Era

19

Consciousness is an elusive, but precious commodity. The more she reaches for it, clenches her fist around it in a vain attempt to keep it close, the more it slips through her fingers like so much sand.

Era is conscious, now. She'd prefer not to be.

The steel presses harshly against her back, blood flows thick and unchecked where her straps dig deep furrows into her wrists, and Era knows, she knows that there is nothing to do but wait for darkness to take her once again. Screams or pleas will not move the figures who surround her. At best they will be met with cold indifference; at worst they will only incite more pain.

This is better than the darkness, than the shadows that lurk at the edges of her dreams, because this is real and here and she can see it and touch it and feel it tear her apart without the sickening addition of whatever a twisted imagination could supply. Here, her mind was her own. In the darkness, it was just another instrument of her unraveling.

It's her fault that she's back on the table. She knows this, knows that if she could just be better then she wouldn't have to suffer like this. That it is a mercy that they are bothering to do this at all. She is broken, and they are going to fix her.

She knows she should be thankful.

***

Era awoke to the scent of old blood masked by too much disinfectant, to the faint drip of an IV and the awful tone of a heart monitor. Instinctually her arms jerked upward, but found themselves unchecked by restraints. Odd.

There was an IV in her arm. Bandages as well. Phoenix had never given her the luxury of bandages, had rarely given her so much as a suture unless her organs might spill out without them. Solution: this was not Phoenix.

Yet, supplied an unhelpful voice at the back of her mind. Not yet, little bird.

"Shut up." Saying it out loud did little to banish the encroaching thoughts, but it did confirm that she could speak without repercussion. Era sat up in her bed, noting the firm mattress and the pillow her head had been resting on. Another comfort that strengthened her conviction. This was just an ordinary hospital, she would not be fixed here, there was no need to panic.

Because Era was panicking. Slowly, in the manner of a pot about to boil over, but surely nonetheless. Memory was an abstract concept, hazy and drug-fogged, as if she were viewing it through a smokey room.

How did I get here?

Era breathed, clenched her fists in the blanket—a blanket, what was this, a five star hotel?—and carefully began to sift through the countless boxes scattered about her mind.

Getting captured by villains, yes, she remembered that. Being dragged off to the USJ in a harebrained attempt to kill All Might, that all seemed familiar.

Eraserhead. Shit, shit, fucking Eraserhead. Was he okay? She needed to—

The door to her room opened, and Era startled before stilling herself once more.

"Oh, you're awake?" A man, a familiar man, who is he? Plain, unassuming, long tan coat and a hat tucked under his arm... "They told me you wouldn't be up for a while."

There was someone behind him, tall, lanky, a gaunt face with sunken eyes that held brilliant blue pupils. Blond hair, hunched posture, also familiar and why couldn't she fucking remember—

"Should I get the nurse?" said the blonde, but the first man shook his head before walking across the room and settling down in a chair.

"They said that she's stable and perfectly fine. They're just keeping her here so they can keep her under observation," he said it pointedly, as if this was an argument they'd had before. Turning to her, the man shot her a smile that Era could tell was well-practiced. "Hey there. I'm Detective Tsukauchi, and this here is my... partner, Yagi. I'm just here to ask you a few questions about the USJ incident. Would that be alright?"