Subject: [OTL]: If I Should Die Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 05:37:28 -0700 From: "Amanda Sichter." A short moment out of the madness that is Real Life and this tiny little story managed to come to life. Luba, I hope this helps . Continuity: After XM#102. My take on what's happened to poor forgotten Cecilia and Detective Charlotte Jones, sealed in a building with the Neo and *still* waiting for the X-Men to come and save them. Disclaimer: They belong to Marvel - although Marvel appears to have forgotten them. If I Should Die Sleep. She needed to sleep. To sleep was to die. She had learned that the hard way. Cecilia balled her fist, drove it hard against the wall. Her force-field sprang up, protected the skin of her hand, but the spike of pain that shot up her arm jolted her consciousness, brought her back from the threatening blackness at the edge of her vision. ~Can't sleep. Oh, God, save me. I can't sleep.~ She hadn't slept. Not in days. Six days, maybe. She wasn't sure any more, had lost time, so much time, in fighting and running and holding off the Neo. Lost it in the mad, crazed rush of Rave. Rave had kept her alive. Each vial she had injected had given her the strength to go on, to keep fighting and running, to keep her awake. Each vial had eroded further her self-control, her integrity, her sanity. Each vial was empty. Cecilia ran her hands again over her uniform, through pockets, patted over and over again, searching, hoping, praying, there would be one more vial, one lost, hidden vial. There wasn't one, just as there hadn't been one the last time she searched, the last hundred times she searched. She was going to fall asleep. Charlotte had fallen asleep. Cecilia had tried so hard to save her, stood guard above her unconscious body, kicked it and begged and cried and pleaded with her to wake up as the Neo closed in, as Domina's cat-smug grin shone palely through the dark. Cecilia had prepared to fight, to fling her Rave-enhanced powers into battle to save her friend - until Barbican had simply moved the walls and locked her in a small, square box of bricks, a mere foot from Charlotte and utterly unable to help her. The Neo had woken Charlotte. The Neo kept her there, just on the other side of the wall, and played with her while Cecilia listened and pounded and wept. The screaming had gone on for hours. When it ended the walls had melted away and Cecilia was left with the small, sodden thing that had been Charlotte. She had injected herself with Rave. Again. She didn't want to fall asleep. She didn't want to think. Rave meant she didn't have to think. She could run and fight and scream and howl, but she didn't have to think at all. Didn't have to think about Charlotte dying. Didn't have to think about Wolverine's promise to return. Didn't have to think about killing Jaeger. Didn't have to think about killing Static. ~It was his fault.~ The words burned in her thoughts, a frantic denial of the guilt that tried to consume her. She was a doctor, sworn to heal, and she had killed twice in less than a week. The Neo liked to play. Domina had herded her, used Barbican to alter the structure of the building until it became a maze, a rat-run of traps and dead-ends, constantly shifting walls driving her wherever they wanted her. Driving her into the arms of whichever Neo Domina felt had earned a chance to play with her. Rave had saved her. Rave had given her the strength to hold them off. She needed Rave. Static had cornered her in a small room. ~It wasn't my fault.~ She was crying now, caught in the pain of thinking, feeling again. Static had messed with her powers, shorted them out. He couldn't have expected what happened. Couldn't have known that her shield would flare, bloom, spike, shatter. If he'd known he wouldn't have had his head taken off by a shard of her force-field, flung wide as it had ripped itself to pieces. ~Oh, God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to kill him. Oh, God, help me. I've failed you.~ She wanted her Rave. She wanted to deaden all the feelings again, deaden all the pain, lose herself in action and the blissful freedom of non-thought. She wanted Rave. ~Oh, God, help me. I'm an addict.~ She was going to fall asleep. Blackness hovered again at the edge of her vision, limbs almost too weary to move. It'd be alright. If she could just get some Rave. Cecilia watched fascinated as her hands scratched at her arms again, at the itch that spread beneath them, the fiery sting of withdrawal. The itch grew worse, she scratched harder, until she could watch the lace of blood trickle down her arms and drip to the floor. ~NO!~ The thought was so explosive that it almost hurled Cecilia to her feet. ~No! I'm not going to die a junkie. I'm not going to die mewling for a fix.~ She had seen too many of them in hospital. Woken from overdoses by Narcan, they had attacked the doctors for taking away their wonderful high, not caring that it would have killed them. Some of them had been begging for money before they even made it out of the door, begging from the other ER patients. She was not going to die like that. The way before her was open, had opened up while she was curled up in a ball of self-mutilating pity on the floor. Barbican was playing again, driving her where they wanted. Cecilia had learned. It was better to follow the rules, play their game. They only came one at a time if you played the game. If you refused, they came in force. The way was open. Cecilia ran. ~Don't need Rave. Don't need Rave.~ The thought pounded in time with her steps, grew ragged as quickly as her steps grew ragged, as she staggered from side to side in the corridor, limbs drunk with exhaustion. ~I'm not going to fail. Not again. Please, God, help me. Let the X-Men come. They promised they would come. I've failed them, I know, I let Charlotte die, but please, God, let them save me. I don't want to die, God.~ She didn't know whether Barbican placed the rock there deliberately, whether it had just fallen when the room had re-shaped itself, but it turned beneath her feet, caught her so neatly she had no time to stop herself from falling. Her force-field protected her from the impact but the pain drove the breath from her in a heavy whump. The darkness that had threatened came again, plucked at the edges of her vision, closed in on her. She was falling asleep. For a moment Cecilia clawed feebly at the wall, tried desperately to lever herself to her feet, but her strength was gone, the crash of Rave-withdrawal shutting down her systems one by one. She wanted to pray to God, but could not think of any words through the tears of failure and humiliation, until at last the simplest prayer from childhood came back to her, the first prayer, the first plea. ~As I lay me down to sleep I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep And if I should die, before I wake I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.~ She could hear laughing, footsteps, but blackness rolled in, and she could not move her limbs from beneath the heavy chains of sleep. ~I pray thee, Lord.~ ~If I should die.~ ~I don't want to die.~ ~Oh, please, God.~ ~Oh, God.~ The End Amanda wolf@ozdocs.net.au Worried you can't get published? The worst lines in published works - a series. "Only in the music of his screams would the squatting toad of hatred be banished from her mind."