beebalmed / vrm, day 2

The red on my face is not what I thought it was, but oil.

And yet it doesn't make my heart beat less slower. It doesn't make the mannequin less real, doesn't make the elevator less horrifying. and doesn't make Roe's leg less mangled. My heart beats against frail ribs with sharp wings, fluttering every other second, a caged thing, and I can feel its desire to be freed as the walls around us close in, all shiny and tall.

I make it two or three steps away from the doors of the elevator before my throat burns. I heave, but fortunately do not throw up on Roe’s bloody ankle.

“Fine,” I grumble, waving a hand dismissively. “I am fine.” A guffaw escapes me. It isn’t like Vin and Roe are messed up, too. Vin’s face looks a few shades paler, making them ghostly, and Roe’s skin burnt when I had touched it to pull him back. Walking over to the slack, lifeless body of the chimera-dummy, I press the now-bloodied heel of my boot on its face as anchorage and wrap my fingers around the hilt of the knife embedded in its eye. I twist, pull, and yank it loose.

The eye starts bleeding  a cascade of more oil, scarlet and shimmery under the emergency lighting.

The two press ahead but I linger a little longer in the shadows, letting my breaths catch up to my body. I can feel something jagged behind each gasp for air, something vacuous, emptiness blooming with every intake, and the more I breathe, the more breathless I am.

I bend over, clutching my knees and closing my eyes, letting the darkness wash over.

After a few moments, the vertigo stops a little.

Vin and Roe are far away when my eyes reopen in the dark, twin figures near the terrarium, greenery interwoven through shadow. I can leave them. The thought is so sudden in its treachery that my breath fragmentizes again, but I can leave them. The shadows feel familiar, hiding my already indiscernible self, so I am sure they wouldn’t even hear or feel my absence until later - much, much later, after I have found a hiding place.

And yet.

And yet my right hand - one that held Vin’s - feels emptier than it did moments ago and the left hand - one that pulled Roe - is colder, weaker, and lesser. It feels like religion, the worship of strange deities for the promise of safety, the uncertainty and the grapple with faith, Vin and Roe nothing but effigies in the distance.

Will they save me? Will they protect me?

Will I bleed myself on an altar for them?

I sigh. And then slowly, I start walking  after them.

Roe looks worse in the light, gaunt cheekbones and a sheen of sweat. “Are you okay?” I ask him, voice low and rough at the edges. He doesn’t answer, already moving forward. That’s when I use my hand to hold his and hold him there.

“Roe,” the second attempt. “If you die, I’ll tell everyone that it was Jimmy fucking Garner.” A pause. “Show us,” I tell him with a much gentler tone, nodding at his leg.