Fade

Part 9

By Dierdre

Beta read by Sassyblondexoxo. Go read her fics!

A long shower was no cure for exhaustion, but the hot water had helped to pound away some of the fire in my overexerted muscles. Once I had dried off and staggered wearily into my room, my headache had subsided somewhat and the pain in my shoulder had settled into a steady dull throb. I was so tired from recent events that my vision was blurring at the edges, and as I heaved myself into my tattered hammock, I wanted nothing more in life than to sleep the clock around.

But, as it often did these days, sleep was proving elusive.

Lying semi-comfortably on my shell, the hammock ropes squeaking as my minute body movements forced it to sway, I inspected the darkness behind my eyelids and tried to force myself into slumber by sheer effort of will. My mind was having none of it, however, for it insisted upon replaying the altercation with April in an infuriating, endless loop. Like a dog chasing its tail, expending lots of energy, but getting nowhere fast.

After about an hour of this I finally gave up on the notion of sleep and simply stared upwards, hands folded behind my head. In an attempt to distract myself from my circuitous thoughts, I counted the spiders skittering across my ceiling and listened absently to the water rushing faintly through hidden pipes. The lair’s acoustics allowed me to hear every awkward scrape and slide as April moved about, clanking from one room to another in a manner than seemed as purposeless as my own inner contemplation. Every once in a while, I heard her sigh.

I suddenly wondered what she was thinking about, and then firmly told myself it didn’t matter. It was her fault that we had argued, after all, so let her deal with her own damn problems. I had enough of my own without adding her trivial predicaments and inane self-loathing to the mix. I didn’t care.

…Yeah, keep thinking shit like that, Raphael. Maybe one day you’ll actually start believing it.

Sighing in annoyance, I sat up a little and reached for my belt. I lit a cigarette and passed the time blowing smoke rings at any arachnid foolish enough to venture within range.

Five minutes later the spiders were in a full-blown panic and I could almost feel my brain cells atrophying from boredom. Stubbing out the spent cigarette against a nearby wall, I flicked the butt away. It went sailing end over end until it came to rest with a dull clink inside an empty soup can, strategically positioned by the doorway. A perfect three-pointer. Michael Jordan, eat your heart out.

I was debating slipping into the den to watch some TV, to hell with April and awkward silences, when I heard her stride past my room and venture further down the hall. There was the soft sound of a door opening, followed by the low whisperings of a feminine voice. Six-thirty already; time to wake up the resident lunatic.

Well, that took care of that. I might be able to handle one or the other, but put me in the same room with both of them right now and I’d snap like a twig. I’d used up the last of my restraint with April, and my temper was now so short it was practically nonexistent. And despite being ticked at them both, I really didn’t want to see them hurt. Especially not by me.

I dangled one leg out into open air and swung it idly back and forth, causing my hammock to sway rhythmically. Yes, best to wait a while.

The bar of light under my door was briefly disrupted by two shadowy forms, leaving the hallway and continuing into the kitchen. Moments later came the muffled clatter and bang of pots, and then the sizzle of fat on a hot skillet. The smell of cooking bacon wafted under my door and made my stomach cramp with need, but I ignored it. Stubbornness was one of my primary virtues and a little thing like hunger wasn’t going to make me cave.

After a while the sizzling stopped and I heard April speak. It was too soft to make out the words, but its repetitive nature was unmistakable. She was coaxing Leo to eat, in a tone of voice that was gentle, patient, and infinitely sad.

I scowled and turned over on my side, firmly closing my eyes. It did nothing, however, to banish the memory of her expression as she rolled back her sleeve to expose her scars; a poignant mixture of revulsion, self-hate and loss.

…Stupid bitch. Scars or no scars, April was still beautiful. How could she not know that?

Amazingly enough, I must have dozed off, for the next sound I recalled hearing was a distinctive sliding squeal. I tumbled out of bed, dropping silently to the ground, and made it to the den just in time to see the elevator doors jerk shut. Cursing under my breath, I rubbed at my weary eyes and glanced over at the VCR clock. Seven forty-three. April must have left to catch the eight o’clock bus.

I swear to god, no one ever listens to me. I told her I didn’t want her walking through this neighborhood alone!

Thoroughly annoyed and on a quest for my trench coat and fedora, I was halfway to the kitchen before it actually occurred to me that it was morning. Disguising myself well enough not to be noticed under the revealing glare of sunlight was difficult and time-consuming, and by the time I was actually dressed and ready to leave she would be long gone.

Ah, screw it. It was daylight on a Wednesday. Most of the killers and rapists have already slithered back into their dens, and despite her inability to follow simple instructions, April wasn’t a fool. She’d be fine.

Telling myself I’d call later to make sure she was all right, and to yell at her for sneaking out like that, I walked to the kitchen at a more sedate pace. A quick check in the refrigerator revealed a bacon and egg sandwich, wrapped in foil and still slightly warm.

April had made it just the way I liked, with the bacon crisped nearly black and the bright yellow yolk still slightly runny. I ate it at the sink, tossing away the foil afterwards and licking my fingers to catch the last of the yolk. Maybe I wouldn’t bitch her out too much this time. The woman may be infuriating, but damn if she didn’t know how to cook.

My unexpected nap had succeeded in taking the edge off my exhaustion, and the food had left me energized and a little jittery. Exercise would help with the latter and would also hopefully tire me out enough that I could get some uninterrupted sleep. Which I needed badly.

Unfortunately, though, the only place to get a proper workout here was in the dojo. Some of my fondest memories had taken place within those walls, but now the mere thought of that room just gave me a headache. Damn Leo and his weird compulsions.

I was now so twitchy that the thought of a catatonic sibling wasn’t enough to deter me, and so I marched determinedly through the den and down the hall. I threw open the dojo door and strode in, resolutely ignoring Leo.

My workouts the past few months usually consisted of beating on the punching bag until it snapped off its chain, but I was determined to do it correctly today. And so I stepped onto one corner of the mat, folded my legs into the Lotus position and closed my eyes, trying to compose my thoughts. Master Splinter had always said meditation was an essential precursor to katas. Something about relaxing the body, improving oxygen flow and shit like that.

Achieving the necessary serenity of mind had never been easy, but I’d usually been able to attain it when given enough time. Now, however, lowering my mental defenses and slowly draining myself of emotion did nothing but make me acutely aware of my surroundings. The myriad smells of home and the firm slide of the mat against my skin could either be ignored or used to facilitate meditation, like some amateurs would use incense. But there was one new sense I could not so easily brush off; the strange and unsettling feeling that I was in a room containing two living bodies, but only one active mind.

A headache was throbbing dully behind my left eye when I finally sighed and gave up. I rubbed at my temples in a useless effort to massage away the pain, and cut a glance over to my brother. The harsh fluorescent lighting colored the ruined side of his body a mottled greenish-grey, and with his rigid posture he looked for all the world like a stone carving chiseled by some demented artist.

If his expression were any emptier I’d be forced to staple a ‘Vacancy’ sign to his forehead, so it was hard to believe that he had actually spoken. And to April, no less.

Not to me.

Eyes narrowing in sudden determination, I slid across the mat until I was sitting in front of him. I was so close our knees nearly touched, directly in his line of sight, but his eyes remained downcast, unseeing.

I was no longer jarred by the heavy scarring that marred the side of his face, but the sight still managed to clench my heart in an emotion that was dangerously close to guilt. Leo had not been as lucky as April, for he had been treated by someone who didn’t know shit about medicine. I’d done my best, but the infections he’d contracted while under my care had made the scars worse than they should have been. They were livid and disfiguring, and had tightened the skin so that the right corner of his lip curved downward into a perpetual frown.

All the guilt in the world wasn’t going change anything, however, and so I mentally squared my shoulders. What’s done is done, and I had more important things to do right now than wallow in useless emotion.

Taking a deep breath, I said evenly, “I know you’re in there, bro.”

It was perhaps the most inane sentence to ever come out of my mouth, but I knew it was true. April wouldn’t lie, at least not about this. “You spoke just a few days ago. I know you can do it again, so say something to me. I don’t care what.”

I fixed him with a probing look, struggling to meet his eyes, and made a conscious effort not to let it disturb me when I was unsuccessful. If April could get him to speak, then so could I. I just had to change tactics somewhat.

“Donny, Mike and Master Splinter. Remember them?”

Caught up in a momentary, painful recollection, I paused. I remembered vividly the night I had taken Leo to the gravesite, armed with an old flashlight to guide us through the unfamiliar darkness. The tunnel we navigated had been long and winding, and almost unique in that it ended in a cul-de-sac packed with a foundation of coarse sand. It was dry and quiet there, almost peaceful, and far away from humans and their invasive curiosity.

I had expected him to take the flashlight from me and kneel by the crude brick headstones, touching each initial with scarred fingers. I had even prepared myself for the tears, his muffled sobs.

But I had not expected for him to suddenly drop the light, clutch his head tight between his hands, and scream. The grief contained within that single cry had been raw, aching, and too wild to hold any rationality behind it. The furious vocalization of an animal howling with loss, its rage rooted in misery.

The sound of it had been terrifying, but not nearly as horrible as when he had just… stopped. His scream cutting off as abruptly as if he’d just been poleaxed, he had dropped his hands to his sides, shuddered once, and then relaxed as his face was wiped clean of all expression. His soul unexpectedly vanished. Gone.

I clenched my hands in my lap and shook my head, rattling away the memory, and forced myself to continue, “Heh, maybe not anymore. But I know they’re the reason why you faded out in the first place, so you wouldn’t have to deal with the pain of losing them.

“…Fuck, I don’t blame you. Sometimes I wish I could do the same thing.” It was a hard thing to admit, but it was true. I don’t care if he said he was in hell now, it had to be better than this never-ending shit-storm my life had become.

“But they’re dead, Leo. Dead and gone, and nothing’s going to change that. It isn’t fair. In fact, it just plain sucks.” I leaned forward and gripped him by the shoulders, squeezing hard. “But there’s one thing we can still do for them. Karai is back, and we can get even.”

I waited for ten seconds, twenty, hoping for some sort of response, and nearly screamed in frustration when there was none. I really shouldn’t have tried this now, but it was too late to stop. I had to keep talking until he reacted… or until I had a stress-induced aneurism.

“Throw me a bone, Leo,” I pled, my teeth gritted against rising anger. “Give me something to work with here. A word; a gesture; anything! I need to know that you’ll eventually come out of this.”

I shook him roughly, my hands clenched hard enough to blanch the flesh beneath my fingertips. I had to be hurting him, but I didn’t care. Maybe the pain would draw his consciousness to the surface, at least for a moment. “Don’t you get it, Fearless? I can’t do this alone anymore. I need you, damn it!”

…Nothing. I’d just bared my soul to him, had just given one of the most impassioned speeches of my life, and I’d gotten nothing. Not a twitch, not a sigh. Not a single fucking word.

I let my hands fall away from his shoulders and stood up, staring down at the useless lump of idiocy that used to be my brother. My eyes narrowed into slits of ire, and I swear I felt a growl began to rumble deep in my chest.

Everyone deals with sadness in their own way. Some cry. Others find comfort in family life, or seek refuge in sickeningly healthy hobbies like painting and basket weaving. A select few will choose darker forms of release, such as drawing a blade across their skin or eating themselves into a diabetic coma.

Me… I’m a simple turtle. I just get pissed.

“Get out, Leonardo,” I said, in a voice that dripped venom with every word. “Get out of here before I kill you.”

My tone was serious, deadpan, but the threat was an empty one. Even now, when I was the closest I’d ever come to hating one of my brothers, I didn’t want to see him dead.

I kicked the back of his shell when he failed to comply with my order, hands clenching at my sides as he rocked forward from the blow. The fit of violence felt as good as I’d imagined, and so I lashed out again, hard enough that I felt the impact shiver up the back of my leg. Christ, that was satisfying.

No, I had no intention of killing him, but I did want him to hurt. I wanted to lash out with my feet and fists, to pound on him until the left side of his body looked as bad as his right. I wanted to damage him until he was forced to react, until he moaned, whimpered, or begged. I wanted him to bleed. I wanted him to suffer.

And that last thought, filled with such abhorrence that I barely recognized it as my own, was what finally stopped me. It was useless. It didn’t matter what I did to him, because he wouldn’t feel it. Not in any way that mattered, at least. I might as well be kicking a corpse.

With a truncated sound that was eerily reminiscent of my earlier hysterical laughter, I grabbed Leo by his right arm and hauled him bodily to his feet. Half carrying, half dragging his carcass off the tatami mat, I opened the door and hurled him through it. His carapace hit the far wall with a strangely hollow sound, and I was mildly surprised when he swayed, but remained standing. Usually when I throw someone against a wall, they fold up like a marionette. I must be losing my touch.

Glaring at him with every ounce of fury I possessed, I hissed, “Just stand there, you bastard. Stand there until you rot.”

Slamming the door so hard the wooden frame rattled in its foundation, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. My immediate compulsion was to shout obscenities until I was hoarse, but I forced myself to remain quiet, taking deep, even breaths until I could trust myself not to rush out and strangle Leo until his eyes popped.

It was a long moment before I once again regained some measure of composure. When I finally pushed myself away from the wall, I felt less fratricidal, but also strangely disconnected, like an addict floating serenely on his latest high.

It was a false calm, temporary at best, but I intended to take full advantage while it lasted. Drawing my sais from my belt, I moved to the center of the room and shifted my feet into a defensive stance. I was going to run through every kata I could remember, pushing myself hard for as long as it took, until I was so exhausted I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

I began with the basics, simple maneuvers we had learned before our eighth year of life. The block and thrust motions flowed from me as easily as breathing, so naturally that it required no thought, and my heart rate remained stable and strong as I moved on to intermediate katas. I steadily worked my way into the advanced stage, and hours passed unnoticed as I began a series of complex and deadly exercises Master Splinter had been perfecting in us at the time of his death.

Gone were the preset drills of my younger years, for these katas had little to do with the art of defense and retreat. These were entirely offensive maneuvers, designed to deal out crippling injury or messy death to those who wanted to inflict the same on you. Survival of the fittest in its most lethal form.

Even in solo practice, there was an element of danger to these freestyle maneuvers. Your opponents may be imaginary, but carelessness could still be deadly when your weapons were flitting in a blur about your body, sharp metal slicing air with a hissing sound like an enraged snake. I threw myself wholeheartedly into these katas, however, for they were far too complex to allow room for hatred or regret, sorrow or grief. I was panting with exertion, my heart was trying to drum its way through my plastron, my shoulder was throbbing and my palms were slick with sweat… but the first time in a long while, my head was clear. I considered it a good tradeoff.

Throwing myself into a backwards roll, I avoided an overhand strike from an imagined opponent. I retaliated with a ground-hugging roundhouse kick that swept out the phantom bad guy’s legs and toppled him hard to the ground, leaving him gasping and open to a gutting. Dispatching him was the work of a moment, and then I quickly stood, using the momentum of my rise to catch another creep across the face with the pommel of my sai. He went down with a crushed septum, blind with pain and effectively out of the picture.

I spun around, catching an invisible blade between the prongs of my weapon, and before this new apparition could find an advantage my left sai snaked out. The intent was to stab under my arm, my weapon slipping past his guard and through his throat, severing the carotid artery and snapping the spi-

-hands had shaken before, from the aftereffects of adrenaline and the sudden shock of traumatic injury, but this was different. By the time Mikey had finally, mercifully, passed out, my hands were shaking so hard I felt the tremble all the way to my collarbones; rapid, frantic, and tinged with an edge of madness. My ears rang dully, a consequence of his tortured screams.

I was crying, tears trailing down my cheeks in stinging lines of salt, but I didn’t care. The horror of this was something I could not have envisioned in my darkest nightmares, and preserving my tough-guy image right now was not only impossible, but too petty to contemplate. I was grief-stricken, panicked, kneeling uselessly at my brother’s side as my mind scrambled in crazed circles of terror. I didn’t know what to do, how to fix this, how to help him. He was so broken, so bloody. Jesus, god…

The sight of blood bubbles forming over his lips in a sick, pink-tinged froth shocked some of the panic out of me. I clenched my hands at my sides, squeezing hard enough for my nails to puncture flesh, and inhaled a shaky breath as I struggled to calm my mind enough to let me think. I needed to do something, but I was no good to him like this.

A few moments of deep breathing left me feeling marginally more composed, although my heart refused to still its frenetic pounding. It would have to do, though, so I swiped a forearm across my eyes, blinking rapidly to clear my vision. First thing’s first, I thought, with a confidence I didn’t really feel, clear the rest of the rubble off him.

Fresh wounds opened up across my palms, my fingers, my wrists, as I methodically moved away the shattered concrete. I barely felt the pain, however, or smelled the reek of burning blood as I moved aside smoldering wooden beams, still smoking and spitting angry red embers. Such things were superfluous, unworthy of consideration. Nothing else mattered but helping my brother.

The sight that greeted me once the last stone was pulled away was a bad as I had feared. As the explosion ripped through the building he had been thrown against the wall, which had almost immediately enveloped him in a few tons of blasted rubble. It had sheltered him from the worst of the ensuing inferno, but the sudden crushing weight had reduced his legs to a red ruin, nothing more than tubes of skin encasing splintered bone and ravaged flesh. Even if he were to survive, Mikey would surely never walk again.

Bright flecks of red and white swam in front of my vision, and I swayed. I shook my head, chasing back the blackness eating at the edges of my sight with that single, repetitive gesture. No time for this shit, Raphael. Just get him into the Battle Shell, see if anyone else is still alive, and then get the hell out before the cops come. You can worry about everything else later.

With those thoughts in mind I bent over him, slid my arms under his injured frame and attempted to lift him up. I had only managed to elevate his torso a few inches above the ground, however, before my bloody appendages lost their purchase on his cracked plastron. Scrabbling to hold him, terrified that even such a short fall would only injure him more, my fingers hooked the edge of his carapace… only to jerk free as a large chunk of shell came loose and dropped into my right hand.

I stared dumbly for a long moment, gawking at the wedge of bony keratin, and at the bloody shreds of partially attached muscle tissue dangling from it like grisly ribbons from an age-darkened tombstone, swaying limply in macabre celebration of death.

With a visceral cry of revulsion, I flung the shard away. Staggering backwards, I rubbed my hands frantically against my thighs, as if I could chafe away the memory of the last few moments as easily as the blood dried against my skin, flaking under the friction and falling away. Distantly, I was conscious that I was now speaking, a low and rapid litany that was part prayer and part vehement denial:

“Shit, shit, shit, Christ, goddamn it, oh fuck…”

It was a long moment before I became aware of another sound, a curious soft scratching that ground on my nerves and forced me to focus on something other than horror. The fingers on Mikey’s hands were twitching spasmodically, digits scrabbling amongst the rubble and ash as he whimpered low in his throat, suffering even in the supposed refuge of unconsciousness.

Despair was an unusual emotion for me, but I felt it acutely now, a sharp and soul- destroying pain, like a knife in the heart. The feeling weighed down my bones and compressed my plastron, turning even the simple act of breathing into a Herculean effort.

My brother was going to die. It was an inevitability, a truth I had known from the first moment he’d begun to scream, but had been too stubborn to consciously admit. He was too crushed, too shattered, his body kept alive by some twist of cruelty that could not last. Be it minutes, hours or days, he was going to slip away from me, and every preceding moment until that time would be agony. And there was nothing, not a single damn thing, that I could do to help him.

Except one.

I collapsed to my knees and gathered my brother’s head in my hands, cradling it as gently as one might hold a newborn. Bloody froth dribbled from his lips and slid down my wrist as he shakily exhaled. My eyes flooded, spilling brackish tears for reasons other than the choking, ash-filled air.

Yes, god help me, there was one thing I could do.

Bending down until my mouth was just inches from Mikey’s ear, I whispered, for the first and last time, “I love you, bro,” and then twisted sharply until I heard the muffled gunshot crack of snapping vertebrae-

My body was still frozen in the same position of attack when the flashback finally, thankfully, receded. Nearly blind from memory-fog, with my heart stuttering in my chest and bitter bile caustic against my tongue, I moaned, my weapons slipping from my trembling fingers.

One sai hit the tatami mat with a dull thud, the other following with a slight hesitation preceded by a sound like the tearing of wet silk. I was distantly aware of a quiet pattering, like the sound of far-off rain, and a thick coppery smell that was painfully familiar.

Alarm bells were ringing in the back of my brain, but I was confused, aching from the memory, dizzy and strangely nauseous. I could not combine these sensory puzzle pieces to make a coherent picture of what had happened. That is, not until I lifted my hands to rub at my aching eyes… and felt a white-hot starburst of pain detonate in my right forearm, sending lances of distress arching up my arm to tingle painfully along the back of my neck.

The pain was so intense and unexpected that I couldn’t stop myself from crying out, clamping my left hand over the source and hunching myself against the sting. I felt blood well up beneath my palm, quickly filling up the small hollow and forcing warm tendrils of red out from between my fingers. Holy Christ! What the hell..?

Through a dizzying haze of pain, I looked down and saw the answer. The pommel of my sai was lying in a viscous pool that widened with every falling drop of blood, stained red across its triple prongs and with a small curl of tattered green flesh decorating the central tip. When the flashback had swept me up in mid-maneuver, momentum had apparently ensured that my arm continued its upward sweep. Instead of curving under and out as planned, however, my sai had punctured the skin of my right forearm and sliced deep into yielding flesh.

I had just stabbed myself with my own weapon. Fucking brilliant.

Grimacing, I lifted my palm away from the wound and stared in dismay at the three jagged holes in my skin. In the iron grip of old memories, I had stood for god knows how long with a weapon buried in my flesh, my blood leaking away in steady droplets of rain. Afterwards, I’d only made it worse by letting go of the pommel, where it had hung suspended for a moment until gravity tore it away, exacerbating the injury.

I placed my hand back over the gashes and pressed hard, fighting to reduce the blood flow. Damn, this was bad. The wound was too deep to clot properly on its own. I needed bandages, and I needed them now.

As it was, the blood loss was already substantial enough to make walking difficult. I lurched forward and clawed at the door with my injured hand. My blood-streaked, shaky fingers slipped and slid off the doorknob as if it had been greased, and it was only through a minor miracle that I was eventually able to get enough purchase to turn the knob.

I burst through the doorway with all the style and grace of a three-legged elephant, and impacted the far wall with my bruised shoulder. White light shot across my vision as pain spiked through my arm from two differing sources. I grunted in reaction, shaking my head in a furious effort to chase away the growing wooliness in my brain, and looked up to find myself only inches away from Leo.

He was still standing in the hallway like a good little soldier, unmoving and utterly quiet. I curled my lip back in automatic derision… before I became conscious of something remarkable. My brother was holding my gaze.

My breath froze in my throat and I stared, too shocked to move despite the urgency of my situation. His expression was still as blank and empty as the dark side of the moon, but for the first time in a month, I was looking directly into his eyes. They were a distinctive shade of brown, the color of rich coffee. I had almost forgotten what they’d looked like.

A glimmer of hope thought long dead flared to life, a yellow ember amongst a sea of gray ash. I swallowed hard, opened my mouth to speak, and just as quickly snapped it shut. I was afraid to break the silence, as if the mere sound of my voice would trigger a relapse on his part. But… what can I..?

Apparently not even words were needed to shatter the moment, for only a few seconds later he blinked, shuddered slightly, and then lowered his gaze to the skin just above my left collarbone. Gone again. Backslide.

The ember in my chest sputtered and died just as quickly. More disappointed than I cared to admit, and unable to stay and try to make contact again, I shot him a withering glare that went completely unacknowledged. Brushing past him with a heartfelt curse, I made my halting way down the hall towards Don’s room. I kept my shoulder pressed against the wall, sliding across the rough brickwork in an effort to keep my balance. Despite the tight grip I had on my wound, I still left a path of spattered blood and red-rimmed footprints in my wake; a gruesome trail made by a nightmarish Hansel and Gretel.

I was so lightheaded by the time I made it to my destination that I nearly fell headlong through the doorway. The room was as black as pitch, oppressive in its silence, and I searched urgently until I found the light switch. Flipping it up, I squinted into the sudden brightness, blinking rapidly until my eyes adjusted. The old file cabinet, which Don had long ago converted into a medicinal cupboard, was across the room. Only a few dozen feet from me, but it felt like a mile.

There was no help for it, though, and so I pushed myself away from the comforting firmness of the doorframe. Feeling like a teenager drunk off his first bottle of 90-proof liquor, I weaved towards the cupboard. Within it resided various wonders of modern medicine, such as tourniquets, compresses and gauze. Things I needed to put to good use before I passed out, which was going to be soon.

About half a year later, I finally made it to the cupboard. Leaning gratefully against the cool metal, I tried to catch my breath and slow the mad hummingbird thrum of my heart. It was proving difficult, though, because both effects were caused by blood loss, not by mere physical exertion. God, I felt like crap.

Finally believing that I could stand again without falling over, I straightened and fumbled with the top drawer, my bloody fingertips making strange, thick imprints across its dusty surface. It took longer than I would have liked to hook my shaky fingers into the recessed handle, but I eventually succeeded and felt an absurd sense of triumph at my accomplishment.

I yanked the drawer open and searched through its contents with my free hand. I left distinctive streaks of crimson across every surface I touched, as I pawed with increasing urgency through disposable clamps, rolls of surgical tape and silk thread, scissors, and packets of curved needles. It was a small but eclectic batch of tools, seeming to contain just about everything an amateur doctor could desire… except for the precious few items I needed.

With a sinking feeling of trepidation in my gut and a burgeoning sense of a small but vital task forgotten, I slammed the drawer shut and painfully levered open the last. Medicines of various types, carefully packaged scalpels, retractors and things I didn’t even have a name for, but no gauze, no cloth compresses.

Now, when it was far too late to do me any damn good at all, I remembered that I’d used the last of the bandages to wrap wounds received during a back alley brawl a few weeks ago. I’d been meaning to ask April to stop by the pharmacy so I could restock, but I’d repeatedly put it off and had, eventually, forgotten about the need.

Well, ain’t that just peachy. I’d never been absentminded before in my life, but it was starting to look like this one lapse might get me killed. If I was still able to think clearly, this whole situation would probably be fucking hilarious.

Thoroughly annoyed at my own stupidity, my thoughts as fuzzy and slow as if my head was stuffed with cotton wool, I slammed the second drawer shut and quickly straightened.

This was another sublimely idiotic move on my part, for my body was now too weak to tolerate such things. My vision swam, the world tilting dizzily on its axis, and I swung out a leg to compensate. The heel of my foot came to rest on a small puddle of blood that had formed while I searched the cabinet, and my leg shot out from beneath me like a ball bearing in zero-friction fluid.

I yelped and flailed with my good arm, struggling to stay upright. My hand caught the handle of the top drawer, which opened and separated from the main cabinet with a metallic snap. The drawer went flying, scattering medical supplies to every corner of the room, and succeeded in twisting my body around so that my plastron impacted the floor at just the right angle to drive all the air from my lungs.

Coughing raggedly and struggling to breathe with lungs that seemed suddenly coated with phosphorus, I attempted to push myself to my knees… and found I couldn’t. It felt as if every bone in my body was lined with lead, and I couldn’t seem to coordinate my muscles enough to gain any leverage. The nausea had increased threefold, now so bad that I could barely think through the sick churning in my gut.

I rested my left cheekbone against the concrete and closed my eyes, willing myself not to loose the meager contents of my stomach. Some of the queasiness seemed to seep from my pores as I lay against the cool stone, although it did little to ease the confused muddle of my thoughts. All I knew was that I was suddenly very, very tired.

There was a touch of warmth against my lips and my tongue darted out reflexively, licking away the wetness. Copper and iron, with the viscous texture of melted chocolate. The all too familiar taste of blood.

It took an alarming amount of effort to force my eyelids open. When I finally succeeded, I was greeted by the sight of my arm, elbow crooked, stretched out before me. A small pool of crimson, fed from the tears in my skin and following the cracks in the concrete, was spider-webbing out in an inexorably widening pool.

My vision was narrowing at the edges, the rest of the room shrinking away and fading into unimportance as I stared, strangely fascinated, at the growing collection of my own lifeblood. I realized then that I was hemorrhaging, blood trickling steadily from self-made wounds that would not close, but I was no longer capable of doing anything to stop it.

The phrase ‘tunnel vision’ swam hazily through my brain as I felt my heartbeat begin to slow, and I knew I was on the verge of passing out. I fought against it, my hands twitching spasmodically, fingers reaching out and grasping at nothing as I struggled to stay awake. The peace of unconsciousness would be welcome at this moment, but if I allowed my eyes to close it would probably be the last thing I’d ever do.

Insensible, unaided and utterly alone, I would bleed to death.