Red Line

Author's notes:

Hello everyone!

This was supposed to be a Halloween fic, but I didn't have the time to finish it in time, between university and family stuff. I'm not completely happy with out it came out, but I decided to post it anyway, because I had told myself that I would have contributed to the season mood and so here I am (and I did, even if I'm super late)!

Warning! This fic contains blood, gore, violence, mentions of torture and mad anatomical experiments! If it's not your thing, don't read it!

Questions and comments of every sort (as long as we respect each other) are welcome and encouraged. Feedback is gold for inspiration!

Happy late spooky season!

Disclaimer: the show and the characters belong to the rightful owners.

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"This is all your fault."

The words were spoken in a quiet tone, but they echoed like eerie thunders in the dead silence of the cell. The hoarseness of the voice that had spelled them just made them sound even louder as it cracked at the edge of each syllable. The sharp intake of breath that followed seemed to remain hanging in the still air for a moment too long, causing the lingering tension in the atmosphere to raise even more.

Dib briefly considered chanting out all the curses that were currently rushing through his mind, but he quickly decided against it. His throat was so dry that it hurt every time he breathed in and he was already regretting having spoken that single sentence because it had sent a wave of agony burning down along his trachea and oesophagus. The renewed shock of pain had caught him off guard with its intensity even if he had been expecting it. Everything he did left him aching awfully, even the smaller movement, but clearly he still hadn't learnt to be prepared for how much it hurt each time.

He blinked a few times, rapidly, mostly to try and unload the nervous energy stored in his body without harming himself even more than he had already done. He had given up on trying to clear his sight hours before. Or at least he thought that it had been hours. The truth was that he had no idea of how much time had passed since he had woken up in that silent room, miserable, in pain, freezing and blind.

An unpleasant shiver ran down his spine. When he had realised the latter thing, at first, he had freaked out. He had no idea of what had happened, still didn't, but he had quickly and painfully understood that thrashing around in panic was the worst idea he could have had in his current situation. As soon as he had tried to move, overwhelmed by the sudden and confusing epiphany, he had found himself torn between wanting to scream for the stabbing pain that had blossomed in several spots in his upper body and being unable to do it because his lungs had decided to stop working in that very moment, leaving him paralysed and grasping for oxygen he couldn't get. For several, terrifying seconds, pure terror had gripped at his stomach, causing his guts to twist and deepening the already unbearable agony he had been in. He had truly thought that he would have perished there and then, unable to see, without knowing where he was and why he was dying in the first place.

Then, exactly when his consciousness had started to fade, he had felt something in his chest, like a small discharge of electricity rushing along his nerves, and out of the blue air had flooded inside his starved lungs and his heart had abruptly slowed down, even if the terror had still been pumping in his veins. And yet, not even the revived, far too intense rush of adrenaline that had filled his system, together with the new wave of distressed confusion, had managed to raise his pulse. The beat had remained steady, utterly unaffected by his troubled emotions, and he had felt himself taking in a big gulp of oxygen and then releasing it slowly, before his lungs had started to breathe in and out on their own, with a similar, regular and unchangeable pace.