Chapter Text
Aurelia's world was flashing lights and movement, accompanied by a loud wailing sound that was far away and too loud all at once. Two large blurs moved around in the small, enclosed space, incomprehensible noises following them as they shifted this way and that.
As she tried lifting a hand to rub her eyes in an attempt to clear up her vision in hopes to figure out where she was or what was going on, she found her body felt stiff, as if it'd been tensed up during her sleep like she'd been having a nightmare. Trying to look around didn't yield any better results as she felt something stopping her from turning her head. Figuring she'd fallen asleep in her mother's arms or something she tried lifting herself up and immediately her body lit up, her lower back feeling like it was being filled with molten metal.
A scream sounded out and it took a few seconds to realize that it'd come from her, her senses returning suddenly as if the pain had flipped a switch. Her vision cleared and swam and blurred over and over as the heat in her back spread throughout the rest of her body, pain flooding through her she saw one of the blurs – paramedics, she realized, spotting their uniforms during a moment of clear vision – lean over her, she saw their mouth moving but was unable to understand what they were saying. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to focus on any of the words through the pain and confusion.
"It hurts," she managed. "It hurts. Make it stop." She opened her eyes, tears running down her face tasting like copper and salt. "It hurts so much. Please. Make it go away." She begged them to do something to help her. Her head and collarbone pounded in time with her racing heartbeat. She tried to move, as if she could pull away from whatever was hurting her, but it only made the pain in her back worse.
After what felt like an eternity, she felt something cold in her left arm and she jerked away on instinct causing more pain to explode through her back as she screamed again.
"No! What is that! Don’t touch me–" The words came out shredded, half sob, half gasp. She tried to twist away this time, wild and blind, but found it much more difficult than usual as she felt straps bite into her chest. "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts–"
A hand clamped around her forearm. Another pressed her shoulder down.
"Stop–stop, get off–" she cried, choking on the words. Tears blurred everything into color and light and movement. "Please, please, please–"
A voice was talking right next to her ear. She couldn’t make out all of it. Just pieces.
"Okay–"
"The pain–"
"Stay still–"
The cold in her arm sharpened, a thin sting drawing a cold line up her arm followed by a dull warmth.
She gasped and tried to pull away but the straps and hand on her shoulder kept her firmly in place. The siren was inside her skull and her heart hammered so hard it felt like it was trying to punch out of her chest. Her head pulsed in time with it as her right arm throbbed. Her back burned and stabbed and tore every time she moved, and she could not stop moving.
"It hurts!" she screamed. "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop–"
The pain eased suddenly, the panic breaking as the edge of it dulled for a second and in that gap she felt everything else: the straps pinning her down, a slick wetness on her ears and hair, the awful shaking in her chest, the way she couldn’t get a full breath without feeling like something in her back was splitting open.
She sucked in air, hitched, sobbed, tried to speak, failed, tried again.
"Please–Please–Please–" She didn't know what she was begging for anymore.
A fresh chill pushed into her arm and panic came roaring back so fast she almost gagged.
"No!" she shouted, voice cracking. Her right hand grabbed aimlessly for her left arm, and she cried out when pain lit up her collarbone. "No, no, no–don’t–don’t put anything else in me–"
A gloved hand caught her wrist before she could tear at the line. Someone said her name and told her to look at them.
She couldn’t.
The ceiling smeared when she blinked. The white lights stretched into bright streaks. The voice by her ear kept coming, steady and low, but now it sounded wrong–too slow, like it was dragging through water.
Her fingers twitched toward the straps and missed. Her hand dropped.
She tried to lift her head and couldn’t. The motion made the world tilt sickeningly sideways. For a second she thought she was falling off the gurney. She cried out and tried to move again, weaker this time, all the fight leaking out of her limbs before she was ready to lose it.
"Wait, wait, wait," she slurred. "Don’t– I–"
The pressure of the hands on her shoulder and arm turned distant. The pain was still there–head, arm, back, all of it–but it was muffled now, wrapped in something thick and heavy. Her body felt too far away. Her thoughts wouldn’t stay in order long enough to hold on to.
She blinked hard, trying to force the lights back into focus.
They doubled. Then drifted.
She heard herself speak but didn't know what the words were.
A hand squeezed her shoulder. A voice answered, close and certain.
The darkness rushed in before she could fight it again.
–--
"Aurelia, turn the TV off, it's time for bed."
Aurelia peeked out around the back of a cream colored sofa, the long ears atop her head flopping slightly as she pouted.
"Mom! The Satsuki Sho is about to start!" she exclaimed, looking up as her mother walked towards her, blonde hair falling just above her shoulders, still in her blouse and slacks from work. "I'll go to bed after! I promise!"
"Fine you can watch the race," her mom sighed in fake exasperation, fixing Aurelia with a half-hearted glare, her green eyes sparkling with amusement, before pointing a finger at her as she sat down. "but you're going to bed right after you hear?"
Aurelia grinned and nodded enthusiastically, scooting over and squirming under her mother's arm she focused back on the screen in time to watch as the runners began to enter the starting gates.
"So," her older sister Alice entered the room in a loose t-shirt and shorts, coming up behind her on the couch. "Which one is that 'Agnes Tacky-whatever' girl you're so obsessed with." She teased, ruffling her hair.
"Agnes Tachyon." Aurelia corrected. "She's the brown haired one with the lab coat." She swatted Alice’s hands away and pointed at the girl on the screen just before she walked into her gate. "And I'm not obsessed with her!" she crossed her arms and turned to look up at Alice.
"Of course," Alice laughed, tossing a grin at her as she sat down. "You've only been talking about her non-stop for the past three months."
Aurelia blushed and looked away, her tail curling around her stomach. "Because she's cool! She's only been in three races but she's undefeated! She even set a record at the Radio Tampa Hai last year!"
That was the first race she'd watched of Agnes Tachyon. Bored late at night she'd turned the television on and ended up on an international Umamusume racing channel. The first half of the race was uneventful, everyone settling into their paces, a few attempted pushes for position. She was reaching for the remote when something made her hand stop. A girl in a lab coat – A lab coat? On a racetrack? Seriously? What kind of outfit was that? – had just appeared out of nowhere on the outside of the fourth corner.
She stared at the screen, watching her extend further and further and further away from the rest, completely absorbed by the display of speed and power being put on. She found herself standing, her hands clenched in front of her chest, and her legs shifting in their own desire to run, begging her to move. Her jaw hung open as she watched her cross the finish line, eyes shooting to the results board as it flashed onto the screen, seeing the name and looking at the time.
Agnes Tachyon | 2 ½ | 2:00.8 R
The announcer was shouting something then, but she didn't have to understand the language to know what they were saying.
She'd just broken the previous track record.
A starstruck Aurelia would later find out after searching for the Umamusume's name, that the record had been broken by nearly two seconds, and that she was only in her junior year.
Safe to say Aurelia had instantly become a fan.
Shaking herself from the memory she focused back on the screen just in time to see the starting gates open and an Umamusume on the inside gate stumble on her exit, though she recovered quickly, found her place near the back.
The pack quickly settled and Aurelia grinned as she spotted Agnes Tachyon in fifth place coming out of the second turn, the glaring white lab coat standing out as the oversized sleeves flopped everywhere as she swung her arms.
Watching the runners cross the 1000 meter mark, her eyes flicked to the board to check the timings and winced slightly, they'd crossed the 1000 meter mark at just under a minute, which meant the pace was a bit fast for being this early. The front runners would probably run out of steam, or at least slow down, around about the fourth corner? Maybe a little bit after. If they didn't build up a lead then they'd be in trouble.
"So why doesn't she just go for first place from the start?" her mom asked.
Aurelia rolled her eyes, her mom wasn't interested in Umamusume racing at all, so she didn't really understand how it worked, but still, wasn't it obvious?
"Because she doesn't want to wear herself out," she started. "If she goes to the front at the start then she has to worry about everyone else trying to pass her later, and she might be too tired from trying to stay in front the entire race. So instead, she settles towards the front but following behind the girls that are setting the pace, the Front Runners, and letting them lead the race instead, saving her energy so she can pass them later on when they're tired, She's a Pace Chaser. The girls at the back are Late Surgers and End Closers, they wait even longer to save more energy."
A burst of sudden caught her eyes and she leaned forwards "What!? Now!?" Just before entering the third corner, she saw Agnes Tachyon begin moving forwards. "Isn't it too early?"
Further back more runners started moving up, spurred on by the actions of the girl ahead, by the time the fourth corner came around the pack was closing in, and then there was hardly any space between them. The pack had fully congealed now, a clump of shapes and colors the only thing visible throughout the entirety of the fourth corner. Aurelia was standing once again as she spotted a small blob of white, pink, and yellow break off from the rest.
Agnes Tachyon rounded the outside and dashed forward for the final 300 meters, followed by two more Umamusume behind.
"Yes!" Aurelia cried out as Agnes Tachyon took the lead, legs twitching and tail swishing back and forth in excitement. "Go!"
Agnes Tachyon burst forward once again, pushing off in a final burst of speed extending her lead. Aurelia stared at the girl on screen, a wide grin on her face and her entire body vibrating with excitement as she watched each of Agnes Tachyon's steps carry her further away from the runners chasing after her. That's what it was in Aurelia's eyes, a chase, there was no other word to describe what happened every time Agnes Tachyon stepped foot on the track. In Aurelia's eyes, nobody could ever even dream to stand on the same level as her.
"Come on!" she yelled at the screen, as if, if she was loud enough, her voice would carry through it to the girl's ears, so she could hear Aurelia cheering for her from across an ocean and half the world away.
As the final 200 meters came up, the world seemed to stop for a second, and in that moment, Aurelia saw something change in the girl on the screen, it seemed almost as if her entire body flashed a brilliant gold before returning back to normal, except not normal. In the time after that single moment, Agnes Tachyon seemed to radiate a rainbow of color, and Aurelia's entire being sung. All of her thoughts coalescing into a single word.
"Faster," she breathed, almost inaudible, and Agnes Tachyon kept running.
"Faster," she spoke again, louder this time, her body shaking with an unknown feeling.
"Faster!" she shouted, her legs tensing and twitching in time with the steps of the girl on screen.
"FASTER!" she yelled with all her might, and Agnes Tachyon crossed the finish line, completely untouchable.
---
The first thing Aurelia was made aware of was the steady beeping of a machine, the sound an even and recurring noise that broke through the haze of unconsciousness. Her eyes fluttering open at the sound of voices nearby, her body once again felt stiff and sore, and she couldn't focus on anything long enough to make sense of where she was other than bright lights and white walls. She tried to speak and barely managed a croak, the dryness in her throat cracking as she tried to call out to someone.
"Aurelia!" she heard a voice call and tried to turn towards it, her vision swimming as a large blur of gold and caramel appeared in front of her. "Can you hear me? Try not to move, okay?"
The voice was slightly frantic and she blinked in attempts to clear the fog in her brain, the image gradually cleared up and she took in the space around her. She was lying reclined in a bed, she noticed the sheets pulled up to her waist and tucked in at her sides, but something felt off about them. The room around her was quite large, with white walls and large windows, the room itself filled with machines, wood grain cabinets, and a few chairs. There were two other people inside, and she blinked again, focusing on them.
One of them was a doctor, or a nurse, the uniform bright against dark skin. Frizzy brown hair gathered high. A clipboard. When she stepped closer, Aurelia caught the honey-brown of her eyes. Soft. Almost apologetic.
The other was Alice. She stood by the bed with her hands hovering, not quite touching Aurelia. Her hair – blonde like her own, usually straight and smooth – was a mess, like she’d been raking her fingers through it. A lack of sleep visible in the dark circles under her green eyes, normally bright and shining, now dull and bloodshot, and when she blinked too long or stared too hard, her left eye drifted outward, then snapped back into focus. Her clothes were wrinkled, her black shirt and sweatpants bunching up and twisted here and there.
"Wh–" she tried again, but the scratchiness in her throat stopped her, she tried clearing her throat before attempting to speak again. "Wa-er," she managed, even the saliva in her mouth wasn't enough to allow her to speak.
There was a shuffle of movement as Alice grabbed a cup from a water cooler that was beside the bed she hadn't noticed before, filling it before moving it to her lips.
Aurelia filled her mouth and swallowed, the cool water soothing her throat, she took another gulp before the cup was moved away, Alice returning to her previous spot to the left of the bed, resting her hand on Aurelia's arm drew her attention to it, she spotted multiple small bandages lining her forearm, along with an IV connected at her elbow. She frowned and looked at herself again, now noticing her right arm was in a sling, she tried moving the arm but quickly gave up on that idea, hissing sharply as her collarbone flared in protest.
"What–" she started, looking up at her sister before shifting her gaze to the doctor instead. "What happened? Where am I?" she asked, eyes glancing back and forth between the two adults in the room. Alice's grip on her arm tightened slightly as the doctor cleared her throat.
"We’re in Northwestern Memorial Hospital. You've been out for several days."
"I– How long?"
"A week. What's the last thing you remember?"
"I–I was…" she trailed off, trying to remember anything she could. "I was in the car? With mom and dad?" she asked, looking at Alice, who nodded at her.
"Do you remember where you were going? Or what you were doing?" the doctor asked, stepping closer to Aurelia on the right side of the bed.
"Um… We–We were going–no, we were coming back from dinner." She remembered they had gone out to eat since school had ended on Friday. "Alice couldn't come with us since she got called in to work. Then… an ambulance? I–wait–where's mom and dad?" Aurelia asked, looking at her sister.
Alice had tears in her eyes now and shifted to grip her hand tight as she choked back a sob.
"Aurelia," she started, her voice catching for a second before continuing. "There was an accident. Mom and dad–" she sobbed and tried to continue before she gave up and leaned over, resting her head onto Aurelia's lap, unable to hold herself together any longer, and Aurelia's ears filled with a sharp ringing as her blood felt like ice in her veins.
"You were in a car accident–" the doctor began, Aurelia’s gaze shifted to her, she could see her mouth still moving but was only able to catch bits and pieces. "–able to get you out–" she looked down again, seeing Alice's head and shoulders pressing against her leg as her body shook. "–unfortunately–didn't make it."
"I–I–" she could hardly breathe as she tried to get the words out. "My–I can't–Why–" she was sure she was hyperventilating by this point, her throat felt tight and the ringing in her ears kept getting louder and louder, Alice's body shaking harder and harder.
"–broken collarbone–along with–most extensive–"
Aurelia's mind flashed back to watching the Satsuki Sho in the living room with her mother and sister, her legs twitching and shaking, struggling to hold her up as she stood breathless in front of the screen, staring at the brown-haired girl as confetti rained around her.
"That's–" she started, then stopped, raising a hand to point before saying: "That's going to be me." She couldn't look away from the screen, couldn't stop shaking. "I'm going to be just like her. Better, even."
"I can't–" she finally managed past the lump in her throat, her heart racing and causing the machine to beep faster as the realization sunk in.
"Aurelia I need you to–"
"I can't feel my legs!" she screamed, head whipping up to look at the doctor as she cried, tears rolling down her face, chest heaving as she tried desperately to pull in air sending a stab of pain through her collarbone. "Why can't I feel my legs!"
"Your spine was injured in the accident–"
"You can fix it right?" she begged, her hand still clasped in Alice's squeezed so hard she was sure she was hurting her sister. She leaned her upper body forwards causing her lower back to protest slightly but she ignored it. "Fix it! Please! Please, you have to fix it! You have to! Please!"
"I'm sorry," the doctor said, shaking her head. "The damage to your nerves is very severe, and as of right now we think it's very unlikely that any sort of recovery is possible."
And just like that, Aurelia's world came crashing down around her.
---
Alice had fallen asleep hours ago, her head resting on the bed, but Aurelia couldn't seem to manage it even long after the sun had set. The room was lit by the dim glow of the screens on the machines around her, muffled chatter from the staff could be heard from outside the door. She'd been staring at the far wall for a while now, the doctor had done a few tests and spoken to them for a while, answering a few questions before leaving.
Aurelia and her parents had been T-boned on their way back from dinner, the initial impact had sent their car into the opposing lane causing it to impact head-on with another vehicle. There had been six people involved in the accident, two teenagers in the car that'd hit Aurelia and her parents, and a single adult in the car they'd hit head-on.
Aurelia was the only one who'd survived.
She'd suffered a few cuts to her head and arms from broken glass. Her right ear had been mangled enough that they’d had to take about an inch and a half off the tip before stitching it into a flat line because the tissue was too damaged to heal. Her collarbone had been broken too–something about the way the impact yanked her shoulder, she wasn’t sure. The worst injury by far, though, was her back. The doctor said the first hit hadn’t actually done much damage, but the way she'd been thrown sideways and then forward after the second impact had been enough to break the bones in her back. Which had been the pain she'd felt during the ambulance ride to the hospital.
Aurelia sighed and closed her eyes, willing herself to not cry again, her eyes still swollen from the last time and she didn't want to move her right arm much, if at all. Opening her eyes she slowly lowered her gaze, vision resting on her legs, still hidden by the blanket. Apparently there hadn't been much damage to them, just a large bruise on her right thigh from the first impact. She could see the outline of them resting under the blanket, could see the dip where it fell between her legs, the way it lifted towards the end of the bed where her feet were resting. She raised her left hand and brought it down to her left thigh, resting it there for a few seconds before pressing down on it.
She could see her hand on her leg.
But she couldn't feel it.
Her breath hitched and she brought her hand up and covered her mouth before she could make much noise. Tears pricked her eyes and she fought to keep her breathing steady for a few minutes before removing her hand. Her throat felt a little tight, but she was mostly okay.
She rested her head against the pillow behind her, thoughts floating around in her mind but unwilling to stay for long. A thought suddenly popping into her head caused her to look around, frantically searching for something that she could use to test her theory. She spotted a small TV in one of the upper corners of the room, then quickly found a small remote sitting on a small table on the right side of the bed. Reaching across her body with her left arm sent a small throb through both her back and collarbone as she twisted slightly but she was able to grab the remote without further problems and carefully settled back into the bed. She clicked the power button before wincing slightly at the volume, scrambling to mute the TV. She glanced at Alice and let out a sigh of relief after seeing she was still asleep.
She must have been more tired than Aurelia had thought.
Turning back to the remote she spotted the button she was looking for and pressed it, seeing a flood of videos pop up she ignored them all and instead navigated to the search bar, quickly inputting what she wanted to see she pressed enter and clicked on the first result.
"Come on," she whispered, clenching the remote in her hand. "Hurry up and load."
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as the video finally loaded, quickly skipping about a minute into the race. She spotted the white lab coat moving up as they entered the third corner and waited as she felt her body respond.
Her hands shook, the movement quickly traveling up her arms and into her chest as they exited the fourth corner, the pressure in her chest swelling as the brown-haired girl stepped onto the final stretch. She felt the tension burst as she once again saw the girl flash gold, the desire to run flooding through her body as she watched the head of brown hair and glaring lab coat dissolve into a rainbow of color. The beeping from the machine at her bedside slowly picking up speed.
As she watched Agnes Tachyon cross the finish line, the feeling coursing through Aurelia’s body intensified and sharpened. She was tense and slightly out of breath despite having not moved at all. As she looked down at her legs she burst into choked sobs, the pain in her collarbone pulsing with each sob.
She devolved into giggles, occasionally broken by a sob as she stared down at the blanket covering her legs, watching as it shifted occasionally.
She couldn't feel it, but she could see it.
Her legs were twitching.