Chapter Text
I woke up to a burning, ripping sensation clawing its way down my sides and my back.
On instinct I howled, throwing my body against the wall as best I could. The sound came out shrill and high, and my frantic attempts to move were fruitless and clumsy. 'Where am I?'
All around me nauseating sounds and blurry sights flashed. Something thrummed constantly, beating a second heartbeat into my skull and crashing into my train of thought. Every quake and echo sending alarm bells through my brain. Over the din, I heard yelling and screaming. 'What's happening?'
A door I hadn't registered slammed open. My attention jumped to it, as the frame of a woman bathed in harsh light ran into the room. She towered over me, scooping me easily into her arms. I thrashed and wailed desperately, panicking. Her touch was another layer of unbearable sensation on my skin.
She carried me out the door and stowed me downstairs, opening a wardrobe-sized room and shoving me into it. The woman tucked a piece of paper in the front pocket of my shirt. Her eyes frantic, she kissed me on the forehead. Whispering something unintelligible in my ear, she shut the door and her frame disappeared, backlit by a cloud of harsh red light.
Even though her touches had brought me discomfort, I found myself growing quickly hysterical without her presence. Every synapse in my brain was surely saturated with adrenaline; my fight-or-flight was higher than I had ever felt it. And right now every muscle in my body leaned towards flight. When a trembling earthquake wracked my body, I began to seriously doubt the structural integrity of my closet. I tried to stand up, realizing with dismay that the doorknob was just barely out of reach. 'Why am I so short?'
Another earthquake threw me off balance. I didn't know if the creaking sound was truly coming from the ceiling but I knew it didn't sound good. Another earthquake hit me and I felt debris shower down on my person. Determination and sheer, sure fear drove me. I threw myself upwards, once, twice, five times. The tips of my fingers grasping at the doorknob, I stumbled out of my closet and dove under the nearest solid object. A dining table, turned upside down. 'It looks like a tornado hit this place!'
I stared, slack-jawed and dry-mouthed as the entire portion of the room I had been in crumbled, creaked one last time, and then…collapsed. Debris fell in front of me like rain. I screwed my eyes shut, prayed that the table would hold steady, and waited.
I lay there, shivering, skin and eyes rubbed raw for what felt like hours. Dust and ash coated the inside of my nose. I shuddered, afraid to move. My surroundings had settled audibly, and what little I could see of them remained unmoving.
I lay still, peering out from around the debris suspiciously. When nothing stirred, I blinked dust out of my eyes and shoved my arms under me, heaving myself to a shaky standing position as best I could in the small area. I blinked down at my palms uncertainly. 'Those…aren't my hands,' I realized.
I had expected firm, bronzed fingers and calloused palms. I hadn't expected to see soft and pudgy digits, pale and pink, coated with ash and soot and oh god is that blood? I swallowed, my mouth dry. I opened it. What came out was a shrill, hoarse and weak cry, like that of…. 'A child. No…a baby.'
Out of the dust and debris surrounding me, a pounding sound echoed from behind. I flinched back, frantically turning to face the sound and falling flat on my ass. I let out a cry on impact. The sound paused, then resumed with greater fervor.
Scrambling to my hands and knees, I ignored the stabbing pain whenever I moved and shrank back against the wall. "Who's there?" I attempted to call. What came out was a shrill, garbled babble as my tongue tried and failed to form words.
In response, I received equally garbled yelling from across the rubble. The pile in front of me was now crumbling. Vibrations quaked around me. I coughed as fresh dust hailed from the pile. The sounds grew less and less muffled, until the pile finally collapsed, leaving me covered in debris and face-to-face with someone new.
'Is that what I look like?' I thought, horrified. The boy looked like a corpse, or like a monster from a fairy tale. Most of his face was obscured by caked-on dust and mud. I could only observe - gleaming through a mop of crusty hair - two gleaming, alert eyes….
'No.'
…twisted kaleidoscopes of red, shattered glass….
"*nononononoNONO-*"
I threw myself away from the boy, sending my skull smashing into the wall behind me.
The last thing I saw before unconsciousness consumed me were his eyes, black spots swirling around gleaming red light. I felt myself falling, my consciousness shattered, and it all went black.