awoken • [dars!]

[∂αмєη]

c a y d e n. r a s k e.

Colours exploded throughout the sky, lighting the late evening darkness with brilliant flashes of exploding energy. Storms had grown more and more common in the past few weeks, keeping the streets of Six empty as the bustling brainiacs bundled themselves into labs, offices and study rooms. Carnations sat upon the window sill - Dianthus caryophyllus if Cayden could correctly recall - juxtaposing with the violence that sat on the other side of the glass. Water poured slowly from the cup and into the flower pot, grasped tightly in the young boy's rough fingers whilst his eyes trained on the lightning that arched its way around the various buildings. His team's lab was on a higher floor, giving quite the view to the dazed scientist as rain tore through the skies. The interior skin of his cheek rested between two solid teeth, biting down ever so slightly. Yet another day passed and Cayden Raske was nowhere near a breakthrough on his current project.

The idea was to find an ointment that dealt better with dry skin, or something along those lines. He toned the team leader out when he said ointment, knowing full well they would find nothing that worked any better than what already existed. Structures flew through his mind as he debated different ways to construct a medication, and yet not a single one stood out to him. Perhaps I need to dust off my medicine books and see if there's something in there that can help. Which is why he found himself absentmindedly packing his things into the messenger bag that he then hung over his shoulder. His fingers brushed along the light on his desk, flicking it off and removing much of the light from the room. At this hour of the evening, he was the last one there and so he locked up the door with a key he had hanging from his neck, giving it a push to check that it was indeed locked.

He stepped out into the rain, holding his bag above his head to keep as much water as possible from getting on him. It didn't do very much in the way of helping, his white lab coat soon having drops of water dot across it. Shoes splashed across the puddles that had already formed as he made his way across the grassy exterior in the direction of the hospital. It was nearby, only a two minute walk from door to door, and so he soon found himself arriving through the doors of the medical clinic. Six were well known for science and medicine, often mixing the two as much as they could; that was Cayden's particular interest, at the very least. He found himself working in both the locations with content, not being bothered by the deadlines often imposed as they were encouraged to make their quotas.

There wasn't a whole lot of action occurring in the main lobby of the room and so he continued down the hall to the back office he could leave his things in. He opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it behind him. Placing his bag upon a chair, he removed the lab coat and took another from the wall with a different insignia along the breast. It confirmed that they were, in fact, working for the Hospital of District Six rather than being in the Eastern Lab of District Six. As if that wasn't clear enough already, what with all the medical contraptions and sick patients. While some Districts were kept to healers using herbs and weird concoctions, Six was a little better supplied with ways to provide medical help. After all, they made most of the medications not even a stone's throw away from the hospital. It tended to help.

Escaping back out into the hall, he continued quietly towards his next destination. His job in the hospital was to help transfer files and medications to the proper rooms, administering them and simple tests when requested. He wasn't a doctor, yet, but he had been given enough responsibility to do the minor tasks if needed. Most of the time he was sent into the coma wing. Less to screw up, I suppose. Less to deal with. He quite enjoyed the silence, and it was fun to imagine what every single person was like outside of their eternal sleep. Some would surely be geniuses, others not so much. A few of them stood out in the mind of Cayden, igniting an interest that would never be quelled. The dead sleep while the living walk free.

And yet his eyes were pulled away from a point ahead of him as he passed by a windowed waiting room for a specialist who sat in an adjoining office, instead becoming fixated on one person who sat within. Flicking through the files he had within his hands, he came across one intended for this very doctor and so he turned towards the entrance with a smirk. Do the dead awake from their slumber to walk free amongst the living? He stepped closer to the door of the office, seeing that the particular doctor was accompanied by another patient at the moment. His eyes turned once more to the woman that sat within, the dead girl he had seen many times before as he walked through the sleeping ward. "Uh, how long ago did she go in to see him?" Can the dead speak after they'd lost life?

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

. WILLA .
take these broken wings
and learn to fly

Breathe out,

Breathe in.

Over and over again I followed instructions made by my doctor. "Open your mouth," he would say, and I would. "Look straight ahead," that one was hard with a light pointed into my eye. "hold out your arm," easy. Time consuming, but easy. All of this, all the poking and prodding, was the hospital's way of assuring I was not a fluke. They still seemed to be even more shocked about me waking up than I was, and it happened almost a month before.

I had been released to go home with mom and Dad. It was weird because to me, I had just fallen asleep, and when I woke the next morning, they were older with worry-lines and hardened smiles. To them, I went to sleep and I slept, and I slept, and I slept, and the dreams I had were not like any dreams I have ever had before.

It got sort of difficult to remember them all; Mostly, my thoughts were a stream of nonsense. The one dream that was constant, the one that was always moving, though, was not a dream at all. It lived in the darkest, most terrifying of my sick little brain. I was always surrounded by trees and the birds would sing and dance and I would hear the voices: distant at first, but coming for me. I would run as fast as I could but running never did me any good. They would always find me, trying to cross a stream with a fallen log, wading through a creek, hiding in the bushes, jumping from one side of a gaping hole to the other, they were always there, as if awaiting my hardship.

They all wore masks, and they would always take me. I wouldn't hear the birds sing anymore. I wouldn't hear the leaves tremble at the whispers of wind. I would hear them breathing against their masks instead. Heavy, savage-like. Terrifying. One they dragged me to the appropriate place, (a clearing of rock and wind and a slightly cooler temperature,) they would take off their masks and I would stare at the empty black faces with no eyes, no noses, no mouths, yet still somehow breathing. Then they would raise their clubs into the air as a unit.

And they would strike me down.

The pain was always worst in my head, an agonizing pulsing beating, like my blood was laced with ice water and my brain couldn't take it. Eventually everything would go numb and though I could still hear them beating me in the distance, I didn't hurt anymore. I would open my eyes, and be lying face down on the forest floor, and the birds would resume their singing, and I would hear them coming for me again.

Physically, I was fine after I woke up. Physically, I felt like I could move mountains. Mentally, I was drained. My eyes had dark circles under them. I had to take medicine to sleep. My fear of the dreams returning had caused insomnia. Wasn't that ironic? The girl in the coma couldn't sleep.

"Had any bad dreams?" he would always ask, and I would always tell him the truth: "Actually, no. not yet." He would always tap his clipboard with the back end of an ink pen from where he sat across from me. "Then chances are you won't have them. Remember, your fear is in your head. You can gain control over it now. The ball is on your court now." When she wouldn't speak he would offer a small half-smile, and he would scribble down another prescription for my weekly supplements of sleeping meds, and I would be on my way and I wouldn't see him again for another week.

When I walked out into the hall, I was met with someone and I felt like I knew him. No, I did know him. I just had no earthly idea how I knew him, or when I had met him. It wasn't that he looked familiar, as much as I saw the way he was looking at me. It was as if I was a walking, talking corpse, or a best friend of his that he had lost touch with, or someone he believed to look drastically different than they did. Whatever the case, I knew him because he knew me.

I watched him with a close eye. He had dark eyes, wild and warm, and a wide mouth that was slightly ajar, revealing a set of perfectly average white teeth. He was dressed in scrubs and I didn't know why but I found it slightly off-putting. He seemed more the type to fail his science classes than prosper in them, but then again, I seemed the type to prosper in my classes and well, I didn't seem to remember much of anything I had learned before the accident. It wasn't a completely blank slate, but it certainly wasn't as full as it had once been.

I felt nervous when I thought I saw his eyes flick down to the prescription order in my hand, so I shoved it into my pocket. "Hello." I said with an uncomfortable smile.

Breathe out,

Breathe in.

Just like the doctor told me to do.

[∂αмєη]

c a y d e n. r a s k e.

A squeaky voice left the chapped lips of the woman in the room, her voice quiet yet forceful. "I haven't the time to keep tabs on strangers, sir." Well hello there ma'am, I see that someone buggered up your breakfast this morning. Cayden gave a silent nod to accept the words she spoke, knowing that the coat that rested upon his shoulders meant he had to be polite to all that visited, especially if they were District citizens. They were tightly knit for the most part, and he was content with keeping it that way. Not a single wave would be voluntarily made in the river of life that Cayden Raske found himself floating down. He bobbed along in the water, his eyes trained towards the expanse of the sky.

She sat with the doctor behind closed doors, speaking, surely, about having been dead to the world not too long ago. When was it that you saw her last? He recalled one time when he found comfort in sitting just outside the room, sketching away detailed structures of simple medications on a small pad of paper. The silence coming from the other side of the window felt noisy to him as all the thoughts and dreams were being screamed from each and every person. Cayden heard them all, or so he liked to think. He most certainly heard the young woman that was not even a couple of feet from where he stood. Something about her spoke to the quiet boy, and he soon found himself drawing out what could be the next medication used in treating involuntary comas.

There was some sort of fascination he had with sleep; that momentary death of the body whilst the brain was at its peak of life. He felt fascinated with the girl, seeing the way the machine she was hooked up to would respond during what must have been a rough thought of hers. His soul reached out, but found nobody there. The corpse walked once more, and yet he couldn't hear her thoughts and dreams any more. All Cayden heard was silence; he never particularly enjoyed silence.

Edges of his mind were beginning to become more sharpened and he became aware rather quickly. Taking his eyes off the girl within, he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the tiny voice recorder issued to every member of his team for frequent updates on their discoveries. With the click of a button, he spoke into it. "Test number seven results in a negative. Effects lasted for an hour and were neither strong nor suitable." He opened his mouth to speak once more, until the doorknob twisted and swung inwards. It was replaced with the presence of the dead girl. Her eyes are a lot nicer opened.

She spoke then, her voice not quite sure of the situation. "Hello." Hi. You don't know me but I know you. I've been helping with ensuring you were still alive, though not very much. I've read your chart. He didn't quite know what to say, and so he simply smiled at her before turning his eyes to the doctor. With a nod, he handed him the file that he was going to give, returning a gaze back to the woman. Hello miss. How was your sleep? Do you feel refreshed? Do you feel alive? Her voice echoed around in his mind, bouncing around the softened sides of his subdued brain. The dead can speak now, does that shock you? Is this world different from yours?

Clarity was beginning to come to him, a feeling he wasn't quite comfortable with. There was something obscure with the feeling of being. Of just existing in the physical world. His mind wished to further explore the other planes of existence instead of being restricted to the one. A world where the dead could walk, talk, look beautiful and enthralling. Not a world where a young woman awoke from a coma and was now standing before a boy she knew nothing of. His head was nodding then, he realized, and so he stopped and softened his lips to speak. "Hi. I see that you're up. I helped survey the lot of you a few times and recognized you from out in the corridor." It was a quiet voice that left him, but a subtle smile played on his licked lips. "Are you keeping well?"