"the first miracle was that you were born" | HEART GAME

[miraculess]

Th- thump.

Th- thump.

Th- thump.

Darkness. Quiet. A heartbeat. Your heartbeat. Slowly, the murmur of sound. Footsteps. Voices—

Comments

[miraculess]

...oh.

She's dead, isn't she... why did xe think she was only sleeping?

[mentifact]

[ hhhhow much rigor mortis is there. can I nudge her over onto her back and fold her hands over her chest ]

[miraculess]

None at all— her body provides no resistance to being moved. The sound of the fabric of her lab coat rustling sounds eerily like whispers in the quiet of the room...

Her coat is missing a button.

[mentifact]

[ tries to brush off some of the dust while xe's at it, too, though considerately of where xe's touching ]

I'm sorry there isn't much I can do for you. At least, I'm sure you being somewhere like this means you haven't been forgotten.

[ because this is probably a dream, right. peers curiously at the place where the button should be for a moment, before starting the struggle to get to xyr feet again ]

At least, maybe I could find your other button...?

[ gonna check on the table xe woke up on and the table of scalpels first since they're right here ]

[miraculess]

There's less dust on her than the surroundings; it looks like someone else has had the same idea, although not especially recently.

There's no sign of the button on either the table or the tray.

[mentifact]

[ IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS ROOM... looks on the floor... ]

[miraculess]

Just dust... and you.

[mentifact]

[ pats xemself down just in case xe accidentally was sleeping on it and got it caught on xemself somewhere ]

[miraculess]

There's something in one of your pockets. (...did you have pockets before...?)

[mentifact]

[ I DO NOW!!! empties pockets ]

[miraculess]

Your fingers close around it. There's enough time to register that yes, it is a button, before a sense of regret and unhappy determination overwhelms you.

This is your fault. You made a terrible mistake, and you can't take it back. But... you can make sure you never do it again. You just have to make sure you remember.

1/3

[mentifact]

[ oh.

oh.

should I keep this...? if I give it back to her after all, will she really be forgotten? ]

[mentifact]

[ ... unfurls xyr fingers from the button

after a long pause ]

Sorry. In the end, I couldn't find it, after all.

[ straightens up and heads back to the scalpel table, picking them up to test the sharpness ]

[mentifact]

[ even if they're all fairly dull, xe just picks out whichever is the sharpest and slices off a long lock of hair, twisting it into an acceptably singular cord of sorts

and goes back to the body to loop it through the empty buttonhole ]

Maybe this will be okay instead.

[miraculess]

Testing the scalpels was perhaps difficult to do with numb fingertips, but in the end they were all easily sharp enough for the job xe wanted to use them for. ...She doesn't respond, of course.

Xe's been there long enough for the silence (those whispers?) to start being oppressive, though. Maybe xe should go...

[mentifact]

[ it would be a little scary if the corpse actually responded to me talking to her this whole time

takes the scalpel and looks around for a door ]

[miraculess]

Well, considering where you are...

The door is directly across the room from the surgery table. Xe looks up just in time to catch a glimpse of someone's back as they hurriedly leave, lab coat flaring behind them.

[mentifact]

[ ... just how long were they watching me stumble around for a button

FFFFOLLOWS? ]

[miraculess]

The room exits into a hallway, with several closed doors along it. Again, xe's just in time to catch sight of the person rushing through the opposite door.

[mentifact]

[ WELL

LET'S DO A CHASE SCENE WHY NOT ]

[miraculess]

Xe gets about halfway down the hall before the quality of the silence changes, making the hair on the back of xyr neck stand up. It's hard to say exactly how xe knows, but—

Something is behind xem. Xe can hear it breathing.

[mentifact]

[ oh. well.

it's not that that's not a little unsettling, but-

>turn around to maybe talk to breathing presence? ]

[miraculess]

There's something crouched over the woman's body.

It's almost painful to look at, the form shifting and distorting as xe watches; it's like trying to focus on something in a pitch-black room, or perhaps something viewed through heat haze. Xe can make out claws, though, and glittering red eyes... and then sharp, sharp teeth, as it bares them in a parody of a grin and starts to rip into the corpse, deliberately mangling it.

[mentifact]

[ oh. ]

... Wait--

[ it's a delayed reaction, not nearly fast enough, but xe turns fully and runs back to them, reaching out as if to. push the thing off ]

Please wait!

[miraculess]

It laughs, a soft, almost familiar sounding huff— and the door slams shut in xyr face. As the lock clicks, the alarms that had woken xem up shrill back to life at a painful, intolerable volume.