Etienne Marie LeBeau - Frankenstein (negationer) wrote in totheoutside, @ 2014-10-04 00:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | chapter 7, etienne, floyd, part 2 |
Like punching in a dream, breathing life into my nightmare
The nightmares had been getting progressively worse. Any dream she had was terrible, leaving her whimpering and twitching and waking up tangled in sheets and slicked with sweat. Floyd slept like the dead, and she'd managed to not wake him yet. That night hadn't been any different. She'd been up three times already, heading out into the living room to watch near-silent television and smoke a cigarette until she was tired again. She slunk back to bed, sliding in beneath the covers and curling her form around Floyd's, arm tucked over his side and across his chest, gentle kisses to the skin of his back before she burrowed in and passed out again.
Same routine, over and over again.
The dream she fell into never seemed to really change. It was always the same lab, but the details changed. She felt like she was actually there, that was what forced her awake and panting. That void. That space beyond that called to her, wanted her back. She'd been there. She'd been there long before the last visit. It all stretched out like a painted canvas beyond that blue-edged rift.
Typically, she was observer. She watched the goings-on in that lab, her mind making up terrible things. Bodies, blood eagle on a table. Living subjects, some like those unfinished clones with gnarled limbs, hooked to machines to keep their hearts pumping. Faceless, milling between, tending.
This time, she wasn't an observer. Etienne was laid out, cold slab of steel beneath her. Needles dug into points. No modesty. She wasn't supposed to be awake, not then. She tried to sit up, and rattled against the strap across her forehead, the straps at wrists and ankles. Faceless over her, injecting something clear from a syringe, and it made her head spin. Still awake. Eyelids pried open, held that way with tiny silver clamps that blurred when they were too close, edges seen against her eyes. Drops, to lubricate and dilate pupils, maintain maximum input of information. A screen above her, lit up.
Too many midnight showings of A Clockwork Orange. Panic, but her body was paralyzed.
She only whimpered and breathed heavily in that bed, twisted away from Floyd, arms over her head, sheets and blankets kicked off her half.
Inside the dream, she was trying to cry out. Lips twitched, but no sound came out. Scream for help, scream to be let go, scream for anyone that might possibly hear her. The loudest Freehold member, silenced completely. Images on a screen. Memories, from Etienne's life with her parents. Home videos that weren't home videos. A tiny version of Etienne in Rogue's arms. Four-year-old Etienne being chased, screeching with laughter, by Remy, until he swept her up over his head, a quick toss upward and a shout of a southern voice, tobacco and honey. A Cajun laugh, all bayou and cajoling.
She watched, through the blurring the drops caused. Etienne couldn't tell if it was the drops or tears spilling down her cheeks. It was when the needle cracked through the thin bone of her temple that her body arched, beyond the paralytic.
A pained, shrill scream sounded, echoing in through the room, and Etty was thrashing hard, body arched off the mattress. No simple, quiet escape from that dream.