Final Christmas || Scaraven Modern AU

9

A/N
i know not many people were reading anymore but for anyone who cared about the story i'm very sorry for not updating in a long time.
i needed a break because too many things are going on for me at the moment and it isn't getting better. i'm going to try my best to continue now as i still have most of the main plot points planned out. thank you to whoever is still reading.

scara's pov

Over the weekend I spent most of my time thinking. I thought about my current situation, the people around me, my whole life really. And I decided that it would be best to end it.
My only regret is that a mother will never find her son, and Nahida's efforts will have been wasted. But I have been doomed from the start.
If I don't die, the Doctor will surely find me again and use me until I do. I'd rather die here than become his puppet, be under his control and waste away until he discards me.

Venti is still in the hospital, and I've been too busy planning to come visit. I can use his absence to my advantage, and this outcome will probably be best for him too so he stops getting hurt because of me.
Just outside the school gates is the blonde haired girl once again who was re-applying missing posters of her brother — my entire plan depends on whether she accepts my deal or not.

Her and her brother are in a special course that goes on regular outdoors school trips, and the course is full of the year's fit survival expert kids that took past electives to train for it. The school likes to paint the trips as some big adventure, but they're really just simple camps, perhaps a bit rougher than regular ones but nothing too mystical.
The training areas and main student lobby for this course is held in the highest floor — and on that floor's balcony is a garden. A garden with a tree standing around average size.

I approach the girl as she turns around
"Hi. Lumine right? I'd like to talk to you about something."
"Oh, alright, what?"
"I have information on your brother."
Her eyes widen at that and she stares at me intensely yet still sounds rather calm
"What did you find out?" she asks
"I'll tell you, but I want to make a deal."
She looks a little confused .. "Well, alright then"
"I'll tell you what I know on the condition you take me to the fifth floor and let me inside. I need something important from there, and I figured, why not make an exchange?"
Her eyes go from wide to narrow, probably speculating what I need to be in there for.
"I'll let you in, but if you get caught you better not say it was me" she says, giggling slightly. She's smiling but her eyes are dull, she must be having a difficult time.

As she walks me to the building and up the stairs I tell her the 'story' hoping she'll be satisfied
"I'm sure you know Venti, the boy who sings and travels around.."
"Yeah, he talks to everyone pretty much."
"He came back from a trip last night and told me he spotted a blonde guy about two towns east — said he looked just like your brother but he got lost in the crowd too quickly to catch up."
All of that is complete bullshit, but she looks at me excitedly and thanks me for my help anyway. Poor girl, she's not going to find him anywhere around there. At least when I'm gone I won't have to worry about it anymore.

After four flights of stairs, she opens the door to the fifth floor and I step inside.
"Don't you dare break anything", she whispers, and shuts the door softly.
There's camping equipment and books and what not scattered all over — but my eyes are set on the glass doors leading outside.
The balcony extends pretty far out, and conveniently planted near the railing is a solid tree in a massive looking pot. The trunk is a little thin, so going to the top is risky, but it should give me just enough height to almost guarantee my death, and on the off chance I survive the fall, I'll bleed out within minutes.

I slowly and quietly make my way up the trunk until i'm balancing on the highest stable branch I could spot. I don't let myself think about what I'm doing for one second else I might suddenly change my mind.
I wait for the few students below to leave, and fall head first.

—

I can't see, I can't hear, I can't feel anything around me or move, and yet I can think.
It feels like an eternity since my death. Like i've only just awoken, but at the same time I've been here forever. Perhaps this is an afterlife?
Infinite darkness and stuck with my own thoughts. I might as well have gone to hell.

Why am I still here? What am I doing? Am I alive? ..... I wonder what's going on in the living world. Perhaps the police are still scraping up my splattered remains. Perhaps Venti got out of hospital and heard the news...
It's pretty calming to be dead.

I feel something for once in forever — a sort of light floating mixed with a tingling.
Then slowly, I start to hear. I can hear buzzing very faintly, as though it's coming from miles away.
I run. My nonphysical body is drawn to the noise, and I step closer and closer, traveling through an abyss of darkness. Perhaps the dead are able to dream?
The buzzing gets louder.
I see light, blue light. Not through my eyes, but I can sense it there, in the back of my mind.
Everything begins to get clearer and more confusing. I feel now as though I'm being tugged away from my content abyss — something is dragging me into the light. I don't want to go. I try to escape it's grasp but I can't. I have no control. I don't want to go back yet, I'm not ready, I tried so hard...

There's nothing I can do until I'm dragged right back into my body. Why am I not allowed to die yet? All I've done is hurt people, my entire life. Is this not what I deserve? Or am I so much of a monster, that I would deserve worse than death?

As I regain consciousness the buzzing grows clearer and clearer. My eyelids twitch and I bring them to a squint, the light is burning. I can feel my body flat on it's back, but moving my limbs is too difficult. Something is pressed against my arm — I can't tell what, because my whole body is so numb. Above me a blurry figure stands with a wide grin. The Doctor. Before I can react, my eyelids feel heavy, and a leathery glove shuts them closed.

—

When I wake once more I know I am alive. Everything from before feels fuzzy and distant, as though I just dreamed the entire day. When my eyes finally open themselves the small white haired woman comes into focus. Nahida is seated on a chair next to the bed in my room which I've found myself in.
She shifts her focus to me and jumps off the chair

"Did you sleep well?", she says softly
"What's going on?" I avoid her question, my voice sounds so raspy and I immediately start coughing
"You were gone for two days, and I found you lying on the doorstep this morning. I was getting a little worried.."
"I'm fine don't worry about me."

Later that day when I finally drag myself out of bed, I go straight to the mirror. There isn't a single scratch or scar or dent in my body. I'd understand if my bones didn't break but what the hell? Is my fucking skin artificial too now??
Everything down to the random bruises on my legs are completely gone.

I'll always be his machine, wont I. As long as he's around, he won't let me out.