Fic: Jabberwocky, Part 3b
Voices swam in the darkness, definitely two of them, or was it three? Sam couldn’t tell; he was, however, acutely aware that he was, once again, pinned on display. Bizarrely slow slicing motions were slowly being made as his own weight pulled him downwards, the shards slicing inwards and upwards, the sharp sides of the vertical pins setting into bone.
“You have to get rid of it. Just dump it, you can carry on later, you’ve too much at risk to be jeopardizing it all with this idiotic little hobby!” Sam was fairly sure that he had never heard the first voice before; it was clipped, icy, and very proper. He tried to open his eyes again, expecting nothing but white light and pain again, but this time, there was a vague blur beyond the whiteness. The strange, horrible feeling of sand being grated over his eyes was still there, but it was tempered down a bit this time, and the white hot light that seemed to beat into him wasn’t quite blinding enough. His vision was returning. Sam strained to keep his eyes open against the pain, but the involuntary tears that they caused started to leak down his throat, mingling with the ever present blood and causing him to gag again.
The voices stopped arguing, and Sam could hear footsteps slowly making their way towards him. He struggled to regulate his breathing, to keep his breaths short and shallow, air pulling into only half of his left lung, the right one fully collapsed down, leaking blood outwards with each battle for air, the left slowly and surely filling with blood itself. A strange underwater feeling in his chest bore down on him, and unconsciousness threatened him again as one of those hands, the hands, the large, rough hands, caught the underside of his jaw and lifted his face upwards.
“It’s awake. I think it knows that I’m in a rush,” it was the second voice, the one that so often intertwined and interposed itself with his double’s, hot breath against his shoulder as it spoke. The upwards motion of his head and throat forced Sam to struggle harder for breath, and pressed blood downward, out of his windpipe and down his esophagus. Sam tried not to gag further at the thought of how much of his own blood he’d already ingested.
“I’m telling you, get rid of it, now. Do… do whatever it is you do, and get rid of it. We haven’t time for your little game at the moment, and you can always carry on later. Do you understand me?” The first voice, the new one, sounded impatient, like a parent dealing with an ornery child.
“You have a point, but then again, so do I. I’m not done yet, I haven’t even taken what I need from it,” the second voice was speaking directly beside him, and Sam felt hands gripping at him, and then one of the shards was ripped free, rapidly, bright pain against a dull throb. Sam braced himself as fingers dug into the place where the pin had been, two fingers this time, whereas the last it had only been one, and for a second, he could feel the tiny tearing motion as his skin was ripped open, layers of tissue giving way to the clawing grasp.
“Are you going to get rid of it?”
“As you said, we haven’t time for everything, but as I said, this is a necessary task that I must complete. I’ll finish the task at hand, and then I’ll get rid of it, just like I always do. I’ll be quick about it, much faster than usual, all right? Don’t worry so much - I shan’t be long,” the second voice was muted as a tongue slipped into the hole where the fingers had been, searching the torn and ragged edges of flesh. Sam tried to keep from screaming teeth bit down, ripping against the grain of the muscle, bearing down, hard and dull, against the outer skin of the wound.
Darkness swallowed him again as he screamed, not caring that the blood was welling up and choking him again.
*Have to close soon, been open too long already*
*Seizing again! Christ, what is causing that?*
*Still waiting on the bloods*
*How long have we been in?*
*Stay with us, Mr. Tyler, just stay with us, Sam*
*Doesn’t do any good to talk to them, this isn’t a coma patient in a bed, you know*
*It is a coma patient, though*
*That has to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard*
*Will you two shut up! Think of the nurses, make an example!*
*Suction*
*Long way to go, Matthews*
*How the hell did we ever miss this?*
*I want the bloods back the second we close*
*5 more mils on the dilantin*
*You cannot give that much to him*
*Only way*
“Do you hear them, Sam? Why don’t you just tell them that they can give up? Tell then that you don’t want it anymore, you were never any good at it, anyway.” Her voice again, her voice in the blackness, her voice with the muffled sounds of reality.
“Is that reality, Sam? Or is reality what you’re experiencing now? Just pain, and you just wanted it to end. You want it to end, don’t you, Sam? Just give up..” His own voice, his own laughing, jeering, mocking voice.
“Just give up and go to sleep, poor darling,” the little girl’s voice seemed to swim around him, floating around him in the darkness. “Just let it stop, let it end.”
“Please… Stop…” Sam tried to work the words out, but couldn’t. He was vaguely aware of being taken down and carried; no, not carried, dragged, sliding along the floor in a stream of his own blood. The darkness finally closed all the way in on him, shutting him off.
All comments and criticism welcome and encouraged!
And if you know what I did to change the font on the last line of the previous post, please let me know so I can avoid making the same mistake again :P