15FRAGILE FLAMES
Summary ~ She wakes up in a hospital room, without even the memory of her name. She is critically injured. And she doesn't know how she got there. But someone seems to know the truth. Someone who visits her every night. Someone who may be more dangerous than she's letting on. Someone who begins to thread flames all over her life. Femslash. Re-make of Fatal Existance.
"Because when you play with fire, you'll almost certainly get burned."
Chapter One
I can't even begin to tell you how horrible I feel.
Honestly, the only thing I can even hear right now is my heartbeat. And I feel it too, quite rigidly. It's rapping on my chest, like a loud drum, like an agitated hummingbird. But that's a good sign. No matter how painful the sensation is, I'm grateful for it. It means I'm alive. It means I have no palpitations, and that I can survive whatever is making me feel this bad.
I flare my nostrils, and inhale sharply. The first thing I smell is the scent of bitter medicine. It's almost nauseating, if not overwhelming.
I turn my head slightly, and flinch at the sudden sharp pain that attacks my lower neck. Now there's a throbbing on my scalp. As if I was hit by something. As if I was hit by some sort of sledgehammer. Oh god, everything hurts.
I moan into some kind of inhaler, and attempt to open my eyes. The action is gaffe. My left eye, especially, is bruised to the point of imobility. I wouldn't even be able to feel it even if I did open it. But I do open my right eye. And I stare right up at a blinding white light. The brightness causes me to squint, but for some reason the light doesn't hurt me as much as I thought it would, I find myself able to stare straight up into the bulb without feeling the sensational burn on my pupil.
I look around the room after my eye adjust.
I'm in a hospital. A rather expensive looking one too. The room I'm in is large; large enough to provide comfort space for more than ten people.
Beside me, I see a table, and an IV strapped onto my arm. On the other side I see the same thing, except there's a monitor. A monitor with cursive lines and constant beeping noises. I inhale again, and attempt to reach towards it. But I can't.
My arm is strapped down onto the bed.
Crap, what's happening? Where am I?
"You shouldn't think too much. Your head's fresh of a fall, and you wouldn't wanna risk frying your brains up before the Hudsons get here."
Even though my whole body is paralyzed, my mind is wide awake and alert, so even through the situation, I can hear the voice. I look around the room frantically, and I see her.
She's sitting on one of the far couches by the corner of the room with both her legs swung up onto the chair arm. Her hair, a deep brown, is tied up into a messy ponytail. Her eyes, which are a deep slate blue, bordering on purple, are staring back at me with an expectant look. A look that I find utterly compelling. She offers a small but sympathetic smile. For some reason, I don't get a good vibe from that smile.
I get the feeling she's involved with me.
"Don't freak." She gets up slowly, and traces her eyes down my covered body. "You'll re-open your wounds if you get agitated."
My wounds?
I crane my neck slightly to get a better view of her. She's wearing a plaided button up shirt with a plaided skirt, black leggings, and gloves. She's drawing nearer to me with each step. And with each step, her eyes just get slightly more dangerous than before.
"Do you remember anything? Anything at all?" Her eyes narrow.
I can't respond. There's an inhaler on my mouth. But her eyes see right through mine, as if she's known me for a long time, as if she can read my mind. Her smile widens, and she nods.
"Nothing, huh? So you're like, what, amnesiac?" Her laugh is so spiteful it t causes me to wince. "Your chance to start a brand new life, Hudson. You could run away right now and disappear forever. Create a new life for yourself. Without memories, without anything. Free. You'd be free."
I don't understand what you're talking about.
Something flashes in the mystery girls' eyes. It's a repeat. She somehow manages to read my mind again.
"You'll understand soon enough." She smiles, and shrugs. "Then again, your 'family's' probably gonna feed you lies. Tell you i'm a danger, tell you it's my fault, and that they're your real family and all." She laughs. "Spiteful jackasses are all working for the wrong people. If only they knew that."
She glances down at my body, and then turns her gaze back to my face. I've hardened my expression. I don't know who this girl is, and I feel hostile towards her words. I don't quite understand what she's saying, but she's someone who knows me. A lot. I can tell. Just by the way she's looking at me. Just by the way she smiles. As if she knows every little secret I have. As if she knows everything in the world. That confidence is overwhelming.
I turn away and force myself to close my eye.
Maybe if I go to sleep, she'll disappear.
"I'm not that easily shaken, y'know. Just cause you don't wanna hear the truth doesn't make it any less true."
I don't know who you are. I don't know who I am. My whole body feels like a giant rock, and I want to know what happened to me.
"You're frustrated. You're confused. I get it." I open my eyes just slightly, and turn to stare up at her tanned face. She's still next to me, with her arms crossed and her lips contented in a straight frown. I notice the small cut on the side of her neck. It looks fresh. "I can't give you all the answers right now. That... would, of course, ruin the purpose of the game."
Game?
She scowls. "It's really annoying to talk to your eyes. Hold still, alright?" She reaches forward, places a hand over my eyes and pushes my forehead back. The situation takes me completely by surprise. I can hear the beeping in the monitor beside me fasten. But not only that, I can actually feel my heartbeat quicken with fear. "Calm down, will you?"
How can I calm down? You're physically harming me!
And then it happens. She reaches down, grabs my inhaler, and pulls it out.
The air in my lungs rush out of my mouth like water. The first thing I feel, the first thing I do, is cough out loudly from the itch at the back of my throat. I open my eye slightly and notice that the mystery girl has removed her hand from my eye. Quickly, I reach up and grab her shirt collar with my right hand and pull her down to face me. Her expression changes from patience to fear the second she notices the dangerous glint in my eye. I grit my teeth, and inhale.
She smells wrong. She doesn't stink. Honestly, I doubt she even has an odor. But there's something about her aura. It smells dangerous.
"Who are you?" It's the first thing I say. It's the first thing that came to mind, after all. My voice, coarse and rough and husky, sounds unfamiliar to my ears. Like a broken lullaby.
She reaches up to grab my hand, but my grip doesn't soften. "Shit. Stop it. You don't know what you're capable of."
I glare her down. "Lady, I don't know who you are. And you just come in here expecting me to do everything you say? Where am I? What happened to me?!"
"Okay, okay!" She gasps in shock and shakes her head, as if admitting defeat. She's still touching my hand, but her skin suddenly feels different on mine, as if it's a completely different person. "Look," She looks away. "You're in the hospital. You had a major accident, and you're wounded. Critically. Honestly, no one even expected you to survive. But somehow, 'miraculously,'" She shrugs. "You did."
I tilt my head downwards slightly. She's wearing a cross necklace. Upon noticing that, my grip loosens just slightly. Something about the thought that she's religious makes me feel slightly better.
"And who are you to me?" I wince. "Who am I?"
"It's not right for me to tell you who you are just yet."
"Why, am I some sort of unicorn freak?"
A smirk stretches on her charming face. "Good to know you didn't lose your sarcasm."
I narrow my gaze. "Who are you?"
"Brooke Ashton."
The respond was simple, easy, straight-forward. I didn't expect her to give me a straight-up answer. It catches me off-guard, and I lose my grip on her shirt. She takes advantage of the moment to push herself away from me and stumble a few feet back away from my reach. Smiling, she reaches up to pat her collar down and soothe her shirt. She's unbelievably collected. It's just way too convenient.
"I can't stay for long. I got some places I need to be, and some people I need to see. You're still recovering, but I'm not surprised your original strength have already returned. After all, you're not like the rest of em."
Original strength? What the hell is she talking about?
She saunters over to the open window by the left side of the room and peeks out. Judging by the sound of the dense busy street noise, I can tell we're in a city. One city comes to mind. Manhattan.
How do I know that?
Brooke's staring out the window with a sober look on her face. She tilts her head up and gulps. The expression on her face almost looks... vulnerable. There's a childish spark there, as if she's the only one in the room, as if she's only 8, and she's afraid the boogeyman will come out of her bed to eat her at night. She looks scared. It looks completely out of character, considering what I just experienced a few minutes earlier. But the look disappears soon enough, and she turns to me with her eyes guarded.
"I'm sorry." She says simply. "I just want you to know that." 2
She moves towards the couch she was sitting on before, and grabs her bag. "Clayton's gonna be here tomorrow. No doubt with that nauseating couple and a few of your 'closer friends'. Gotta hand it to you, you somehow just make people fall in love with you." There's an edge to her voice, and I don't feel like pushing it further.
"Do me a favor," She looks up at me. Her eyes are too dangerous to stare normally at. "Don't tell anyone I was here. Not Clayton, not the nurse, not the doctor, not a single soul. Got that?"
The confusion shows clearly on my face, but Brooke doesn't stop to explain herself. Instead she smirks, flips her hair and makes her way towards me. I hesitate, and get ready my hand to lunge at her if she tries to do anything again. But that's when I realize, my restrains are torn.
I'd pulled my arm off the restrains. What kind of person is capable of doing that?
She reaches my side, and smiles. "I'm fucking glad you didn't die out there, Hudson. Because if you did..." Her confident look wavers, and suddenly I see that same girl by the window. The girl who looks almost as vulnerable as I feel. She laughs it off quickly though, and turns away. "Well I'm taking off. See ya, Ember."
Ember?
Before I can fully react to her words, she makes her way to the open window, climbs over it, and disappears. My mind is whirling with endless questions and unbelievable possibilities. I open my mouth to call out her name, but something inside of me stops me. It's useless, isn't it? She's jumped. But what kind of human beings jumps out windows? I don't know how high I am, but judging from the distant noises I'd say I'm at least 10 stories up.
Who... Or what... is that girl?
Apparently I fell asleep shortly after that. The whole mystery girl thing could be a dream, honestly. Maybe I did dream the whole thing up. But that doesn't explain anything. After all, everything felt so real. Up to the point where Brooke tugged the inhaler off my mouth. And, of course, when I wake up my inhaler is indeed not on my mouth anymore. My arm is free of its restraint too. Last night did happen. Brooke Ashton, whoever she is, did visit me and I am critically injured.
Unlike before, when I open my eye I don't see a blinding white light glaring down at me, instead I see actual light. Sunlight. It's streaming in from the windows around me. It's daytime, but for some reason my body's aching more than it did last night. My whole face feels like it's on fire.
"Aunt Hudson, she's awake!"
A voice? Could it be Brooke? No, it's a male voice. A deep tone with a rich flavor, as if it's best suited for a bodybuilder or a blues singer. I turn my head just slightly, and the image of his average-heighted body comes to view.
He comes up to me with a giant smile on his face. There's a deep sense of relief in his eyes. Do I know this boy?
"Oh thank you, Lord. Thank you for bringing my little girl back to me!" It's a woman who speaks this time. I look over the boy's shoulder at the mid-aged woman standing behind him. She has her hands over her mouth with her big blue eyes widened in mix shock and joy. Her graying blonde hair is tied up into a bun, and her baggy clothes hang loosely on her body, looking way too oversized.
The first thing I feel like saying, is 'who are you'. But my lips feel so dry, I fear they'll crack if I try to move them.
The boy reaches down to place a hand on my arm (the arm that's still in restraints) but I shiver at his touch, and it causes him to pull away. He looks away, as if embarrassed. "Sorry. Your body must still hurt, huh?"
When he looks at me, his eyes harden slightly. I don't know who this boy is, but there's something familiar in his face. It's not a necessarily good feeling, but it can't be bad either. If he can tell me who I am, then maybe I can find out what happened to me, and at the same time find out who Brooke Ashton is.
"Ember, dear." The woman approaches me from behind the boy. "Do you- Do you remember me?" Her voice is shaky.
I look away slightly and tilt my head down. I notice a man standing by the corner of the room. He has a grim expression on his face, with his swollen grey eyes staring back at mine intimidatingly. He doesn't look too happy. But then again, he looks like he's just been bawling his eyes out. I swallow softly, turn my gaze back to the woman and shake my head.
Her expression falls dramatically.
"Oh no-"
The boy reaches out to place a hand on the woman's shoulder, and he hugs her gently as she looked about the verge of tears. He looks down at me, and smiles. "She's your mother, Ember. Meredith Hudson."
My mother? But she doesn't look familiar at all. When I think of my mother, I think of black hair. Dark eyes. Smooth skin. I think of an Asian heritage. This woman is Caucasian, and she looks nothing like the image in my head. But even so, something in her face shows me that they aren't lying. What would they gain by lying to me anyways?
"She's your mother, he's your father," He gestures to the grim man by the back. "And I'm your best friend. Clayton Walsh. We've been friends since Pre-K, do you remember that?"
No, I don't. Not at all.
I shake my head. Clayton's expression almost becomes depleted. But somehow he still manages a confident smile. A smile that reminds me uncannily of Brooke.
The door by my right swings open, and for a while everyones' attention is grabbed by the elderly doctor who enters the room with his signature clipboard. He has on a weary but sharp frown on his face, and I can just tell from his eyes that he knows about my memory loss. He looks so sympathetic. It makes me angry.
"Mr and Mrs. Hudson," He nods his head at Meredith and my 'father', before nodding at Clayton. All three of them respond silently. He turns back to me, and frowns. "Who took your inhaler off?"
As if by instinct, I shuffle my right arm closer to my body to hide away the fact that it's free from the hospital tape. Not that it makes much of a difference. There's a large blanket covering my body, and all anyone can see is my head. But still I keep my arm close to my side, and watch as the doctor makes his way towards me. I don't respond. Even if I wanted to, I can't.
"Maybe it was that new nurse. Always seem to be fumbling around with things." He sighs softly and shakes his head. Oddly enough he continues to mumble to himself as he takes the inhaler from beside my face and reattaches it to my mouth.
The air from the tube cools my stinging face and the pain from before slowly dies away as the numbness subsides. For a while, I almost feel serene. I drift off into unconsciousness, and close my eye as the darkness takes me in.
"She's suffered a horrible case of memory loss." The doctor's voice is distant in my subconscious, but I can hear it quite clearly, along with everyone elses' voice.
"So we gathered. Is there any way to oppose the effect, doctor?"
"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Hudson. The fall took quite a lot out of her. It's a miracle she survived in the first place, to be healing at this rate is nothing short of holy."
"But she doesn't remember us. She doesn't remember anything, how can she live like that?"
"She's not brain-dead, Mr. Walsh, she's just confused. There are two scenarios in this case. One, she regains her memories, but of course there will be side-effects. There are always repercussions. But her memories will return and she'll be able to continue living the way she did before."
"And the second scenario?"
There's a short pause that somehow echoes in my head, like a gaping hole. Like a missing piece. Time ticks away slowly even in the dense mist of my mind, until finally, a voice emerges.
"Second scenario, she never recovers her memories, and she's gonna have to live with the confusion for a very long time until she can adjust to her current environment again."
"So what you're saying is, it's either she recovers or she suffers?" Claytons' voice sounds angry.
"No. All I'm saying is that there's not a very high chance that everything will return back to normal even after months of therapy. She survived a fall atop the Empire State Building-"
The Empire State Building?
"-and she's still alive. Not many people can claim to have done that. I think you should all focus on steadying her physical recovery, then trying to cause her a mental recuperation."
The voices echo like a drum. Like a distant dream fading away and turning into something else. The images flash before my closed eyes, like some sort of ancient film device that they used in the 1900's. I don't remember much when I come to. All I know is that hours have passed, and the sun from outside has lowered itself a few meters off the sea horizon. No one's in the room except me.
The silence is both welcomed and feared.
The door opens softly, and in steps a petite nurse. She has long wavy black hair and dark denim blue eyes. Her skin, almost as pale as a ghosts', is clear of any wounds or marks or bruises except for the few tiny holes on her right wrist. She looks up at me, hesitates, and approaches my bed.
"I need to change your bandages." She sounds nervous.
I let my gaze follow her movements as she prepares a few needles and vials and towels for the process. She places two needles on a tray beside my table, and unwraps a roll of bandages to replace the ones I have on now. When she turns to me, the first thing she does is try and offer a smile. Standard procedure for a nurse. You have to make the patient feel safe.
"How's the pressure on your mask?" She fiddles with a knob on the tube attached to my inhaler. "Is it too low?"
I shake my head flimsily, and watch her fingers pull away from the knob. She goes back to preparing everything.
What're you gonna do to me?
The nurse grabs a few wet towels, turns around and pulls the hospital blanket off my paralyzed body. What I see when the image is cleared, surprises me to the core. I knew I was hurt, judging from the pain I felt. But I didn't expect my injuries to be this severe, to cause me this much fatigue, to be this emotionally wrecking. I swallow down a huge lump down my throat.
"Woah."
Even the nurse looks surprised. She drags her gaze from my bandaged legs, red and yellow and blothy and skin peeled off the bone, to my abdomen, where the blood had bled off my internal lacerations onto the damp bandages, and then to my chest. Several tubes are pierced into my body, and only when I see them can I feel the edges of the tubes depressed into my lungs. My breathing goes uneven, and the beeping from the monitor beside me speedens up tremendously.
The nurse notices the sudden quicken of my heartbeat, and reaches out to place a hand on my flaming cheek. She doesn't need to listen to the monitor to notice my agitation, just my eyes are screaming at the world for what has become of me.
"Ember, Ember, calm down." She's panicking. Not that I blame her. But can she blame me either? There is a tube sticking into my body, connected to some sort of machine with liquid in it. For all I know, it's supplying water to my body but the reality of the thought is frightening. I can't help but feel fear come in like thunderstorm. "Ember, you need to calm down. If you don't, you'll re-open your lacerati-"
She's cut off by my body jerking upwards involuntarily. She stumbles a few steps back and watch as my body rocks with pain at the sudden stinging sensation attacking me in my chest. My heart's rejecting the tubes suddenly. It's connected to my thoughts. My brain is telling my heart to reject them, even though I didn't put in the command.
"Crap." The nurse quickly grabs a needle from the tray. She takes the transparent cap off, grips my right arm harshly, and sticks the needle up the other side of my elbow. Pain cripples up my arm to my chest. My body jerks forward in contrast. But fortunately, the pain soon subsides, and I'm left feeling empty and numb inside, with my only working eye feeling strangely heavy and tired.
I close my eye, and control my breathing. The beeping from the monitor slows down, and all seems well again. I hear the nurse sigh.
"Thank god." She whispers.
That's all I remember, honestly, before darkness takes over. And I fall into a deep, deep slumber. That night, I have a dream.
I'm standing on top of the Empire State Building, ready to jump off the edge with my arms outstretched. The only thing that runs through my mind, is..
They want my flames. They want my flames.
It's a re-make of Fatal Existance!
That was my first ever story. And though the writing in it wasn't that good (I re-read through it and cringed a lot) I preferably liked the story it had goin on. Plus several of that story's fans' asked me to continue it. I don't want to continue it. But I'll tell you what, I'll re-make it.
Fragile Flames is basically the same thing, except with a few changes here and there. I kept their names, relations and almost everything else except for that last part, which is very different from the original story.
This is only a kick-off. Hopefully it can get just as much attention as the original story did! :)
Woots!
-Kye