is so wide. The cuts in his arms are deep - angled just so, to speed up the drip.
For a moment, it's not Clary's best friend, it's his best friend lying there. He's already faced that clenching fear, the panic when he thought Alec wasn't going to make it, and he can't imagine putting Clary through that. The body moves, not-Alec, but not-Simon either, just a gurgling spurting thing, amidst the blood that's everywhere. Why is it everywhere?
Because, he realizes, the blood is the key. It's trying to tell him something.
Like his father, his path always seems to come back to this - blood.
He cuts his wrist and it comes out as an order - "Drink it. You idiot, drink."
I asked for it, didn't I?
A clang as his head hits the deck, Simon - no, still not Simon - some kind of demon inside him - bearing down on top of him, burying his fangs into the skin, the veins, right into his neck.
And he remembers now, that the floor of the vessel is covered in all that blood, and he's sinking down into it, slowly, the warmth enveloping him everywhere. Red floods his vision. It's really almost too easy, to just give in to the blood.
Just drown in it.
And it isn't even the Simon-demon atop him now, as the red swells and covers everything, and his fingers claw to drag the other closer, to just smother him once and for all.
No - It's her. Sucking the life out of him.
And he just can't bring himself to stop her.
There's a sea of red cascading all around him - her hair, must be.
His blood flows from him to her, the same blood, coursing into her veins, and he has one more fleeting, wry thought.
What's mine is yours.
§
{His eyes flick open, and he stares, expressionless, ahead. A spectacular failure.}
{He misses her, and the very real scars on his throat seem to burn.}
{It almost worked, completely.}
{Almost, but not quite.}
He had done it. He'd killed Agramon, faced the Fear demon and lived.
And now he was wandering through the metallic interior of the ship, because he had to find his father. Had to stop him. There was something bizarrely mechanical to his own movements, in tune with the groans of the boat, the creak of the catwalk beneath him.
His hand came away from the railing, sticky and warm and wet. He brought it to his nose, inhaled a scent he knew too well for a seventeen year old. Blood. It was everywhere suddenly, on the railings, the floor beneath him, covering the walls, which now seemed to contract in and out like a living, breathing thing. His breaths moved in time with the ship's, with its groans and wheezes. He pushed through it, blood up to his ankles, to his knees, and he knew that this much blood couldn't come from one body. Five bodies. Ten. A hundred.
A city's worth.
How many would die if he failed?
Not this one. Lying there, Simon isn't even Simon, isn't even anything other than a body, a limp corpse, caked in blood, all wrong, all that blood on the outside, none on the inside. His throat is all but torn out, the gash is so wide. The cuts in his arms are deep - angled just so, to speed up the drip.
For a moment, it's not Clary's best friend, it's his best friend lying there. He's already faced that clenching fear, the panic when he thought Alec wasn't going to make it, and he can't imagine putting Clary through that. The body moves, not-Alec, but not-Simon either, just a gurgling spurting thing, amidst the blood that's everywhere. Why is it everywhere?
Because, he realizes, the blood is the key. It's trying to tell him something.
Like his father, his path always seems to come back to this - blood.
He cuts his wrist and it comes out as an order - "Drink it. You idiot, drink."
I asked for it, didn't I?
A clang as his head hits the deck, Simon - no, still not Simon - some kind of demon inside him - bearing down on top of him, burying his fangs into the skin, the veins, right into his neck.
And he remembers now, that the floor of the vessel is covered in all that blood, and he's sinking down into it, slowly, the warmth enveloping him everywhere. Red floods his vision. It's really almost too easy, to just give in to the blood.
Just drown in it.
And it isn't even the Simon-demon atop him now, as the red swells and covers everything, and his fingers claw to drag the other closer, to just smother him once and for all.
No - It's her. Sucking the life out of him.
And he just can't bring himself to stop her.
There's a sea of red cascading all around him - her hair, must be.
His blood flows from him to her, the same blood, coursing into her veins, and he has one more fleeting, wry thought.
What's mine is yours.
§
{His eyes flick open, and he stares, expressionless, ahead. A spectacular failure.}
{He misses her, and the very real scars on his throat seem to burn.}