Becoming Sleepers (5/14)
Title: Eighteen (Boxes) (5/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Rating: R
Title: Eighteen (Boxes) (5/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Author: Cricket
Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Joss’ toys, but I promise to put them back when I’m done.
Rating: R for graphic (Reaver) violence and language
Notes: This is based on stormwolf-dawn7’s Sleepers (alt.version). Even if you decide to skip my story I highly encourage you to read (or re-read) hers.
River walked softly through the stacks of now quiet boxes. The only sound was the gentle hum of the machines from the function section of the Reaver’s mind. Most of the boxes were stacked neatly one on top of the other, a few were out of line here or there but overall it had a fairly organized array of thoughts. She turned a corner and was taken aback to see twice as many boxes as she had seen in the conscious thought section that were haphazardly piled on top of one another.
She walked around the heap of boxes, gazing at the peculiar arrangement. She knew she should go back to her own mind and try to sort through her own thoughts instead of snooping through someone else’s but she’d never been inside anyone’s head before and her curiosity got the better of her. She picked a smallish box out of the pile, sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled it into her lap. Opening only one corner of the box she peeked into the darkened interior. Nothing immediately jumped out at her so she figured it was safe to continue.
Pulling the lid off completely, an image instantly popped into her mind’s eye. Like a movie playing inside her own head she saw her eyelids part and focus on the gray ceiling panels in her room. Except this wasn’t her room. The image swept down her aching body to see her abdomen and legs wrapped tightly in bandages. Except this wasn’t her body. She saw the raw and scarred skin on a wide chest and knew she was seeing the Reaver’s body. A doctor walked into the room looking intently at a clipboard. He looked up and met the Reaver’s gaze briefly before pulling out a syringe and plunging a deep purple liquid into his IV tube. Before he had time to protest, the image went blurry and the eyelids closed again.
As the image faded, River closed the lid on the small box securely. It was a memory, she thought. These are all memories, its memories. She wondered what had they done to the Reaver while it had been at the academy. Had it been subjected to the same tests she had? Cautiously she set the small box aside and leaned forward to grasp a slightly larger one. It wasn’t particularly heavy but it was warm to her touch. She lifted the cover off and waited for the image to appear in her mind.
The Reaver’s jaw was throbbing, it felt hot and sore. His eyes opened and revealed the same room as the previous memory only this time his body was covered only by a thin sheet instead of a mess of bandages. He felt groggy and disoriented. His empty stomach lurched and he was sure that if it had held anything he would have vomited. He tried to open his mouth but white hot pain shot straight through his nerves as soon as his jaw muscles twitched. His tongue tentatively probed the inside of his mouth and found wads of sticky gauze crammed between his top and bottom teeth. The tangy taste of blood coated his tongue and he thought it tasted different when it was someone else’s.
The memory ended and River was more curious than ever about what had happened to the creature. She sifted through the pile and found a large box buried underneath several smaller ones. After lifting them off, she pulled back the lid and closed her eyes as the image took shape.
The Reaver was on a ship, strolling almost casually through the metal hallways and enjoying the screams of the people who scurried away trying to find places to hide. He would find them and then they would all have some fun, he thought. He heard the sound of metal scraping and the rustle of clothes in one of the storage rooms off of the hallway. Standing in the doorway he saw a young boy halfway into an air duct set low on the wall. He charged but wasn’t fast enough to get to the boy before the grating snapped shut behind him. He pried off the grating but it had given the boy enough time to crawl to where he couldn’t be reached. Before he had time to ponder a way to get to the boy he heard a loud bang behind him. Whirling around he saw the door he had entered through, the only door in the room, had been slammed shut. Racing over he tugged on the handle but it had been locked from the outside.
He was in the room for hours, punching walls and the door, frantically trying to fit through the boy’s crawl space, but there was no way out. The screams outside the room had died down after a while and he wondered if his brothers had finished off the rest of the people on the ship and if they would soon come looking for him. When the door finally opened it was not a fellow Reaver on the other side but a horde of men in familiar gray uniforms. As he jumped up to attack, one of the men pulled out a gun and with lightning speed squeezed the trigger. With a dart full of tranquilizers imbedded in his skin, the Reaver fell to his knees as the world turned gray around him.
Her curiosity sated, at least for the time being, River opened her eyes. Finally she allowed herself to think about the situation at hand. The Reaver was asleep for now but she knew she couldn’t keep it that way forever. Eventually she would have to go back to her own mind and she couldn’t continually guard it. There had to be a solution to the puzzle, she thought. And then an idea crystallized as she looked at the boxes surrounding her. If all of its thoughts and memories were here, surely something would be left of when it had been human. If she could find the humanity deep inside the monster, she might have a chance.
< Previous: chapter 4: Twenty (No More) | Next: chapter 6: Sixteen (Miranda)>
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Rating: R
Title: Eighteen (Boxes) (5/14)
Series Title: Becoming Sleepers
Author: Cricket
Disclaimer: I’m just playing with Joss’ toys, but I promise to put them back when I’m done.
Rating: R for graphic (Reaver) violence and language
Notes: This is based on stormwolf-dawn7’s Sleepers (alt.version). Even if you decide to skip my story I highly encourage you to read (or re-read) hers.
River walked softly through the stacks of now quiet boxes. The only sound was the gentle hum of the machines from the function section of the Reaver’s mind. Most of the boxes were stacked neatly one on top of the other, a few were out of line here or there but overall it had a fairly organized array of thoughts. She turned a corner and was taken aback to see twice as many boxes as she had seen in the conscious thought section that were haphazardly piled on top of one another.
She walked around the heap of boxes, gazing at the peculiar arrangement. She knew she should go back to her own mind and try to sort through her own thoughts instead of snooping through someone else’s but she’d never been inside anyone’s head before and her curiosity got the better of her. She picked a smallish box out of the pile, sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled it into her lap. Opening only one corner of the box she peeked into the darkened interior. Nothing immediately jumped out at her so she figured it was safe to continue.
Pulling the lid off completely, an image instantly popped into her mind’s eye. Like a movie playing inside her own head she saw her eyelids part and focus on the gray ceiling panels in her room. Except this wasn’t her room. The image swept down her aching body to see her abdomen and legs wrapped tightly in bandages. Except this wasn’t her body. She saw the raw and scarred skin on a wide chest and knew she was seeing the Reaver’s body. A doctor walked into the room looking intently at a clipboard. He looked up and met the Reaver’s gaze briefly before pulling out a syringe and plunging a deep purple liquid into his IV tube. Before he had time to protest, the image went blurry and the eyelids closed again.
As the image faded, River closed the lid on the small box securely. It was a memory, she thought. These are all memories, its memories. She wondered what had they done to the Reaver while it had been at the academy. Had it been subjected to the same tests she had? Cautiously she set the small box aside and leaned forward to grasp a slightly larger one. It wasn’t particularly heavy but it was warm to her touch. She lifted the cover off and waited for the image to appear in her mind.
The Reaver’s jaw was throbbing, it felt hot and sore. His eyes opened and revealed the same room as the previous memory only this time his body was covered only by a thin sheet instead of a mess of bandages. He felt groggy and disoriented. His empty stomach lurched and he was sure that if it had held anything he would have vomited. He tried to open his mouth but white hot pain shot straight through his nerves as soon as his jaw muscles twitched. His tongue tentatively probed the inside of his mouth and found wads of sticky gauze crammed between his top and bottom teeth. The tangy taste of blood coated his tongue and he thought it tasted different when it was someone else’s.
The memory ended and River was more curious than ever about what had happened to the creature. She sifted through the pile and found a large box buried underneath several smaller ones. After lifting them off, she pulled back the lid and closed her eyes as the image took shape.
The Reaver was on a ship, strolling almost casually through the metal hallways and enjoying the screams of the people who scurried away trying to find places to hide. He would find them and then they would all have some fun, he thought. He heard the sound of metal scraping and the rustle of clothes in one of the storage rooms off of the hallway. Standing in the doorway he saw a young boy halfway into an air duct set low on the wall. He charged but wasn’t fast enough to get to the boy before the grating snapped shut behind him. He pried off the grating but it had given the boy enough time to crawl to where he couldn’t be reached. Before he had time to ponder a way to get to the boy he heard a loud bang behind him. Whirling around he saw the door he had entered through, the only door in the room, had been slammed shut. Racing over he tugged on the handle but it had been locked from the outside.
He was in the room for hours, punching walls and the door, frantically trying to fit through the boy’s crawl space, but there was no way out. The screams outside the room had died down after a while and he wondered if his brothers had finished off the rest of the people on the ship and if they would soon come looking for him. When the door finally opened it was not a fellow Reaver on the other side but a horde of men in familiar gray uniforms. As he jumped up to attack, one of the men pulled out a gun and with lightning speed squeezed the trigger. With a dart full of tranquilizers imbedded in his skin, the Reaver fell to his knees as the world turned gray around him.
Her curiosity sated, at least for the time being, River opened her eyes. Finally she allowed herself to think about the situation at hand. The Reaver was asleep for now but she knew she couldn’t keep it that way forever. Eventually she would have to go back to her own mind and she couldn’t continually guard it. There had to be a solution to the puzzle, she thought. And then an idea crystallized as she looked at the boxes surrounding her. If all of its thoughts and memories were here, surely something would be left of when it had been human. If she could find the humanity deep inside the monster, she might have a chance.
< Previous: chapter 4: Twenty (No More) | Next: chapter 6: Sixteen (Miranda)>