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It was time to replace the bandages again.
Not because they were soaked in blood, but sweat and grime simply built up on them.
BUT EVERY TIME I LOOKED, I WOULD SEE BLOOD.
Granted, he was supposed to do this four days ago. FIVE DAYS. SEVEN DAYS. TWO WEEKS. SEVEN YEARS. TWO DAYS. Four days. He could see it, clearly written on his calendar. However, walking was horrible. Moving was horrible. N. Gin was able to see clearly today, thankfully. His body would be kind.
The pain killers were extreme. He felt so numbed from them, and when their effects wore off, he was stuck with splitting pain. Pain rattling down his spine, sending his head spinning and leaving him unbalanced. Or was he simply unbalanced from the rocket in his head? MISSILE. NUKE. SCRAP METAL. MACHINE. WHERE AM I GOING AGAIN?
The bathroom.
One step at a time… Slowly. His whole body trembled. He couldn’t tell how far he was from his bed, or how close he was to the bathroom door. So many times had he tried to open his right eye, only to remember THEY HAD TAKEN IT FROM ME. IT WAS FINE!! IT DIDN’T NEED TO GO. WHY DID THEY DO THAT?
Gin dragged his feet. He was learning to walk again. It was terribly concerning how the rehabilitation center just… let him go. When he could sort of walk, they said he was done. But Gin still felt like he couldn’t control his hands, and moving his legs felt like a monumental task. It was nearly funny to him that just a little over a month and a half ago, he was walking fine. He was working fine. But now, half his brain failed to even comprehend such a familiar memory.
He could hardly remember anything, in fact. Not what he had eaten last, not what day it was, not what year it was…
Not even his name.
When the doctors were saying a word at him, he was confused. They said it was his name but.. No, they were lying. That wasn’t his name. What was it? It began with an N. But nothing was right… Nothing! Nothing was his name. Nothing begins with an N. Perhaps that was his name.
When he had asked to call his mother, they explained she had been dead. No? He could remember saying goodbye to her when he left for work. She was just back home.
No, she was not.
I WOULD HAVE GRIEVED ALL OVER AGAIN.
Yet, he did not.
He braced himself on his bathroom’s doorframe. Just so very nearly there…
Gin took a quivering hand and pulled open a drawer, unable to see anything. It was completely black. Did he just go blind? That same hand traveled the wall and felt the lightswitch, flicking it up.
There was the drawer.
It had several bottles of those horrible, horrible pain killers. Some half empty, others full, and completely empty ones were discarded on the floor. He just pushed them away with his foot if he felt them. But, at least the drawer had rolls of bandages.
His heavy head was hung, tilted slightly to the right. Though the slight motion of grabbing a bandage caused the rocket to lightly touch something. Gin very quickly yelped out in pain, grabbing the front of his head and squeezing. It didn’t do much, but it helped slightly ease the pain. He saw stars for a few moments as his only working eye fluttered back open. His knees felt weak.
Just getting this over with was such a monumental chore.
He stood in front of the mirror.
He could see himself.
His eye was reddened. A dark bag hung under it. Half of his face was wrapped in bandages. It had grown skinny from him surviving off what little snacks he could bring himself to eat. His underbite and exposed lower incisors that were spread out, one of them missing, two other missing teeth concealed behind his lips. He hadn’t showered since before the accident. He looked and probably smelled repulsive. The most he could do was rub towels on his FILTHY, DISGUSTING body.
Gin tried to ignore LOOK AT HOW HORRIBLE YOU ARE it.
He pinched a loose end of a bandage DON’T TAKE IT OFF. IT HURTS. And pulled a little. Very slowly. It had occurred to him that he had never done this in front of YOU JUST WANT TO HURT YOURSELF a mirror.
His hands shook immensely. Not because he was nervous, but simply because so much control of them had been severely degraded. He kept glancing at the bomb. At his own CHILD creation jutted out of his head. It was still live, curiously enough. It somewhat concerned him. Sometimes it felt like it was alive. But it wasn’t.
The bandages became loose enough to lightly tug off, and the dirty ones fluttered to the ground.
Where his right eye would have been was caved inward. Skin had been roughly used to patch up the remaining areas, wrapping over itself and stretched. His hair was shaved. His ear wilted.
LOOK AT HOW HORRIBLE YOU ARE.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE?
A FREAK!
A FREAK IS ALL I HAVE EVER BEEN!
MOTHER WAS RIGHT!
I WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF BEING A
“Monster…?” He muttered, his slender fingers trailing over skin he’d long lost feeling in.
He supposed he looked monstrous. If the neighborhood children saw him, and they certainly have, they were probably whispering stories about a zombie who lived here.
EVERYONE IS AFRAID OF ME. EVERYONE IS SO MORBIDLY CURIOUS ABOUT ME. BUT NOT FOR A GOOD REASON. BECAUSE THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT THE ROCKET. THE STUPID ROCKET. THAT IS ALL ANYONE HAS EVER WANTED OUT OF ME AND SEEN IN ME.
THEY COME TO MY HOUSE AND ASK AND POKE AND PRY ABOUT IT.
WHY CAN’T I BE SEEN AS ANYTHING ELSE?
I DON’T WANT TO BE A BOMB. I DON’T WANT TO JUST BE THE MAN WHO MADE WEAPONS. THE MAN WHO MADE A WEAPON THAT GOT LODGED INTO HIM FOREVER.
AM I EVEN A MAN ANYMORE IF THAT’S ALL THEY SEE OUT OF ME? AM I SIMPLY JUST A MISSILE? AN OBJECT?
He was working himself up. He could feel a headache coming on as violently as his thoughts were. Gin’s shaking hands struggled to get a grip of the bandage roll, and he tried to use a thumb to pick at the end. His thumb twitched. It shifted a little. It bent, but became too stiff. It went back to being unbent. He tried his other thumb. Another finger. They all just shifted and moved in ways that weren’t what he wanted.
Gin wailed, throwing the thing at the tub beside him and throwing his head into his palms. There was no hope for him or his life. Just doing that shot a mountainous wave of pain through every fold in his wounded brain. He could barely work his human body.
He found himself sobbing from the pain and from his breaking will. He wanted to call someone. He wanted to go back to rehab. But he had been dropped from his job, his family would only make fun of him, and rehab was far too complicated to return to. He could barely get to his bathroom.
He was such a failure. Success had only grazed his cheek for a sliver of his life before he was thrown back into the violent reality that he meant NOTHING to ANYBODY.
FAILURE! FAILURE! FAILURE!
IS THIS THE MOST YOU CAN DO? IS ALL YOU CAN DO CRY AND SOB TO YOURSELF WISHING YOUR PATHETIC LIFE MEANT SOMETHING?
Gin flinched terribly. There was a banging sound. He found himself only weeping more, though trying to resist it to listen. It could have been a hallucination. He’s been having those. He’s been seeing people walking around his house. He’s been hearing his mother tell him he’s a failure. He’s been-
There was the banging again. It was at his door.
…What time was it?
He looked to the analogue clock that was shoved onto the floor, sideways.
He forgot words had squiggled into incomprehensible pieces. So he looked out his window.
It was dark.
Gin shakily shuffled out the bathroom, deciding against his better judgement to answer the door. The world was spinning again, and waves and waves of pain were making his ears ring.
He was eternally glad he decided to buy a one story home. Step… after step… after more banging.
“I’m getting there! Jeeze!” His unused voice croaked out. Bracing himself on furniture and taking moments to recollect his energy, he managed to win against the long battle of traversing his living room. Reaching the door, he held himself up with one arm against the wall, while the other tried to open the door. Gin couldn’t quite grasp the doorknob… his fingers just.. Wouldn’t…
He furrowed his brow and just forced his hand to sort of close in any way it could, moving his whole arm to turn the knob instead of his wrist. He expected a gun to be pointed at him. But instead, he was met with a face he couldn’t fully make out from his tired, spinning, starry vision.
“Good evening, Doctor N. Gin. Apologies for my late appearance. If I were to get out during the day, I’d have caused quite the stir.”
Gin looked at the man, squinting a little.
“Do… I know you?” He grumbled. “Are you here to interview me? Because I’m done with that. Go away.”
The other man chuckled, probably shaking his head a little.
“No no. I actually had a preposition for you.” The stranger clarified, suddenly sticking out his hand to shake. “I’m Doctor Neo Cortex. I’m in need of a new assistant, and I believe you’re the perfect fit.”