Chapter Text
Quirina stared up at the mirror.
It was much larger than them to the point they looked small in its frame. They were washing their hands. The small plastic bottle of pee sat on the sink next to the tap, against the wall.
The hospital was dark, with a cold, dark blue tint. Not a single overhead light was on. Every window was covered shut with white blinds; The only light was what made it from the overwhelming glow outside. In this bathroom was only a small, thick glass window that blurred everything between it unrecognizably. When Quirina woke up on the hospital bed, their blood spiked cold with thought that they failed... but it was apparently only this building.
They noticed that their native bright orange tentacles had adopted a slight lime tint. Their sea blue eyes were the same. Their pale skin, their all their brown spots—all in the same place. They were Quirina. That was good. That name felt harder to refer to themselves as. They pushed that feeling down.
They tried to remember again. It pushed back. Like a strong current of water. Phlegm you can try so hard to cough out ‘til the manatees come home, get to the tip of it, but you could never scrape, no matter how hard it drove you insane. Their head hurt trying to, it felt like it was being crushed. They had to stop. Trying to remember the gap only left them feeling worse. Their temperature was already high.
...Quirina broke into a cough over the edge of the bathroom sink. It was nasty and coarse. It hurt, like a circular saw blade cutting up the inside of their throat. There was a giant saw blade they were always scared would fall on them in—don'tthinkaboutthat. Their vision blurred. They would've collapsed onto the cold floor if they hadn't hung on.
Actively refocusing their eyes. The sink was covered erratically in saliva and blood, intertwined inseparably. Some of it flowed down the sink, out of their sight, to get filtered out of the water supply, like it never even existed.
For a split second, they thought their left hand was covered even more in it. They never saw things that weren't there before. It scared them—a fleeting kind of scared, like a nightmare that fades away as quickly as it comes. The tip of their thumb, wrapped in a band-aid, bled red again. Their mouth was dry. Everything was awful.
“Kiddo, ‘everything alright...?” asked Captain Cuttlefish on the other side of the door.
In the mix they saw two bits of yellowish white...? Something really hard. One had nearly fallen down the seemingly bottomless pipe. They were confused, until they realized they were parts of their beak, chipped off. Inspecting it to their stained mouth, they indeed found an open cave in their lower beak, far from the front.
They didn't know what to do with them. Quirina washed them off, they guessed.
They grabbed the bottle with a firm grip. “I have it,” they answered back through a pained voice. They didn't notice their eyes became watery.
“Stretch out your arm like this, please.”
Quirina hesitated. They looked at Captain Cuttlefish. “It's okay, Three, go ‘head,” he reassured them.
Okay. Quirina sighed. They laid out their forearm along the edge of the table, their palm side up. Their mind ran through all the excuses
Their scars were too visible. They hated this.
The woman didn't say anything about it.
The room they were in was tidily littered with the expected lab equipment. Vials, holders to put them in. There was one device constantly moving a vial on its own, to keep ink rushing from one end of it to the other, and back again. Quirina thought that was interesting.
“Now clench your fist like this.”
Quirina mimicked her motion.
“Are you scared of needles?”
Quirina nodded meekly.
“It'll be quick.”
That's not reassuring at all... Quirina closed their eyes and anticipated it.
It hurt much more than they were expecting, and it wasn't quick. The doctor pushed the syringe in until they nearly damn screamed. The removal was only slightly less painful.
“...You can let go now.” she taped a band-aid onto where she took the blood. She pushed their arm up so that their hand touched the tip of their shoulder, “Now hold your arm up pressed like this for ten minutes.”
Thanks...
For a hospital, it was strangely devoid of any people, veering on uneasily. Yet it was perfectly maintained. There were only the medical officials Cuttlefish and they visited, but Quirina thought they could hear footsteps on the other floors.
Coming out of a room was a woman—an Inkfish—in a lab coat. She was walking at an elevated pace. Her turquoise tentacles were tied in the back, facing their view. Quirina thought they were graying, and they had no glow to them.
She—wait. Quirina tilted forward to see... but she disappeared from view as soon as she turned a corner.
“Is somethin’ wrong, kiddo?””
“T-the... um, nothing. Nevermind. Hey, I basically feel fine, so, um, can we just leave... please...?”
“No, Three, we can't... C’mon.”
“Listen, Cuttlefish. Your agent is fine. As far as I can tell, they're only under the weather from physical exhaustion and overexertion, plus probably stress, because you’ve been sending them through the ringer for a week straight. They took on Takowasa’s Octobot King on their own, for ‘light's sake. My official recommendation is a full meal, a warm shower, and a normal night's rest. Let them recover.”
“So they’res completely fine? Ain't no long-term complications? The memory loss or other...?“
The doctor stared at Captain Cuttlefish unamused. “‘They’ are one person, I don't even understand... But send any kid barely old enough to swim into a suicide mission their first time on the job and ‘a little sick’ is one of the best outcomes you could've gotten.”
“...‘Suicide mission’?” Captain Cuttlefish stood up with his cane, “Don't call my operations ‘suicide missions’. I take care of my agents, and I make ‘em take care of each other. What are you insinuating?”
“The others were running around like sea slugs with their heads cut off waiting for the Fengwienese to save them. It was a sad sight. You've been the farthest-left surviving National Republican that hasn't turned out to be an ultra retard since the end of the first War. You've scraped the water many times, you saved your skin when you won your way with Aorika. But I can't deny you get results... whatever they are. And that's frankly what I care about. Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm just a doctor.”
“Look, um, I’m fine, really. Can I go now, please...?”
“No. You are sick.” The doctor opened and rummaged through one of his cabinets, “...I'm going to prescribe you a simple drug. This is ibuprofen. It's what you took before. Swallow one tablet with water wherever you begin to feel worse. Do you understand?” he handed the box to them.
“Y-yes,” Quirina answered.
“Good. We're done here. Go.”
As Quirina stood up to leave, they looked to Captain Cuttlefish.”
“You can go ‘head, Three, I'll catch up... Some fresh air’s probably good for ya, anyway.”
They nodded and left the room.
Cuttlefish turned around and planted his hands on the doctor's desk, leaning in:
“I said to give controlled self-rule to those feral coons that can't even bang rocks together, they were easily controlled—and I was right. You can see it everywhere now: Give them what they want, on your terms.”