⚜ savannah, a freaking brave idiot. (shadowbinder) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-11-13 00:23:00 |
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As it turned out, the haze was the first thing to greet Savannah. Bright, white light seared into her lids, turning her vision orange. She squinted and turned her head away from the source, the long curtain of her lashes shielding her from the unbearable glare--but the heat didn’t go away. She was under some kind of [...] of lamp that focused directly into her face. Why had someone done that? She needed her sleep, she thought, drowsily frustrated. Sit up slowly, she heard someone say, distantly. Slowly, the person repeated, more sternly. Wheels squeaked as they rolled past her, and the scent of sterility filled her senses, clouding from her nose into her sinuses, where they lingered with chemical strength. Cleaning solution, she thought, as her mouth fell open and she began to cough in reflex, her body irritated at the sudden influx of ammonia or Lord knew what was plaguing her now. As she tried reaching up a hand to cover her mouth, however, she found that she couldn’t move. There was a pinch in the back of her hand that spread from the middle to her fingertips, and down her arm. Ow. Was someone prodding her with something? Needles, she thought for a moment, her blood running cold--no, she told herself, not needles. Her hand was asleep. Gosh darn it, she always hated having to wake up her body. The period between realizing her appendages were asleep and rubbing them back into circulation was brief, but always intensely unpleasant. Her body shuddered. Her finger moved once--ow. It was as if all that she felt was finally beginning to spread from her hands, to her arm, to her torso and legs. Everything hurt. Everything was a dead weight. What had happened to her? Help. The word was there on her lips, but it wouldn’t come out. They needed to hear her, she thought. They had to. They were so close to her. This time, when she tried, her mouth opened, parched and dry. “Help,” she mumbled weakly. Her eyes fluttered open, and it was then that the light above her came into view. It was a fluorescent ceiling light in a white room. Her pulse quickened in a panic--this wasn’t her room. Where was she? Where was Benjie? Where were Mikael and the others? “Help me,” she repeated, this time louder and more forcefully, now that the fear began to set in. Not again. "Savannah?" Startled out of her reverie, Sara stood up hurriedly, the book in her lap clattering to the floor. "Savannah, are you -- awake?" She almost couldn't believe her own eyes; surely it couldn't be true? Maybe she, too, had been pulled into George Cooper's dream -- maybe she had dozed off in the infirmary and woken up in a nightmare of her very own. But what nightmare would have Savannah, lying bruised and injured, but awake? Alive? No; it had to be real. Her grim expression breaking into her first real smile in days, she reached for the glass of water on the bedstand and leant over her roommate. "Here," she murmured softly, adjusting Savannah's pillow. "Here, drink." And then the kind, familiar face swam before her vision, and though her eyes hurt, Savannah didn’t dare close them. It had to be real. Her pale fingers shook as she lifted her hand for the glass. She took a few, long, ravenous gulps of water, not caring that drinking too fast might make her throw up, until the glass before her was empty. Her body might not have been dehydrated, thanks to the IV that was lodged in her hand--never a fan of needles, Savannah tried not to look--but her mouth was dry and parched. The glass fell into her lap, rolling across the blankets, and Savannah locked eyes with her roommate for the first time, feeling her lower lip begin to quiver. “You have to be real,” Savannah pleaded hoarsely. Please be real. “I don’t--I can’t--” Sara was almost afraid of touching her; right in front of her very eyes, Savannah's body had bloomed with bruises, black and blue and some even the dirty red of blood. But she stretched her hand out, grasping her roommate's and squeezing lightly. "I am real," she whispered, leaning forward to grab the tiny paper cup before it fell to the floor. "But you -- what's happened to you?" Sara had been told that injuries sustained in the dreams would manifest in real life, too, but she hadn't expected anything quite like this. Savannah's body had been untouched, looked fine until she woke up, but now...Sara swallowed hard. Others were waking now, too; she could hear the joyful cries and pained screams around them. She wanted to know how her other friends had fared, too, but was simultaneously terrified at what she might find. “I--” Savannah swallowed, trying to remember. She’d last been sitting on the ground watching the battle, her fingers laced with Benjie’s as her mind remained blissfully away from the situation at hand; protected. But then she looked down at her right forearm arm, where a long cut raked down her pale skin, and she shivered. An old fisherwoman, perched above her, clawing at her face with a skinning knife. Suddenly, it was as if she’d opened the door to an overflowing closet. Tentacles and one-eyed men and fish eyes came roaring out to meet her, like a tidal wave of hated junk she’d tried to keep hidden from sight. Black, rolling clouds. Mikael tied to a rock. Savannah looked away. “I was--in a fishin’ village,” she recalled groggily. “A bed an’ breakfast, uglier than my parents’. A man tried to get me at the bar, Jesper went crazy, and Mikael got kidnapped for--for some kinda demonic octopus ritual.” She swallowed again, her throat feeling raw from the effort of talking with comparatively little to drink. “An’ there was a storm.” She closed her eyes forcefully then, not wanting to see the telltale images in her mind anymore. Sara listened quietly, unsure what to say in response. It sounded horrific, and she was, in truth, dying to know the details (every single one), but she didn't think it wise for Savannah to be relieving her nightmare so soon. She had just woken up, after all. She had injuries to deal with, a dehydrated body that needed to cope. "Savannah," she murmured at last. "You are not there anymore. You're here, and you are safe." Savannah’s lower lip quivered again, and this time, her eyes filled with tears, though they didn’t spill over. “It still just feels too good to be true,” she managed to get out, her voice already hoarse, but now breaking. “It’s like, what’s even real anymore?” Her face crumpled. She still half-expected Sara to melt away into the one-eyed fisherman again, leering, this time right at her bedside. But before that could happen, Savannah needed to hug the other girl, before she transformed into something that smelled like sea salt and fish and rot. She needed to hug someone who smelled like Sara. She sniffled, then attempted to scoot forward in her bed, arms weakly outstretched. Sara had refrained from hugging Savannah herself, lest she injure her further, but this silent request was not one she could ever refuse. Wrapping her arms gingerly around her roommate, she gave her a gentle squeeze. "This is real," she said, her voice raw with emotion and her accent thicker than ever. "This is real and you are real, and we are real." Savannah’s body gave a shudder, and then her shoulders were shaking as she struggled to hold back the waterworks that were pooling treacherously behind her eyelids, welling up into her tear ducts. She clung to Sara’s slender frame like it was her anchor into the present world--one that was familiar and steady and warm--and as if holding onto her would stop Savannah from falling back into the images that had haunted her dreams for the past however many nights she’d been gone. “I’m just--I’m just so glad you’re here,” she sobbed, her voice cracking. “Oh, my God.” She was vaguely aware of other people passing by the beds--so many beds, so many of them had been taken in--but here, with by far the best roommate and one of the best friends anyone could ever have, she could hide from the noise and the light and the scrutiny, and for the first time in a long time, if only for a moment, she could have peace. |