Chapter Two: Doctor Fluffy Freckle Bear
Floating disconnected from a body made of brittle glass and rusted metal, wrapped tight in barbed-wire—one would be considered lucky they could not feel the pain; Clint was so distant he could neither appreciate his numbness, nor even fear the idea that this might be his death. It was silent, so silent as he drifted far off from his physical form; as silent as the First Day, the day his mother stopped speaking, moving her lips without sound, opening her mouth wider, wider, and wider still, until she must have been screaming, but he still couldn’t hear her, still couldn’t hear a damn thing—and it was dark away from his body as well; not like the darkness of night, but something more sinister—this dark was a curling, twining, endless darkness, like so much black ink of the void.
There was nothing where he floated, not even himself—words were lost, thoughts inconceivable—there was no being; it was all an abstract, vague sort of idea, something he had no cognitive awareness available to think on. There was nothing, and so he was nothing.
There was no way of knowing how much time had gone by—had it been minutes, seconds, hours, since this man had been left, ebbing lifeless on the muddy ground of an alley-way? Days? Years? There was no way of knowing.
The first sentience that came to this drifting, dying body, was a sensation—gentle, soft, like the brush of a feather, the touch of a butterflies wings; it whispered across sensitive flesh, nowhere in particular, just somewhere to be felt, reaching through the darkness, the silent, numbing darkness, and kissing him aware. It became a grounding center, something for him to grab hold of—grab hold of and pull.
The first few drops of sensation—the feeling of cool air across skin, of the touch of a hand across the forehead—were like raindrops, pitter-pattering over the expanse of his mind, piano keys stroked into small, strumming sound along his cognizance. But as his mind began to come to speed, as he became aware of the air being dragged into his lungs, the staccato of his heart in his chest, stuttering and small, the feeling of fingers at his hair-line, the shift of his muscles as he moved…he also became aware of the pain—like sudden red-bursts of agony blooming across his shoulder and stomach, jagged lines of epileptic-fit-inducing strobes, red hot fire brimming across his body—and the air dragged into his lungs was forced out as though it were steam from a tea-kettle, high-pitched and deafingly agonized, though he still heard nothing. He merely felt his own throat rub raw.
Through that sudden burn, forcing out everything, obscuring thought and reason, a small, imperceptible pin-prick forced its way into the junction between his neck and shoulder, and within seconds a wave of ice-water doused the flames, once more lulling Clint into the silent oasis of black, impenetrable sleep.
Clint stayed in a fitful, half-lucid slumber, plagued by fever and nightmares, for three days and four nights. Coated in sweat as his body struggled to fight off the slow-growing infection, his hands became claws, digging into sheets—his teeth ground together viciously as his muscles cramped, dehydrated and weak—his body twisted and writhed like a beheaded serpent as the itching burn of the infection ravaged his limbs. When he would become aware, hazy and disoriented, he would fight demons, tooth and nail, grapple with cruel, hissing creatures that smelled of gin and tonic, with grey eyes burning in sunken-in sockets. And with each unconscious movement he would reopen his wounds, scratching inflamed flesh across rough bandages, pulling at carefully lain stitches, bruising elbows and shins as he kicked and flailed. And each time, when he could no longer find the will to fight, when his body had no strength left to struggle, he would lie back, panting and whimpering like a maimed fawn, mewling for relief from the hurt, relief from the monsters, and weep.
