Resuscitation | Septys Oneshot XTw-GoreX

Gasps and echoes of life escape his lips as he stands, vibrating before the four forms crumpled and broken on the ground. A quick glance at his companions reveals their various states- broken, bruised, bloody, but alive. His form shifts, moving to crouch in the dirt, stained with blood and viscera. The initial pump of adrenaline begins to fade, leaving once electrified, tingling limbs heavy and weighted.

Dark eyes glance down uneasily at a pair of ruined gloves, though he is thankful for their sweatiness and grubbiness now. The fabric itself is ripped to shreds on his left palm, leaving crimson, angry flesh below. Legs stretch before him without his realizing, focusing on the push of liquid with every snare-drum heartbeat locked in his rib cage.

Septys remains, as though he were a statue, eyes widened at the prospect of what was to come. His hand shifts, dragging a bolt of thick ebony fabric over his lap, with a corner resting clamped tight between his teeth. He stares, focuses not on the heavy point of his blade poking through slits down until thin strips are enough to form a tight tourniquet, not on the sticks his hand finds, not on the overhand knots tied so carefully at a wrist, and definately not on a fourth and fith digit hanging on only by simple ligaments and fragments of shattered bone so easily broken, a weak spot in his previously untouched machine of a body.

While he waits for the numbing cold to set, his teeth clamp down on a wadded ball of the same, ebony fabric. Septys is thankful, for his calmness, for the classes echoing loud in his ears. "Clean cuts heal better than ragged edges." Or maybe, "Ragged edged cuts have a higher chance of developing Gangrene."

He inhales, and lightly prods his palm with the tip of the glaive- no feeling.

He stares down, and carefully begins to pry away the glove with a sloshing echo and crimson fingerprints. The cuff folds over the palm, folds over the knuckles, folds over the first joint- over fingertips. Still, nothing.

A sharp intake followed by a low moan- though the gloves protected his thumb, first, and middle finger, his ring and especially pinky, cling on to his hand for dear life, held only by strands of nearly-severed tendons and sinew. Frequent short breaths slip in and out, in and out, in and out as he moves the tip of the glaive, pushing his hand down against the upturned blade.

He moves it back and forth against the smooth titanium, straining against every primal instinct screaming in his brain, but Septys physically feels nothing as they begin to pry away from their birthplace, until two gentle thwumps rest upon the ground. Carefully he begins to release the night-sky cloth, the fabric allowing gentle pulses to shoot through constricted, then suddenly dilated veins.

It doesn't bleed as much as he thought it would.

As the feeling slowly begins to return, electrified nerves on fire awaken and scream, scream to the trees, to the sky, then it him- jaws open screaming, screaming, screaming. Screaming for Octys, and Quadrys, and Pentys, and his mother, and Mohs, and cursing, and Ripred, and volatile language in an ever-swirling hurricane.

His chest constricts and opens wide, gaping, gasping for breath as his body fights the sin he committed. Desperation floods through the remaining eight fingers as a low beep sweeps across the grass. He never noticed it, not until now, though the silver catches on the light from overhead and shines bright on the ground. Right hand trembling, he stretches for the thing and discards the note without reading it.

From inside the depths, he retrieves a needle, thread, and bandages- all capitol quality. No painkillers, fuck.

A deep ache begins in his calf as pokes around the rest of his body, sure the steady stream of blood from his lag comes from somewhere, some strange delta of veins pumping faster than his fingers are able to stitch. There, on the tender flesh of a muscular calf is a deep cut, though it's clean. Lips in a perpetual frown, he carefully begins the process of stitching the two lips of skin back as one.

Body becoming heavy with adrenaline after the endeavor, he quickly stretches white cotton across the wound, before falling back, gaze locked overhead on the hovering sun. His chest grows tight and breaths come fairly difficult as he stretches across the soft ground, grasping for the paper. A choked laugh resonates through his body, releasing years, decades of tension.

They are still alive. The moment is wholeheartedly overwhelming and pent emotions scatter like a thousand shards from a broken mirror. None of his allies are here to see, no enemies, only the denizens of one, two, three, four, twelve, and the capitol. Fuck 'em.

"I'm still here... I'm STILL HERE!" he screams out, sprawled on the ground, dirty fingers rising to stroke the smooth lettering, huge grin completely splitting his face in two. "I'm HERE!" The tears drip, cascading down a filthy face with too much fresh growth, catapulting onto the wordy letter. Not magnificently beautiful, no, but covered in a familiar script from home, from a place that's still there.

Flying Homexx