Spattergroit [Chaos]

[Meeka]

Kaya Lentach

Thoughts of You
My hand clenched white.
I write it down
Will these words catch flight.

Clammy hands reach out and clutch the tiny, glass vial. My hands shake so profusely, I am afraid that it will shatter in my hands. I'm drenched, freezing and boiling at the same time, the blanket against my skin burns and itches, so I kick it away, watching in satisfaction as it slumps at the foot of the bed. My hands tremble uncontrollably as I pop open the lid of the vial, glancing in dismay at its meager contents.

Our supply of painkillers are almost all run out. It is the least that can be offered to us, seeing as there is no cure as of yet. Such a tiny vial, yet so powerful. We're completely at the mercy of the little pills inside it. I refuse to let myself be touched by the relentless, frigid hands of strange scientists and doctors - the very kind that were sent in from all across the country. There is no way to escape, we're under lock-down, not that I could even manage to get to the door without breaking down in coughing fits in any case.

Just thinking about it seemingly brings on another one of those fits and I double over, my throat feeling sore and scratchy as my coughs fill the otherwise silent room. I blink back tears and pull back my hand to examine the crimson, sticky substance that covers it. It does not happen often, more so with Trig. When it does, it disgusts me. I wrinkle my nose in distaste, but I am too weak and tired to do anything but dispose of the blood on the fabric of my clingy, grey shirt.

Slowly, I gaze at my still-sleeping girlfriend - fiancée, I correct myself, briefly. It is still weird to think of her in that way and the very word, wife, feels heavy and forbidden on my tongue. I've given her and Trig more painkillers than myself, and despite her protests that she'll go back to who she was before, that she will relapse, I've forced her to. She does not know, or maybe she suspects it.

I've added her painkillers to her tea, after she protested about it, I have forced her to drink it. I know she won't be happy, but it hurts to see her in pain and I feel that I could deal with myself being in pain much better than her or Trig. I've hidden the fact that we barely have any of them left anymore, that our supply is becoming sparce and that I don't think that we will be getting anymore, given the fact that about half the district has spattergroit, this awful disease.

Finally, I force myself to stand up, my legs almost giving away. I cast one more look at Flight, to see if she is still asleep and shove the almost empty vial back into a moth-eaten sock, before stuffing it deep into the drawer next to the bed. I half drag, half stumble over to the adjacent bathroom, trying to control the excessive trembling long enough to twist the metal tap and splash some cool water onto my face.

The person staring back at me in the mirror surprises me. I gasp, taking in the sullen cheeks, the sleep-deprived eyes with dark circles underneath, the beads of sweat on my forehead, strands of red hair clinging to the skin there. My face is a mixture of filth and blood, where I have spread the blood I've coughed up, too tired and sick to care. My shirt is covered in crimson stains, apparently distributed with a wherewithal ease.

My eyes are bloodshot from a lack of sleep, blood trails down my arms, where the spattergroit caused my lymph nodes to burst once more. I spot the bloody, cervical lymph nodes that have ruptured at my neck, now even oozing with yellow pus. I wince as I attempt to wash some of the sickly fluid away, eyes tearing as the itchy, sore skin breaks some more.

I think of Trig who got ill far quicker than Flight or myself did. How he was scared for the first time in years. The fever had risen dramatically. I wash some of the dirt off of my face, but I still look like a ghost, some demon that just isn't me. Finally, I tear my eyes from my broken body, for it seems that it has already given up the fight and stumble back to our shared bed.

She's lying awake now, yellow eyes staring at the ceiling. "Tammy," I whisper, crawling over to her, my frozen hands touching her arms, mostly in fear. I'm afraid. I don't want this disease to do me in. "We're going to die," I add, just as another violent cough forces tears to spring up in my eyes, blood coating my hands once again. It is getting more frequent.

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[sadniss everdeen]

Flight DeRicasho

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| If there's one thing I've learned, it's that life is taken for granted. |

The monster rumbles its content.

Long has it been silent through the months of emotional suicides and hapless persecutions, choosing not even to plague my thoughts with doubt as that ring was placed into the palm of her hand. But as the creepling sureness that this illness is bigger than anyone thought descended upon us, it started to torment my thoughts with sugar-sweet whispers of semi-coherent ideas and ways to exploit this sudden sickness that seized the district. I was tempted beyond all reasonable thought to act upon these summonings; so vile that I dare not repeat them henceforth - however, I fell sick and it disappeared again.
But not entirely.

It plagues me more in dreams than in waking reality. When I breach into consciousness my body is more concerned with keeping me alive than projecting inner thoughts and demons to the outside world; but when I sleep it gives full reign. Things that I haven't even touched in years come back - memories of when I was turning tricks and chained to beds from boys who believed they were men, enamoured with the fact that I was immovable and completely under their mercy. It clashed directly against my dominant personality but I was too strung out to care - they'd scoff as they fed me drugs and took full advantage of my body splayed out like a sullied temple that has long been tainted from the touches of others. When I'd wake from the nightmares I'd be too cold to care and too sick to shout, this illness robbing me of my voice and energy. I'd fall back into bed, exhausted, with nothing but an uneasy feeling that this is getting eerily close to my early days. I've become a master of charades, hiding whatever is robbing me of precious little sleep I've been managing to get from the others, too focused on getting through and helping Kaya do the same.

Through my unconscious state I feel her move beside me, coughing and getting up from bed to stagger into the bathroom. The tremors from the fever leave me a weak, shaking mess, but I'm declining slower than either Lentach sibling. I've grown too intimate with withdrawl to let these similar symptoms destroy me completely.

It's a painful fact that I can feel myself relapsing. I crave the painkillers almost as much as I crave a release from this sickness, sweating and shaking when I'm denied. It's so hard to push away the vial and push it down at the same time, knowing that I'm willingly sinking deeper back into addiction. I've made a pact with myself to deny any more drugs; something the monster seems to agree with, for it isn't allowed to speak while I'm strung up like a kite. The scars in the crook of my elbows and along my wrists throb in tune to the sluggish beating of my heart, singing the addict's song of repentance. While I don't particularily care for Trig, I'm aware that my increased tolerance and larger frame means I'm swallowing the clear liquid at a startling rate - less for them. The clink of the glass bottle is what snaps me into wakefulness, and I slowly open xanthrous eyes.

Every part of my body hurts. If I were to touch my sides it's painfully obvious where my ribs are. It's unknown the last time I've eaten, too tired to care about anything else than sleep and those brief bouts where I can actually hear myself think. My chest burns and my throat is raw, but I summon the energy that I've stored deep inside the coil of my abdomen to roll my head over to the side and stare at the old sock that houses the one-way trip to bliss. With an unimaginable amount of willpower I instead look to the opposite direction, where Kaya's staring into the mirror with an unmistaken look of horror etched onto her drawn features.
It hurts to see her wasting away, pointedly ignoring the fact that it's exactly what I'm doing too. This disease is robbing us of life. Robbing half the district of life. It's no surprise that the thieves are either making away with massive boats of loot or are bed-ridden themselves, with bloodshot eyes and waxen skin. My head rolls to the ceiling and glares half-heartedly at it, wondering what exactly we did to deserve such a thing. Did you honestly ask that question?

I can't even find it in myself to scowl; nothing but the slight darkening of my eyes alludes that I've even heard the amused whisper. Quiet. I'm too tired to engage in mind games with you. It scoffs and hovers into my line of vision - there isn't even a slight cringe that usually accompanies its presence. That makes it raise what I assume to be eyebrows, watching me through gaping sockets. You say that you don't wish to become an addict again. But that's exactly what you're doing. This time my brows knit in a frown. I don't understand.
You're lying here doing nothing. You don't know what day it is, when you've last eaten, when you've last bathed. It's pitiful, and exactly what you did when you were high all the time.
So what do I do? Kaya crawls over and mutters something, so I barely hear its next words as my eyes slide over to her. Fix it.

"We're going to die." That snaps whatever lucid half-dreams I was having, and I focus completely on her. The monster is right; our hair is greasey and our cheeks sunken. Clothes undoubtedly covered in blood and too sick to care, we probably look like something that walked out of a horror movie. It's deplorable the way we're living, and even though each muscle in my body shrieks with protest, I'm going to fix it. God, is this what the whole District is like? Instead I run nails down the pale softness of her cheek, allowing a smile that feels more like a grimace. "We aren't going to die." I can barely recognize my own voice, so out of tune with the rest of me that it's nothing more than a hoarse, gravelly waterfall. With a disgusting amount of effort I haul myself sitting up and close my eyes, running a palm down my face. My body flinches without my consent as I brush the tender part of my neck, feeling the pulsating heat that radiates from the area. They haven't split for days and are beginning to heal, but I'm paranoid about even a feather-light touch. Kaya's feverish heat burns the tips of my fingers, and I try hard to remember that distant piece of advice. It's like wading through a thick fog - I most probably have a sky-rocketing fever along with her. What am I supposed to do?

My hands shake freely as they pool in my lap, staring hard at the distant wall and taking cursory glances over the room. Monochromatic gaze falls upon the bath, and a distinct clicking noise as it falls into place. Of course! How did I forget that?
Trembling like a leaf in the wind, I stagger up on unsteady feet and brace myself against the wall, breathing deep through my nose and trying to ignore the way my ribcage stands out so starkly against the elasticity of my skin. The worn carpet sinks under the fragile weight of my feet until I touch cool tile, fumbling with the knobs to let loose a torrent of ice-cold water. Unbidden I yelp as it hits me in the face and the sudden start of action makes my head swim. I barely have time to stagger to the window before my stomach heaves and blood gushes out into the bushes two stories below. It's morbidly amusing how, despite the fact that I'm used to this part of the disease, it's my blood and not somebody else's that's spiralling down.

Somehow I manage to flail with the dials enough that the water is invitingly cold, and I strip down to nothing more than my underwear. I've long since past the point of modesty - hell, I'm not modest when I'm healthy - and as I stagger back into the bedroom, I'm struck with how sickly the place smells. Popping my head out of the window for a moment really shows a difference, and my nose wrinkles on its own. Vision expanding and retracting according to my footsteps, I grasp Kaya's clothes and tug feebly, growling my discontent when they won't lift. "Bath." I mumble, making an effort to be coherent. "Go. Now."

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[OOC: Gross. Note that it says occasional blood 'vomiting' for girls, which means that they don't do it often, but when they do it's not just a little coughing. It's, like, everywhere. *makes a face*]