Shock (Mick, PG-13) Champagne Challenge #115
Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 11:50 pm
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: This story was written for Champagne Challenge #115, "Haunted by the Past." It takes place during "The Mortal Cure."
Others have written stories covering this same episode, even the same part of this episode. This story is another take on a well-loved theme, by no means intended to be seen as the only one.
Thank you to Librarian_7 for reading drafts of this story.
Shock
I can barely breathe, barely see, sprawled on the ground in this filthy alley, trying to absorb everything that’s happened. My last sight of Coraline was her beautiful face – immobile, eyes filled with horror. All I could do was watch as she knelt in front of her brother and let him stake her. I lay here helpless as the vampires leapt upward into the dark, moving too fast for me to track them with these human and damaged eyes.
Ouch. Every breath is a stab. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a busted rib or two, and my eye’s starting to swell pretty bad. It’s just starting to sink in, what that means. I’m not healing. I really am human. For now.
It takes a few minutes to gather my courage and roll to my knees, groaning. I stagger to my feet and look around – there’s hardly any evidence of the eerie scene that just transpired. A car with a smashed back window, a crumpled dumpster, a few drops of blood. Coraline’s and mine.
Coraline’s face – I can’t get it out of my mind. In all the years I knew her, I never saw her so terrified. Not even when I staked her and set her on fire. Why did she sacrifice herself for me? Where is Lance taking her? Who is “he”? And what can I do about it? Honestly? Lance scares the crap out of Josef! I didn’t have a chance against him when I was a vampire, and now? It would be suicide. I don’t know… man, what I wouldn’t give for some aspirin…
Well… no use staying here any longer. I guess I’ll go home. My legs don’t work right, and I have to prop myself up against the wall every few feet, trying to catch my breath. The last time I dragged myself home like this, I was full of silver buckshot. Now I’m full of… what? Life? The illusion of life? How long is this gonna last? What’ll happen when it wears off? So many questions I never got a chance to ask her… and now it’s too late.
It takes me half an hour to go a couple of blocks. At last I’m in the hall outside my apartment, fumbling with the remote, stumbling into my sanctuary, shutting the door after me. Home.
I shrug out of my coat, grimacing, and push up my sleeve. There’s the bandage. The place where it started… it feels like a fever, this life spreading through me. It feels like sickness – I haven’t been alive in so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like, this heat that burns through a human body.
I’ve got to preserve this. I lost Coraline’s blood; maybe I can use mine to find the secret. I’ve got to find the cure. I don’t want to go back… The syringe feels cold in my hand, the pain familiar as the needle goes in. But the wound doesn’t disappear. Oh, yeah. Humans don’t heal. Will I ever get used to this?
Shaking the vial, I watch the red stuff cling to the glass and pool in the bottom. The key to my future? Maybe. My only chance at a future in the light, anyway. I slide open the hidden door and slip my treasure inside.
Oh, man… my belly’s killing me. I lift my shirt; dark purple bruises are starting to bloom across my ribs. But this isn’t bone pain, it’s deep inside. Internal bleeding?
My stomach growls and I start to laugh, then choke it back – laughing hurts. Of course – humans need food! I glance around my sterile kitchen… a jar of fake apples, a few lemons. I never really thought about how much of a giveaway my kitchen is. No human lives here… well, no human lived here till now. Crap, I’m starving.
I call the guard downstairs. “Is there a restaurant around here that delivers?”
“Sure, what do you feel like?”
What do I feel like? Everything. Chinese. Burgers. Fried chicken. Chocolate cake. Ribs – man, I remember how great short ribs used to taste. French fries. Onion rings. Corn on the cob. I swallow a mouthful of saliva.
“I don’t know… I can’t make up my mind.”
He gives me a bunch of numbers and I call ‘em all. While I’m waiting, I drag myself upstairs to the shower. Turn the water up as hot as I can stand it… it stings like hell, but it feels wonderful. I haven’t had a hot shower in 55 years…
Delicious-smelling bags arrive. I fill the table with Styrofoam and cardboard cartons. A bite of this, a bite of that. Oh, man… another bite of that…
Sliced turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. It’s every Thanksgiving I missed, rolled up into one huge orgy of overeating. Jesus, what a waste of food… I hardly even touched most of ‘em. I pack the boxes into the bags again, call the guard and ask him if he can give it away. Hell yeah, the park’s full of hungry people. I take the bags down the elevator and brush off his questions about my face, saying I ran into a door. Or a dumpster, or maybe a car. Or Lance DuVall’s fist. It’s a good thing Lance doesn’t wear a ring like mine, or I might not have an eye at all. Back in the apartment, I look at my face in the mirror. Crap, I look like hell. I’m gonna have a heck of a shiner tomorrow. Great.
I stagger upstairs to the freezer room and open the lid. Yesterday this would’ve been the perfect place to heal from this beating. Today… it’s alien territory. Well, I guess I’m gonna find out how the couch feels. It takes a long time to go downstairs. I’m really stiffening up.
Everything aches as I lie down and pull the brown afghan up to my chin. I feel like a kid sleeping over on a friend’s couch. Or an out-of-work guitarist crashing at a friend’s pad, whatever. It’s been a long, long time since I slept on something soft.
The living room is alive with shadows from the glass fireplace. Yesterday I could see in the dark as easily as by daylight, maybe easier. Tonight, everything’s distorted. Nothing looks the way it does with the lights on… the dark is unfamiliar, a little scary.
I lie here, staring at the flickering light on the ceiling, thinking about Coraline. Wondering why she came back into my life. To mess with my head? Definitely. To get me back? Yeah, probably. But she’s not the same person she was back then. The day I woke up a monster, she told me she’d given me a great gift; and in all our years together and apart, she never budged on that. She never understood that she’d stolen my life from me, robbed me of my family, my dreams, my future. But today, for the first time, she acknowledged that she made a mistake when she turned me. Shocked the hell out of me.
Maybe I had to go crazy over Coraline one last time to finally get my head straight about her, and to stop blaming her so much. I’m not saying she was right to turn me the way she did. I’ll never forgive her for taking away my choice. But she did give me a great gift. She made it possible for me to live long enough to love Beth. And tonight she gave me a chance for a new future, as a human… for a little while, at least.
So what am I gonna do with this gift? I honestly don’t know. I’m gonna have to figure it out as I go along. One thing I do know: I’m going to live every damn day to its fullest. I just need a little time to wrap my head around all of this. And I wish my ribs didn’t hurt so much. I’ve gotta get some sleep. Tomorrow is Josh’s funeral.
I close my eyes. Without the chill of the freezer, there’s nothing to lull me to sleep but the tiny ticking sound of my watch’s second hand. What was it Josef said about humans listening to the tick-tick-tick of their own looming demise? Every second another step closer to death. I could get used to that…
<>
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: This story was written for Champagne Challenge #115, "Haunted by the Past." It takes place during "The Mortal Cure."
Others have written stories covering this same episode, even the same part of this episode. This story is another take on a well-loved theme, by no means intended to be seen as the only one.
Thank you to Librarian_7 for reading drafts of this story.
Shock
I can barely breathe, barely see, sprawled on the ground in this filthy alley, trying to absorb everything that’s happened. My last sight of Coraline was her beautiful face – immobile, eyes filled with horror. All I could do was watch as she knelt in front of her brother and let him stake her. I lay here helpless as the vampires leapt upward into the dark, moving too fast for me to track them with these human and damaged eyes.
Ouch. Every breath is a stab. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a busted rib or two, and my eye’s starting to swell pretty bad. It’s just starting to sink in, what that means. I’m not healing. I really am human. For now.
It takes a few minutes to gather my courage and roll to my knees, groaning. I stagger to my feet and look around – there’s hardly any evidence of the eerie scene that just transpired. A car with a smashed back window, a crumpled dumpster, a few drops of blood. Coraline’s and mine.
Coraline’s face – I can’t get it out of my mind. In all the years I knew her, I never saw her so terrified. Not even when I staked her and set her on fire. Why did she sacrifice herself for me? Where is Lance taking her? Who is “he”? And what can I do about it? Honestly? Lance scares the crap out of Josef! I didn’t have a chance against him when I was a vampire, and now? It would be suicide. I don’t know… man, what I wouldn’t give for some aspirin…
Well… no use staying here any longer. I guess I’ll go home. My legs don’t work right, and I have to prop myself up against the wall every few feet, trying to catch my breath. The last time I dragged myself home like this, I was full of silver buckshot. Now I’m full of… what? Life? The illusion of life? How long is this gonna last? What’ll happen when it wears off? So many questions I never got a chance to ask her… and now it’s too late.
It takes me half an hour to go a couple of blocks. At last I’m in the hall outside my apartment, fumbling with the remote, stumbling into my sanctuary, shutting the door after me. Home.
I shrug out of my coat, grimacing, and push up my sleeve. There’s the bandage. The place where it started… it feels like a fever, this life spreading through me. It feels like sickness – I haven’t been alive in so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like, this heat that burns through a human body.
I’ve got to preserve this. I lost Coraline’s blood; maybe I can use mine to find the secret. I’ve got to find the cure. I don’t want to go back… The syringe feels cold in my hand, the pain familiar as the needle goes in. But the wound doesn’t disappear. Oh, yeah. Humans don’t heal. Will I ever get used to this?
Shaking the vial, I watch the red stuff cling to the glass and pool in the bottom. The key to my future? Maybe. My only chance at a future in the light, anyway. I slide open the hidden door and slip my treasure inside.
Oh, man… my belly’s killing me. I lift my shirt; dark purple bruises are starting to bloom across my ribs. But this isn’t bone pain, it’s deep inside. Internal bleeding?
My stomach growls and I start to laugh, then choke it back – laughing hurts. Of course – humans need food! I glance around my sterile kitchen… a jar of fake apples, a few lemons. I never really thought about how much of a giveaway my kitchen is. No human lives here… well, no human lived here till now. Crap, I’m starving.
I call the guard downstairs. “Is there a restaurant around here that delivers?”
“Sure, what do you feel like?”
What do I feel like? Everything. Chinese. Burgers. Fried chicken. Chocolate cake. Ribs – man, I remember how great short ribs used to taste. French fries. Onion rings. Corn on the cob. I swallow a mouthful of saliva.
“I don’t know… I can’t make up my mind.”
He gives me a bunch of numbers and I call ‘em all. While I’m waiting, I drag myself upstairs to the shower. Turn the water up as hot as I can stand it… it stings like hell, but it feels wonderful. I haven’t had a hot shower in 55 years…
Delicious-smelling bags arrive. I fill the table with Styrofoam and cardboard cartons. A bite of this, a bite of that. Oh, man… another bite of that…
Sliced turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy. It’s every Thanksgiving I missed, rolled up into one huge orgy of overeating. Jesus, what a waste of food… I hardly even touched most of ‘em. I pack the boxes into the bags again, call the guard and ask him if he can give it away. Hell yeah, the park’s full of hungry people. I take the bags down the elevator and brush off his questions about my face, saying I ran into a door. Or a dumpster, or maybe a car. Or Lance DuVall’s fist. It’s a good thing Lance doesn’t wear a ring like mine, or I might not have an eye at all. Back in the apartment, I look at my face in the mirror. Crap, I look like hell. I’m gonna have a heck of a shiner tomorrow. Great.
I stagger upstairs to the freezer room and open the lid. Yesterday this would’ve been the perfect place to heal from this beating. Today… it’s alien territory. Well, I guess I’m gonna find out how the couch feels. It takes a long time to go downstairs. I’m really stiffening up.
Everything aches as I lie down and pull the brown afghan up to my chin. I feel like a kid sleeping over on a friend’s couch. Or an out-of-work guitarist crashing at a friend’s pad, whatever. It’s been a long, long time since I slept on something soft.
The living room is alive with shadows from the glass fireplace. Yesterday I could see in the dark as easily as by daylight, maybe easier. Tonight, everything’s distorted. Nothing looks the way it does with the lights on… the dark is unfamiliar, a little scary.
I lie here, staring at the flickering light on the ceiling, thinking about Coraline. Wondering why she came back into my life. To mess with my head? Definitely. To get me back? Yeah, probably. But she’s not the same person she was back then. The day I woke up a monster, she told me she’d given me a great gift; and in all our years together and apart, she never budged on that. She never understood that she’d stolen my life from me, robbed me of my family, my dreams, my future. But today, for the first time, she acknowledged that she made a mistake when she turned me. Shocked the hell out of me.
Maybe I had to go crazy over Coraline one last time to finally get my head straight about her, and to stop blaming her so much. I’m not saying she was right to turn me the way she did. I’ll never forgive her for taking away my choice. But she did give me a great gift. She made it possible for me to live long enough to love Beth. And tonight she gave me a chance for a new future, as a human… for a little while, at least.
So what am I gonna do with this gift? I honestly don’t know. I’m gonna have to figure it out as I go along. One thing I do know: I’m going to live every damn day to its fullest. I just need a little time to wrap my head around all of this. And I wish my ribs didn’t hurt so much. I’ve gotta get some sleep. Tomorrow is Josh’s funeral.
I close my eyes. Without the chill of the freezer, there’s nothing to lull me to sleep but the tiny ticking sound of my watch’s second hand. What was it Josef said about humans listening to the tick-tick-tick of their own looming demise? Every second another step closer to death. I could get used to that…
<>
I love that.
Lilly stole my comment!
Alle! And may the writing continue!
So much emotion and insight in such a short story. 
I love this! It's so great. I can feel the hurt of Mick, his confusion about what Coraline did, the regret of being beaten up and the strange exhilaration of being human again. He's taking it all in, thumbing it off and filing it to memory, a chance he won't have again, something to cherish. I love how you filled in the blanks behind the jumbled snippets we got like when he opened his freezer, looked in and closed it again, or when he pigged out. That was such a great sequence, but it lacked a little bit because his voice-over was quiet. You gave it to us, the emotion behind what he did. He was in shock not only from the pain but also from what Coraline revealed and how things changed for him.
