A change in status quo

Ch 4: wake up

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*** Content warning: graphic description of violence/blood. ***
Also thanks to my friend for writing this part out :)

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Espresso opened his eyes, but it wasn't to what he had expected.. 

He opened his eyes to what appeared to be his body, or at least what he assumed his body looked like from behind.
The dark gray floors of his lab had never looked so haunting. His head laid limp against the cold stone, his hair draped across the floor and swirled in a slowly growing pool of blood and glass like some morbid curtain, and he didn't like the implications. Blood trailed from his nose and across his upper lip telling of more possible damage to his head than he could see at just a glance. He noted absently that his glasses were nowhere to be seen.

His cloak was torn and in ashes, shards of glass left ugly tears in the fabric from where they were embedded into his body, and patches of red angry burns covered the exposed pieces of flesh he could see. His whole person was covered in blood, the amount he would expect to see in some gruesome accident. It didn't belong in his lab like this.

Espresso grimaced in shocked horror at the sight of himself, his own emotions spiraling in a horrific mix of negativity and disgust. Unable to take the sight of his mutilated counterpart and the nauseating fear ripping a hole into his stomach he turned away, desperately trying to find some semblance of an answer to what had happened.

He looked up to the wall above his counterpart, his eyes zeroing in on the football shaped splatter of blood that now decorated it from where his head had impacted. The red trailed down the wall and seeped into the groves of the wood, staining it as red as the floor now was.

Espresso shook his head and turned away trembling at the growing horror and fear, he shifted his attention to the lab equipment.
The heater at the back of the lab that exploded was hissing out a black smog that escaped through the chimney above, the metal of the casing twisted and deformed like a child's clay toy.
The surrounding equipment was also damaged from the explosion of fire and glass. No doubt all of the sensitive equipment contained in his lab had been irreversibly damaged.

Espresso couldn't take it anymore, it was too much, he raised his trembling hands and pressed his palms into his eyes to try and waylay the oncoming panic and to block out the world around him.

Except, as his hands collided with his face, he felt nothing. When he looked down towards his own feet he felt disoriented at being able to see through himself. His own body reminded him of a blur of smudged ink.

Was he dead?

"No.no.no.no.no. This can't be happening!" Espresso's eyes widened, and his panic and horror increased. He couldn't utter a word while looking over his counterpart, his voice and thoughts having been stolen from his throat, but seeing his own sense of self being distorted in such a way jolted him out of such a state.

He didn't know what to do, he didn't know what he should do and he could think through the fear clearly enough to figure it out. He just closed his eyes, curling over himself trembling and, desperate for the pitch blackness to consume his view, he couldn't face this, he couldn't deal with it, he didn't know how to he didn't want to.

"Stop. Stop it! Make it stop! Please!! I can't take this anymore!"
Espresso pleaded to the open room, to the gods above, or anyone who would listen. Maybe if he asked for it enough, asked hard enough, begged with everything he was. Maybe then he would be able to make all of this stop, make all of it go away. To make everything go back to how it was. He didn't want to die, he didn't want to disappear, he just wanted things to be okay. He hoped things would be okay again. He begged and pleaded and hoped. At this point it was all he could do.