Time had passed. That's all Arrek knew. How long was something that eluded him. What he felt seared into his brain. It was bitterer than any pill, burned through the blood vessels in his brain. The energy to get up was gone. He couldn't even open his eyes. All he could hear was the rustling of the grass around him and the distant singing of birds.
Life flowed around him, crawled through him. Arrek didn't care, now he hated life, hated himself for not dying in her place, and hated the guilt he felt for suggesting she should spar with the person who would take her life, hated the person who had taken her away from him, hated everything. Nothing mattered; all reason left him, slipped through his fingers and meandered like a small stream through the grass to be swallowed by the soil.
It was his fault that this had happened, the one thought coursing through his brain. The one thought that made sense to him in his present state. He felt his tears falling down his cheeks, relished the stinging sensation they caused as they fell into the open cut on his lip. Blood, it filled his mouth, its iron scent filling his nostrils, the warm sweet taste it held as it pooled on his tongue. He spat it out, rebuked the fact that it was sweet to his taste buds. Opening his eyes he looked at it as it started to congeal around his fingers.
"Gone" and "My fault" were the only things coursing through him. He couldn't even recall her face in its full clarity. It hit him so hard he vomited. A long painful spasm that contorted every muscle and felt like his stomach was going to fall out of his mouth at any second. The comlink in his pocket beeped. Someone was trying to tell him of Sylvana's death. It didn't matter, he already knew. Pulling it out of his pocket he threw it with all his might. Heard it shatter on the ground somewhere. Nothing was left to him. A legacy of vacuum.
Kneeling on the grass, the grass that mocked him with the life bringing abilities it possessed, he grabbed fistfuls and yanked them from their roots with all his strength. Throwing it into the air he watched as it flitted away from him, falling, sailing, caught in the air to fly away and disappear from him as his sister had done. In that moment Arrek wanted it all to end, wanted to end it himself. Sylvana would hate him for it, but he didn't care. Arrek even hated Sylvana now, hated her for leaving him, hated and loved her. Hated and loved everything. Embraced and loathed everything. Everything was new to him. Everything was lonely. The scars on his leg suddenly made sense, was it some prediction of things to come that had made him write "destined to be alone" with a razor blade?
The haze had gone, pain bringing clarity, pain focusing his mind on the last thing he wanted to focus on. If he thought it would help he would rip out his hair, gouge his eyes, anything to alleviate how he felt. There was no such respite. All Arrek had now was death.
Picking himself up he knew what he had to do now. Hated himself for what he had to do now, hated everything and loved it at the same time. He staggered to where he knew his sister would be, to the place where her body lay on a table that was more like a cold slab of rock. A cold slab where even now the warmth of her heart and soul was being absorbed by the cruel slab. As soon as they removed her body Arrek decided, he would take a sledgehammer to that table. Maybe take that same sledgehammer to Nolan.
Arrek staggered, his feet feeling like they were encased in concrete. Slowly he shuffled his way to where his sister's mortal remains were, to all that he had left of her now. It felt like an age had passed as he reached the door. For a moment he couldn't bring himself to look in, he wasn't even sure he could see. All his senses had closed with the claustrophobia he was suffering now he was inside. The walls closed around him, closed and closed and opened one of his senses.
Beep...Beep.Beep.Beep.Beep.
Arrek fell to his knees. Surely it couldn't be. His senses were mocking him, making him think he could hear his sister's heart beating. He knew it had stopped. His heart had stopped with it, but yet hope surged within him. Biting into his lip once more he felt blood coursing down his chin. When it began to drip onto the cold solid violating floor below, he tentatively moved his feet, slowly bringing him into the room.
Then he saw her, her chest moving up and down in rhythm, the rhythm that came with breathing, with a heartbeat. She was alive. Joy exploded inside him threatening to shatter his skull. His heart imploded. Suddenly every changed again. He ran to the bed grabbing her hand. Nothing else mattered to him. Nothing else was there as far as he was concerned; it was only he, his sister and air.
Leaning over he kissed her battered face. A face that was usually so soft and could hold such extreme lengths of both serenity and agony. Now it was slack, expressionless, all signs of life drained from it as it held a grey pallor that squeezed a hand around Arrek's heart. Only the dull beep of the monitor and the shallow rise and fall of her chest held some indication that life still burned in his sister, a small, fading flame.
Tears of anger came now and he punched the cold slab on which she lay. His eyes burned at what he saw. His heart ached at what he was being forced to endure. The blood that pumped around his body burned with rage and sorrow, it threatened to overwhelm him.
Squeezing her hand as hard as he could, he tried to force the energy that he held within him into her, tried to wake her up. Tried to give her every ounce of what remained of his life so that she might live. She deserved life more than he did. She had the power to give life to those injured and in need. Arrek wished he could have this same power, wished that someone else had this power to use it for her instead of her lying here comatose. Talking softly to her he tried to aid her in the battle that must be being fought in her mind, the one where dreams and reality merged. The battle that raged between her and the demons of her mind. The demons that were willing her to give up and let her life slip away. They had won once only to be thwarted by some outside influence, this much Arrek could tell. He only hoped she was strong enough to beat them. Hoped he could somehow enter her mind and help her with this battle. After an hour of trying in vain to help he succumbed to sleep, the emotional exhaustion he felt finally overcame him and his head dropped on to the slab, his mind sending him into dreams, dreams where he was sure he was with Sylvana, fighting the demons.
Beep.Beep.Beep.Beep.
Waking up, Arrek looked around, the air was still, only the incessant beeping that let him know his sister was alive made a sound. Lifting his head up, he gazed around the room. It was empty apart from him and his sister. Seeing her there, the soft stray rays of light that the medical equipment emitted being the only source of illumination, the sorrow that had been his nightmare companion through however long he had slept welled up again as he saw that her expression had not changed. Was sure she had not gained consciousness the whole time he had been asleep.
Kissing her cheek he left to have a cigarette. Walking aimlessly and unseeingly outside he felt someone walk past him, someone who was scared of him, someone who was more scared of themselves. Nolan. Becoming alert Arrek picked up his pace and hurried outside. Lighting up he tried to let the tension that wracked his body leave him with the smoke. It didn't work. Anger came. Arrek became scared, scared of himself, scared of how he felt.
After finishing his temporary release he walked back to where his sister lay, careful to check and make sure Nolan wasn't about. Arrek just couldn't be sure of what he'd do if he saw the scumbag who had hurt his sister so much and hurt him only so many levels he could probably never understand.
Reaching the room he so reviled, he paused. Nolan was standing over his sister muttering something quietly under his breath. Arrek couldn't help himself. "What the fuck do you think you are doing in this room?" he said as calmly as he could. It took everything in him to control the anger he felt. Took everything in him not to run over there and strangle him.
Nolan turned to face him. Whatever expression was on his face earlier, it had now hardened into stone. "I put her here. I want to know she'll make it out of here."
"She should never have been put here in the first place, scumbag," Arrek spat.
"She was trying to kill me. You think I wanted to put her here?"
"That's irrelevant, you are the Captain! You're the one with all the training and experience, and yet you'll happily beat a woman half to death? Ask me and that rank of yours counts for shit." His whole body tensed up as images of him standing over Nolan's battered and bloodied corpse flowed through his brain.
Anger flared in his eyes. "Happily? Do I look happy to you? How many people have tried to kill you? Come back when you've had a couple of hundred, and see if you can still act high and mighty." He snorted in a breath, and then continued, quieter, "I know she's your sister. I've got brothers. I know you lo... love her." He swallowed. "I'll leave the two of you alone."
"You leave the two of us alone for good, you do anything to either of us and I swear I'll kill you. I don't know why I'm not doing it now. Consider yourself lucky to be alive. You don't deserve it."
"I haven't deserved it for a while," Nolan said, his gaze boring into Arrek's. "But you know what? It's not about what you deserve. It's about what you're given. She's still alive, and that's more than I would have thought earlier. Enjoy." With that, Nolan stepped past Arrek and out the door.
Arrek fell to his knees and began to cry. He wanted so much to rip off one of Nolan's arms and beat him to death with it. Why he didn't was something he couldn't understand. Sitting on one of the chairs in the corner he put his head into his hands and took deep breaths trying to expel the cold lump of ice from his stomach. Why didn't I kill him? Was all he could think.