Chapter Text
It’s common knowledge; once you pick a flower from the stem, it dies that moment. It can no longer draw energy, breathe life.
It’s safe to assume the same happens when you take away the ventilator for a severely ill person. Their stem is plucked, their life sustaining need—stripped away.
But what would happen if you took away the most inhumane and humane alike parts of a completely alien monster?
Numb. The entirety of the inside of his mouth… it felt empty. Mutilated. Thick of gauze that dried his throat and chapped his lips.
The bars against his back dug in; yet they almost promised comfort if it weren’t for the constant feeling of jagged stitches all across his stomach and chest.
This; this is Mime. Of course, not his true name. He long forgot that.
However, with his recent development of a stark lack in a tongue—Mime is the nickname he’d so cruelly been given. And he stuck with it, because despite everything, it was the only thing he had to cling onto that gave him even a sliver of confirmation he was still real.
His days were repetitive. Wake up (he barely slept.), wallow in pain (when will it stop.), get strapped to a table (not after fighting the sedation. It never worked.), wake up in more pain (please.), and figure out what they took this time. (It was his tooth.)
For weeks, months, maybe years, this is his life. It was impossible to tell time with no windows or even a hint of clock… he only knew it’d been long enough that his hair had begun to grow long and matted.
Wake up. Writhe in pain. Dragged away.
He lost more hair that day.
Wake up. Cry from stomach pain. Dragged away.
His stitches were infected. Heavily.
They took them out and stapled him shut instead.
Wake up. WAKE UP., his left eye was dry. Dragged away. WAKE UP.
He doesn’t remember…
Wake up—WAKE UP.
…
Wak—WAKE UP, LITTLE ONE.
What?…
“W-AK- U-!! I W—‘T TR- FO-REV-R!!”
Wake up.. open his eyes… silhouette?…
They didn’t take anything today… but where was he going?
END PROLOGUE. ARC 1.
(“RINSE AND REPEAT.”)