milk carton kid /pietro

"Pietro."

Says the voice.

I don't know what it wants yet, I've been trying to figure it out. My thoughts are hard to catch though, even harder to hold onto. It's as if every time I manage to pin one down, it slips away from me. Then things darken, time passes, an unknown amount. I'm floating, water kissing my ankles, taking my things away into ice cold water. I'm supposed to go with them.

"Pietro."

I've lost time again. My skin is warm now, too hot, I'm a piece of coal, glowing white, red shimmering beneath the surface. I think about the longest night, about the bonfires up and down the beach. I think about a voice across the flame, about how it's telling me that I don't fit. I'm a bad thing to keep around.

I know that already.

"Follow the sound of my voice."

How can I do that, with how often it changes? I don't recognise this one. It's soft, butter-smooth. It tries to coax me back in but I'm floating and it's nice. I'm afraid to open my eyes.

"I know that you're awake," she says.

I don't think that I am. It feels wrong, like someone's emptied me out, filled my skin full of rocks. Im heavy, heavier than I've ever been. It hurts, like there's a livewire beneath my skin, I didn't know it was pain until I named it just now. A shuddering groan fills my ears, it came from my own lips.

"Welcome back," she says.

The hazy form of a body enters my vision before my eyes slide shut again, the effort was too much. The light hurts, cuts into me as if it's methodically slicing my brain into slabs.

Hands fit under my arm and lift me into a sitting position. The motion makes my head swim. I'm not okay.

"Thanks?" I mutter, then force my eyes open again.

It stings.

Everything hurts, like yesterday was a particularly bad day in the training yard. I'm having trouble remembering what it was though, I can recall the gravel beneath my feet in perfect detail but I don't remember what happened, I don't know what got me here.

The voice belongs to a woman, long black hair pulled back into a slick tail. She's openly staring at me, that's not new. I'm used to standing in a line-up with the other kids, trainers checking our teeth to see how healthy we are, like we're animals.

Livestock.

"Can I help you?" I ask when she offers me nothing.

I've woken up in hospital before, the benefits of having a 'passionate' father according to my family doctor. I just haven't ever woken up without remembering why.

"You were in an accident," she says.

"Yeah," I tell her, "I know." That's what the reports always say. Accident after accident after accident. I wonder how thick my file must be at this point. I push the blankets off my legs, slide them over the side of the bed and she's already stepping forward, already catching me as my body falls apart beneath me, what-

"You were in an accident two years ago," she says, then helps me back onto the bed.

"What?"

"At school," she says calmly, "You fell from a climbing wall, you hit your head and suffered multiple breaks. It was touch and go for some time, but my team was able to save you."

I remember chalk on my fingers.

As soon as she says it, I remember chalk on my fingers and I remember sweat trickling down the back of my neck. I remember the sun, the crowd yelling. Button at the top of the wall, my opponent gaining on me. I remember reaching for the next grip and then my fingers slipping off the edge of it.

Falling backwards, air rushing past my ears, my life flashing before my eyes, then floating.

"Oh," I whisper, "I remember."

And she smiles.

It's fast, a flicker, and it's small but so pleased.

It sends a shiver down my spine.

A spike of pain hammers itself into my head and I bend forward from it, a wave of nausea rolling through me like a dark cloud over the ocean.

"The chemicals leaving your body, they were necessary to keep you alive while you were comatose," she tells me, her palm rubbing a circle into my back. "You'll purge them over the next few days. Unfortunately, medication no longer works on you, it's going to hurt."

I know pain. That prospect doesn't scare me like it should.

Strange to hear a note of sympathy in her voice though. In my world, that doesn't exist. In my world, everyone is cold and so empty that you could crawl inside them and get lost in all that nothing. Sometimes I feel like that's all I know how to do, like if I search hard enough, I'll find something warm for once.

It takes a moment for me to be able to raise my head again. The pain makes me feeble, to the point I can't fight her when she pushes me back down gently into my pillow. My thoughts are long, drawn out things, there are so many questions but I can't figure out how to form them, I'm so tired.

"Get some rest," she says.

Still, as she turns from me, my hand catches hers.

She stops.

Her fingers are hard beneath mine, the crevices of her skin callused from her work.

"Who is he?" I ask.

She gazes down at me, inspecting me in minute detail. Eventually something clicks, "Pardon?"

"That name," I let her go, rivers of pain cutting down my arm. "Pietro, I heard you calling out for him." It's getting worse, a steady current running bone deep.

Her eyes glitter like jewels as the room dims.

"You must have misheard," she says, "There's no one here who goes by that."

My hand falls.

A glass cylinder comes out of her pocket, bright yellow in hue and opaque, she hooks it into a syringe.

"Thought you said meds don't work?" I say.

"This is something else," She shakes her head, then pushes the needle into my arm, "This is to help you remember."

Flames lick up my shoulder, over thy chest, my head presses back hard into the pillow, a cry of pain falling ragged out of my mouth. I feel my skin boiling, feel it start to peel, to curl and crisp, feel myself becoming ash in the grip of it.

"Sweet dreams," she says. Her voice comes out of the dark.

I'm falling.

The climbing wall is above me, I can see the grip I missed, see the fear on the face of the girl I was racing, red hair and freckles, lips twisted in horror. Someone is screaming, it's me I think, there's no net beneath me, there's only hard stone. I'm going to die.