Hardened (A Yogscast Fanfiction)

23

The next thing I remembered was spending what felt like an eternity in a hazy, lucid state; I couldn't tell what was or wasn't real in my feverish transitions between dream and reality. I don't know how long I stayed on that bed sobbing, vomiting, and hallucinating. At certain points I would wake up with a bowl of mushroom strew next to me, but they seemed to come irregularly and half the time I was too sick to eat it, so that didn't give me a very accurate measure of time.

I couldn't remember where I was or why I was here, but for some odd reason I didn't care. The doors were always locked- I didn't even need to get up to test it- and besides the bed I was on there was nothing else in the cold, stone room. However, everything seemed off about my surroundings; the stone wasn't anything I had ever seen before, and I swore it would move as I stared at it from my position on the bed. The air was different too; even when I was in the Hat Corp compound or mining, there was never this oppressive electricity to it. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the fresh air of the outdoors, but I would have rather been back underground than feeling like my skin was always shivering with electricity.

Ross would visit me something, but never would he stay very long. His voice was always gentle and soothing, just like I remembered, but I had always had a hard time looking at his face before my vision started to cloud and spin and I was forced to look away. There were others as well; Smith and Trott, Sjin, Duncan and Kim, even Xephos once. They all sneered and teased me, mocking my weak and pathetic state as I moaned and cried over the loss of my friends and lover. All of their visits came less frequently as I started to feel better, and for that I was thankful.

My fever finally broke just when everything became too unbearable. The next time I woke up my vision had improved and I felt ravaged by hunger, but I was able to think coherently enough to sit up and eat. Of course I was still too weak to stand and lifting my arms and the bowl seemed to exhaust me, but I managed to not spill enough of it to satiate my hunger.

While I waited for anything to happen, I was tortured by my own thoughts. Even with all this time I still couldn't manage to organize everything that seemed to be banging around in my head. I desperately tried to block out the traumatic events I had just recently witnessed, but the happy memories that continued to creep into my mind were even worse. The more I thought about how alone I was, the more I felt myself subconsciously giving up. I could always figure out a way to break out of here, but the thought of having no where to go stopped me from even trying. Did I really want to stumble to another place and blindly form relationships only to have something terrible happen like it did multiple times before? And, if that wasn't the case, would I be able to go back to my old recluse ways after experiencing the beauty that was human interaction?

I had started to entertain myself by tracing the patters on the wall with a finger, since they never seemed to stay the same and it took enough concentration that I wasn't plagued by my lonely monologue. It seemed like another day went by like that before I heard the familiar jingle of keys and light filtered into dim room through the open iron door.

I immediately jumped off the bed as soon as I registered what was happening, but my legs were so weak that I only crashed to the floor. The person in the doorway rushed over to me silently, the only noise was the sound of rustling fabric. Looking up, I realized it wasn't actually a person but a testificate, and he hurriedly set down a bowl of mushroom stew by my bed before dashing over to my side to help me up.

"So... sorry about that," I muttered, my voice hoarse from disuse.

The testificate's eyes crinkled at the corners, and then motioned towards the bed, his other hand still holding onto my elbow for support. He wore all white, similar to our spawn outfits, but as his sleeve pulled back I could see heavy metal bands wrapped around his wrists. I hadn't had much experience with these simple creatures beyond passing through one of their villages that behind Hat Corp, but I knew this wasn't one of their normal outfits. Shuffling back over to the bed and sitting down on the edge, the testificate man bent down to grab the soup and handed it to me, giving me another smile.