Work Text:
"When Not in Motion"
Written by:
Sara Hervey (aka: IzzyMarrie, or 'The Major' )
NOT to be used without MY permission
Disclaimers: .Flow and Sabisuki belong to lolrust
R&R. Enjoy!
There was once a place where pollution fell from the sky like snow, casting an aura of ashen wonder upon those who became infected by the deadly disease it carried. Almost no one would learn of the hush hushed controversy behind the industrial mishap, the wake of the madness and several murders kept surprisingly well under control. However, rust, as the disease has been called, is a tragedy likened to that of some of the worst flesh eating viruses, and it's impossible to keep entirely quiet.
Sabisuki, the first patient born with the deadly strain responsible for the quarantined city, and the first to receive an equally frightening "cure", is now the only patient known to have carried the virus 17 years. But now, she's dying. Several have thought to ponder the idea that the disease is divine punishment. Drown in the wake of your madness and blood, and in the next life, you may be lucky as to have appeased the wrathful Gods you have angered in your past lives . . . They were mostly children. Others would ask, what kind of God would allow such suffering?
****
(
Connect to disconnect . . .
)
(
Connect to disconnect . . .
)
The static smothers me in shallow waves of memories.
(Connect to disconnect . . .)
I long ago taught myself how to reach here.
Connecting to a world of dreams that leaves no real context,
blur the lines of everything.
(CONNECT to disconnect . . .)
I PULL the plug from this LIFE,
because life without context . . .
might as WELL be as shallow as the
absurdity here before me.
(CONNECT TO
DISCONNECT!)
ALONE.
HERE, I am constant,
flowing.
But I am so . . .
so alone.
In the end, it's alright though!
(RECONNECT TO COLLECT . . .)
Dying in the womb, create a path to the outside and SPLATTER your entrails along the fleshy walls of Mother's cold skin.
She won't love you. A flesh eating disease gnaws its way through her heart.
It's IN you, and it IS you.
Rewrite, and forget.
****
It was the day her baby girl thought she was being offered to the slaughtering block. Neither were the image of perfection, and through clouded eyes, the woman could see the stares of the others quarantined here. Everyone knew about the shady activities, the on-goings of the infamous "sugar girls" and the hotel run by Yakuza scum outside the city's now sanctioned off border, along with its help of damning several of the people here. Everyone knew that the little girl this woman was here for was part of the reason they were stuck here to begin with.
The young woman tried to remain calm, but flinched at every crazy uttering of her adopted daughter. "Monster, cleaner, I don't love you!" Sabisuki is just mad. Amputation is a scary thing, no matter who you are, or what age. 17 years . . born with this disease, and yet the oldest survivor born with this strain. If it's anyone that's going to beat this, it's her baby doll.
****
(DISCONNECT TO CONNECT)
GARGLEDSPEECH,
JUMBLED ABSTRACT HALLS,
it's all nonsense,
a n d i t ' s b e a u t i f u l . . .
Is it nothing to you?
I was nothing to you, or you, or you, or YOU!
And you, and you, and you, and you are nothing to me.
(Collect to reconnect)
Here, I am something.
****
Unknown, dermatological, similar in some ways to Kaposi's Sarcoma . . frail skin, fragile bones, red eyes sensitive to the light, Sabisuki's mind and body were rusting just like her mother's bitter namesake foretold. There is a lot to be blamed on the medical team originally assigned to identify and treat the disease back when the out break first started. A terrifying mystery, a mutation that yielded even greater questions . .
Sabisuki was the first to be born with this mutation, enticing the curiosity of the head doctor assigned to this case and the nurse he was having an affair with at the time. Experimenting and mutating the disease further, masking the cruel research several children were forced to endure . . yes, the poking and prodings, the originators of this mutated strain were children, and so they received the brunt of his attention. Fascinating, medical curiosities, practically slabs of meat for cruel men and women who were supposed to be helping!
****
The doctor returns.
They are dead.
What have I done?
Interesting, so interesting.
Prod, poke . .
poke poke.
It hurts . . . Let's escape to the ocean!
Uh, no,
they need to be planted!But she's here to love me? I'm safe here . .
Am I dead? I think I'm dead.
Will it be cold? Will I feed the flowers?
****
The cafe maid remembers it all too well. That cold night . . her work place was hardly a block away. She met Sabisuki before, along with several other children from the hospital. She would serve them cake, give cold stares to the men sitting at the bar while the children would spin in the stools she knew they shouldn't be in, but didn't have the heart to shoo them from. She came just in time. The lights were bright, the scene, surreal. A shivering girl . . a doctor and his nurse, not a word was said . . and instantly, she dropped to her knees, motioning for Sabisuki to come. Pity and love outweighed common sense not to touch . . The little girl was covered in the other children's blood.
****
Life flooowed from me.
no no, too dark . . keep walking . .
I WATCHED it all pass by!
Doesn't belong . . it's bad . .
Where has the TiMe gone?
Psst, psst, psst . .
Why am I still here?
i'm scared.
****
The truth is that she could never bare children of her own, and although her life was full of mistakes, the one thing she wanted more than anything was this little girl, whose brain is dying with the rest of her. She can't let her go. It was a miracle that the infected blood didn't enter her blood stream. At the time, the infected were not kept from the general public since it was deemed cruel, the idea that an "aid's-like virus" could be grounds to quarantine the infected out-weighed the evidence stacking up that the virus was causing violent tendencies. Then again, the public hardly had a chance to fumble through that last part . .
****
NnNONONnNONNONOOO!!
I awake, in my chair, blood splattered on my keyboard. I wipe my mouth, and nose, coughing again, staring at the flickering screen. Where is she? I wonder, eyes hazing over as the room starts to spin. I'm so sleepy. . .
Without provocation, or the spinning of my chair,
the nexus is dark,
changing . . again,
it's changing . .
again . .
The disease
is thick, slimy.
The grinding . .
It hurts,
I see.
But wait!
How'd I get here!?
****
The school massacre, the chase when her baby girl was on the run, cold, scared, not knowing what was going wrong with her brain . . the horrific moment she realized that Sabisuki tried to find her father, was led to the alley and raped, roped into prostitution about the same age she was . . and she found out about her. Sabisuki didn't know how to react, said she was just going to the brothel to save her friend. Indeed, there was a neighbor at one time, someone her little girl would have tea with and . . and she was killed. Yes. She was a prostitute too, working at the same cafe she did.
****
HEY!
I saw, that you saw, and KNOW that you saw, because in thismind, SMILE IS WATCHING!
"WHERE ARE YOU!?" yells a voice from out the door . .
No. The world.
I pinch my cheek, but don't wake up!
"HEY! OPEN UP!"
"When not in motion . . do we CEASE to exist?!"
****
The young woman cried the moment she was out of everyone's sight, hiding herself in the bathroom. For a moment, she looked in the mirror, gazing at how her hair, once neatly braided, was a mess, and her makeup was making trails down her cheeks. Trembling, she ran her hand down the mirror and looked down at the sink. She can't let go. The amputation only prolongs things. No. It'll help her. So in the end, the words "Monster" echoed in her head at the same time she fondly remembered the first time her Sabisuki said "I love you mommy!"
"I love you Sabi . ."
****
(Connect to disconnect . . .)
(Connect to disconnect . . .)
"LOOK AT ME!"
(RECOLLECT, NO, DON'T CONNECT!)
"YOU WEREN'T GOING TO WAIT FOR ME!?"
NOT real, I realize it's not real, but then . . they never speak here. I won't allow it . .
"SABI!"
"NO! Get BACK! Y-you died . . ."
"Strange girl . . I said I'd see you again . ."
****
There was a boy, Travis, he was her sweet little girl's first love. They were inseparable, but she always went to his house, despite her protests. She was too busy though, and Sabisuki went off on her own, much more than she would have liked. There was a time though, it seemed the nurse that was working with that doctor was close to a cure. The nature of the disease wasn't fully understood yet, and no one was quarantined at this point because there was no need once treatments were being given.
Remedies from a plant, miracles blooming and it didn't hurt as much for Sabisuki to move around. Natural remedies, Sabi called them. All she cared about was that Sabisuki could start a new life, go to a real school for the first time. Maybe she'd do something more with her life, and not constantly stay glued to her t.v. screen watching Studio Ghibli movies and playing silly games. Or . . the silly games could be played with others. Just don't spit at others, or get your blood on them. That had to be understood.
To her surprise, her baby doll had a lot of the girls, and even a boy, that she met in the hospital in some of the same classes as her. Gabriel, Carry, Jamie, and Rachael . . . Unfortunately, they weren't so kind to Sabi. She never found out the reason. In fact, her lovely little flower was wilting in front of her eyes, that is, until an older boy that her blossom had her eye out for had invited her to his table.
****
"Sabi . . . rust . . . take-take me, but I came. I came for you."
"My t-throat . . "
"Shhh . . no need, we don't need-"
"Air . . ."
"Oh. I'm . . . I'm so sorry! I'm sorry!"
"You're not real. You should know that."
"You told me to wait. I thought I killed you . ."
"S-sstay . . please . . "
****
It could have been Sabisuki's social awkwardness or fear of crowds, but it seemed like she would only come to Travis if he were alone, or he would insist she join him and his friends and she'd run right over. Sabisuki once told her adopted mother that he saw her draw one day, and he liked it and they started talking. Sabisuki said that he played guitar, and one day she opened her locker to find a cd he made just for her.
Around the same time, however, there was another boy . . one infected with the same strain of the same disease as Sabisuki. Gabe, as she called him for short, became obsessed. It was him that started spreading rumors about Sabi, and he had followed her outside school on several occasions, but of course her busy mother wouldn't find out until much later after the tragedy.
She should've connected the dots. There was something wrong with that boy . . . far worse than her baby doll. The time Sabisuki confronted him in the cafe, the disillusioned youth stunned her with his heartless words.
****
"Since when . . am I not human anymore?"
"The moment you smiled. The moment you watched me."
****
But still, those were times that there was hope, and then . . a first kiss, saliva mixing, infecting the boy she obsessed over . . The world must have been spinning for her baby, around the same time both Sabisuki and Travis started changing to match the other white haired children from the hospital . . Irrational, causing trouble, until finally . . all the bullying from the sick and Travis's own beloved sister . . they were orphans just like Sabi, and he refused to believe that his sister was anything but innocent. It broke Sabi.
A worried mother cleaning a room . . just a peek, she opens her girl's diary . . It was too late.
****
"You're leaking."
"Oh Sabi . . . I leak a lot . .
if you'd just leave your room . .
if I just left my room . .
earlier, we would have seen . ."
He's not flickering, he's not fading, and I'm not waking. I can't help but think that hell isn't the guillotine or fire eating my skin, it's this. Can't I have one thing? Not to have killed him and everybody else? Not to have spread my legs? Not to have met Gabriel?
"He wasn't at school."
"What?"
"I SAID HE WASN'T THERE!"
****
The two had murdered several of their classmates. Sabisuki went missing, but Travis was thrown into custody after trying to throw himself off the roof, later discovered to have been infected with the same disease as her.
Sabi was running around, scared. She found herself in her old hospital friend, Oreko's, home town where she killed several others that cared for her when she was younger, back before Oreko had hung herself. That is where she got caught, and it wasn't long after the quarantine was issued that a country-wide cover-up was in motion.
****
"I'll kill him . ."
"NO! He . . killed himself . ."
The distrust in your eyes, I know that you haven't been taking the new "cure" they've been feeding us. Not that I blame you. The blood dripping down your face, the open sores and trembling lips . . you're like me. I never told you, love. The first cure . . it was what made it so I could meet you. It was what made us snap, though . . I infected you with my poison, because I didn't want to think this "miracle" cure would allow me to spread my disease to someone when it's supposed to have been curing me.
"We're dying . ."
"I'm keeping you here, with me . ."
"Will they open me up, like a flower? Will I bloom?"
"Sabi . . you've already bloomed, and you're beautiful . .
Smile for me. Close your eyes for me . ."
****
There's a lot she wants to say, a lot this broken, desperate mother would do just to take away her beloved child's pain. Except . . let her die. Is it more humane? Is she being selfish?
The woman unlocks her door, just to feel a chill run up her spine. Something's wrong.
She runs to Sabi's room, bursting through the door. There, she sees the boy she thought was long dead from the progression of the disease holding the body of her girl . .
"I promised her I'd say 'I love you'. Did we do right? One step closer to a cure?"
She screams, sliding to the ground. Travis is crying, just like her, and he kisses the head of the dandelion under him.
"I'm.. sorry." And without warning, he throws the hammer he used to smash in her head, and he pulls out a kitchen knife and slams it into his heart.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. THIS wasn't supposed to happen! Next life. Next time. She wants more than anything . . to meet her baby girl again.
There was once a place where pollution fell from the sky like snow, casting an aura of ashen wonder upon those who became infected by the deadly disease it carried.
This place might as well be hell.