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xp_logs2003-09-21 08:35 pm
x-crowdofone.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2003-09-21 08:35 pm
Entry tags:
Bad Things Happen.
Jamie takes off after a runaway and has an accident, sometime in the late afternoon before the sun goes down.
Warning: I tried not to go overboard with the descriptive language, but this is not Happy Fun Death, if any really are; I've seen more explicit episodes of ER, though.
Jamie stretched, trying to pop the kinks in another dupe's neck by working this one, which never did the trick, but felt pretty good anyway. It had been a while since he had even one dupe free to take a breather--even now he had two in the school's kitchen swapping jokes with the cafeteria ladies and trying to turn district-issue stew into something fit for human consumption, one doing band-aid patrol with Dr. MacTaggart, one juggling for one group of kids, and one hunkered down with another bunch and his well-worn (and now internationally famous) copy of Watership Down. Everybody at the shelter had pretty much gotten used to the way he was in six places at once all the time, which was nice, and he was getting along really well with all the kids like usual. That was the part where he really felt like he was doing something, taking a bunch of scared kids and doing the things that had worked on him when he'd been a scared kid, and watching them work again.
But everybody needed a break now and then, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered outside to watch the storm go away. It was still raining, but the wind had dropped, and after the fury of the hurricane everything looked . . . peaceful. Except for the flooding, and the other damage, anyway--the school was big enough and sturdy enough it hadn't suffered too much, but Isabel had taken her sweet time with the East Coast and Jamie could see the evidence everywhere he looked. He closed his eyes, leaned back into the wall, and indulged in a little selfish wondering about when they'd be done and everybody could go home and he could see if Kitty wanted a neck rub.
The slam of the door behind him and a quick patter of running feet snapped Jamie out of his daydream, and he straightened up just in time to see a kid--Tommy whatsisname, whose dog had run away--turn the corner onto 60th and accelerate toward Central Park. He'd been crying intermittently about the dog ever since he'd been brought in, and Jamie thought he'd gotten him calmed down, but . . . apparently not. And whether or not the storm was over, this was not a good time for a kid to be wandering off alone. Jamie took off after him.
When Jamie rounded the corner onto Central Park West, Tommy was trudging along the empty street, calling his dog. The park looked like a war zone--there was a stream running down the street, and some of the smaller trees had been uprooted by the wind. Tommy walked underneath one that had been driven like a javelin into the side of what had probably been a very nice-looking brick building--and although he didn't see the way the trunk was starting to sag as the wall gave way, Jamie did, and flattened out into a sprint.
He was just fast enough to cover the last few feet in a flying shove that sent Tommy sprawling before the tree popped out of the wall, missed them both by inches, and bounced into the street. A shower of brick followed it down before Jamie could get to his feet.
The first chunk took him right in the small of his back with a sickening wet crack, and Jamie's legs went numb; he could hear them break too, but couldn't feel anything, and he had just enough time to think oh no, that's bad before another chunk caught him in the ribs and he started breathing knives.
Back at the shelter, all the other Jamies screamed in unison and ran for the door. There was a blurry moment when it looked like the five of them should have gotten stuck in the doorway, but didn't, and left one Jamie sprinting down the street. He screamed every few breaths, because the other one couldn't.
He could feel his lungs starting to give up; there was too much weight on his back to breathe anyway, and he could feel them rip with every gasp, and taste blood with every cough. He could hear his own heartbeat, slowing down, but it was all right, it was a dupe, he could take it back and everything would be all right.
He was a block away when he stopped breathing. But it was all right, he could still hear his heart, the only sound in the world, and as long as it kept going he could fix everything.
Half a block away, he realized the heart pounding in his ears was the wrong one.
Five steps left, and he couldn't feel anything at all from the dupe, not even pain.
He grabbed the dupe's hand anyway, crashing to his knees, ignoring the way everything under the rock looked flat or twisted or wrong, but it wouldn't come back. The dupe just lay there, staring at him with empty eyes, a little trickle of blood running from the corner of its mouth. It was dead.
He was dead. Hadn't he felt his heart stop, and his lungs, and wasn't that his corpse?
Jamie sprawled face-down in the street, and everything went dark.
Warning: I tried not to go overboard with the descriptive language, but this is not Happy Fun Death, if any really are; I've seen more explicit episodes of ER, though.
Jamie stretched, trying to pop the kinks in another dupe's neck by working this one, which never did the trick, but felt pretty good anyway. It had been a while since he had even one dupe free to take a breather--even now he had two in the school's kitchen swapping jokes with the cafeteria ladies and trying to turn district-issue stew into something fit for human consumption, one doing band-aid patrol with Dr. MacTaggart, one juggling for one group of kids, and one hunkered down with another bunch and his well-worn (and now internationally famous) copy of Watership Down. Everybody at the shelter had pretty much gotten used to the way he was in six places at once all the time, which was nice, and he was getting along really well with all the kids like usual. That was the part where he really felt like he was doing something, taking a bunch of scared kids and doing the things that had worked on him when he'd been a scared kid, and watching them work again.
But everybody needed a break now and then, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered outside to watch the storm go away. It was still raining, but the wind had dropped, and after the fury of the hurricane everything looked . . . peaceful. Except for the flooding, and the other damage, anyway--the school was big enough and sturdy enough it hadn't suffered too much, but Isabel had taken her sweet time with the East Coast and Jamie could see the evidence everywhere he looked. He closed his eyes, leaned back into the wall, and indulged in a little selfish wondering about when they'd be done and everybody could go home and he could see if Kitty wanted a neck rub.
The slam of the door behind him and a quick patter of running feet snapped Jamie out of his daydream, and he straightened up just in time to see a kid--Tommy whatsisname, whose dog had run away--turn the corner onto 60th and accelerate toward Central Park. He'd been crying intermittently about the dog ever since he'd been brought in, and Jamie thought he'd gotten him calmed down, but . . . apparently not. And whether or not the storm was over, this was not a good time for a kid to be wandering off alone. Jamie took off after him.
When Jamie rounded the corner onto Central Park West, Tommy was trudging along the empty street, calling his dog. The park looked like a war zone--there was a stream running down the street, and some of the smaller trees had been uprooted by the wind. Tommy walked underneath one that had been driven like a javelin into the side of what had probably been a very nice-looking brick building--and although he didn't see the way the trunk was starting to sag as the wall gave way, Jamie did, and flattened out into a sprint.
He was just fast enough to cover the last few feet in a flying shove that sent Tommy sprawling before the tree popped out of the wall, missed them both by inches, and bounced into the street. A shower of brick followed it down before Jamie could get to his feet.
The first chunk took him right in the small of his back with a sickening wet crack, and Jamie's legs went numb; he could hear them break too, but couldn't feel anything, and he had just enough time to think oh no, that's bad before another chunk caught him in the ribs and he started breathing knives.
Back at the shelter, all the other Jamies screamed in unison and ran for the door. There was a blurry moment when it looked like the five of them should have gotten stuck in the doorway, but didn't, and left one Jamie sprinting down the street. He screamed every few breaths, because the other one couldn't.
He could feel his lungs starting to give up; there was too much weight on his back to breathe anyway, and he could feel them rip with every gasp, and taste blood with every cough. He could hear his own heartbeat, slowing down, but it was all right, it was a dupe, he could take it back and everything would be all right.
He was a block away when he stopped breathing. But it was all right, he could still hear his heart, the only sound in the world, and as long as it kept going he could fix everything.
Half a block away, he realized the heart pounding in his ears was the wrong one.
Five steps left, and he couldn't feel anything at all from the dupe, not even pain.
He grabbed the dupe's hand anyway, crashing to his knees, ignoring the way everything under the rock looked flat or twisted or wrong, but it wouldn't come back. The dupe just lay there, staring at him with empty eyes, a little trickle of blood running from the corner of its mouth. It was dead.
He was dead. Hadn't he felt his heart stop, and his lungs, and wasn't that his corpse?
Jamie sprawled face-down in the street, and everything went dark.
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