To You, 2000 miles away
"Oh yes…Paleblood", a voice creaked with a light bemusement. As the patient's senses returned to them, they noticed they were laying down. They struggled against their bodies numbness and realized their arms and legs were fully restrained. "Well, you've come to the right place," the figure said as they rolled closer.
So familiar, the patient thought. Something about their voice, the way they carried themselves, but they had never known anyone in a wheelchair. Especially not one that would wear clothes like that. Such a silly hat.
"Yharnam is the home of Blood Ministration. You need only unravel it's mystery. But where's an outsider like yourself to begin?". The figure rolled even closer, a full grayed beard visible on their face. Their familiarity faded away after that sight. "Easy," the man looked at the patient, his eyes visible to the candlelight, "with a bit of Yharnam blood of your own." The man reached over and unstrapped the patient's right hand.
More vision began to return, This is a surgeon? Some kind of doctor's room. The room was scattered about with empty bags on racks, vials, beds, washcloths and wash pales. The man was preparing something, though it was too far from the candlelight to tell. Every time the man shifted his weight to reach something, the floorboards beneath his chair would creak. We're on an upper floor, the patient thought.
"Bah! Where'd I leave that damned thing", the man rolled away to grab something on a farther table. How could he see in this darkness? On their left side, everything was completely dark. The thought to unstrap themselves completely did occur to the patient, but a quick test of their fingers revealed that it wasn't easy to move.
The man returned with a clipboard. "First, you need a contract." He pointed the paper towards the patient. The patient responded with a disappointing writhing of their fingers. "Ah, right," the man said before adjusting a bag that the patient had just noticed.
Anesthetic?, the patient thought. Just how much had been used?
"Looks like we'll just have to do this another way. Your name? For consent. Don't say it if you don't want this, I suppose. Don't see what else will fix your scars, however."
"Z…", the patient slurred. The man awaited in a painful tension. The doctor must have been worried the patient was too medicated to properly consent. While breathing, the patient and the man simultaneously noticed a croaking sound with every inhale.
"Shit, your lungs are filling. Sorry, friend. I'm going to have to take precedence on this." The man fiddled with the anesthetic bag once again, closing off the remainder of the patients senses. Another wave of numbness began to spread throughout the patients body. Then to their mind The next moments were spotting, phasing in and out. "We'll begin the transfusion. Oh, don't you worry. Whatever happens, you may think it all a mere bad dream."
The patient wasn't sure how long had passed before they awoke. All they knew was that the man had a pair of footsteps trailing behind him. "Doesn't look good. All this scarred tissue, this eye, and all the metal we've had to remove from their body-" their voices were almost inaudible. The clarity came in waves.
"This vial they had with them. I need to run some more tests." A womanly voice this time.
"I mean no offense, My Lady, but they don't have much longer. It's not clear if they're diffusing or not. Maybe their immune somehow? Too far gone, most likely.-
More time passed.
"Too much blood!" the man said. The patient could hear splashes of liquid hitting the ground. "What are you doing over there Io?"
"Almost done, it's not affecting the rats, but look what it's done to the patients tissue!"
"They're not breathing!". Of course, the patient still couldn't feel anything.
Then it happened. Like something inside, deeper than flesh and bone had snapped. Something within the patient was fighting. This they could feel. Their body convulsed and writhed, but not in pain. Their body felt as though it was growing. Expanding in every direction. With what little vision remained, it appeared that the walls were beginning to melt. Again something pulled within their chest. Like some unstoppable force was trying to break through an immovable barrier. The more it pulled, the more the room seemed to distort.
Something was beginning to appear in the ceiling. Small motes of light. Stars?
The first thing they felt was sand. A cool and soft sand beneath them. The patient thought, for some reason, the sand should be more clay-like. More palpable and able to hold form. They weren't in the surgeons room anymore. It was instant, the change was. The air was cool and serene. It also hugged at the patients emotions. Like getting a hug from everyone you've ever known all at the same time.
As soon as they clumped the sand in their palm, the texture changed. The patient looked around and saw they were now laying in a beautiful garden of white flowers. A soil held in their hands.
In this field of white flora, the patient noticed a pool of red. It seemed to belong to a separate space somehow. The flowers and grass didn't bend or respond to the blood. It grew larger, and deeper. Then, it began to bubble. Each boil bigger than the last. It looked as if there was something swimming within the liquid.
The patient struggled to move, their body unresponsive to any of the mental commands to run away. The small inklings of form within the blood swam towards each other, then swirled. This continued until a deep black mass appeared at the still expanding pool of blood. The patient cried out, but only groans escaped. Something hot flashed against their skin.
"What the hell is this!", it was impossible to discern whose voice this was. "These are record temperatures. It's working! Look, the skin!", the voice continued. But the patient only felt a burning heat within their arms and legs. If they focused, they could still feel the cushioning of the bed they lied on. Yet, at the same time felt the soil of the garden they were currently at. Looking up at the sky, trying to avoid the pool of anguish, revealed a wooden ceiling and a white cloudy sky all at once. As if someone had taken the two images and overlapped them.
The patient's head began to pound. It felt like something was crawling inside their head. Then, their legs, hands, arms, and waist. Using what little sense they were regaining, they looked down, and saw dozens of bony abominations crawling over them. More groans escaped the patient's mouth.
"What's happening!" a voice said.
"The scourge! The scourge m'lady! We're too late!", another responded.
A growl escaped from the nearby pool. Where the black mass had grown deepest, flesh had emerged. A deep, hairy, inhuman mass. A slender, bony arm had extended out from the blood, far longer than even a human. Another emerged after, followed by a snarled face that resembled a hound. Eyes of clear white stared deeply into the patient's eyes. A foamy trail of saliva poured from it's mouth. The patient wanted nothing more than to scream, to escape this anguish. They remembered the coolness of the sand from earlier. They longed for it. The beast drew even closer, a hungry craze in its eyes. As one of its disgusting claws neared it hesitated right before reaching the patient's face.
Then, the beast caught fire. It ran and scurried around the garden in a daze. What had happened? At the same, the small husks of bone had begun to writhe around the patient's body in pain. They were responding to a light. A yellowish flare of color was emerging from the patient's chest. Once more, the patient's vision was flared with color, the same they were emanating. The sound of a burning beast, the cries of writhing husks, the screams of the doctors, the cries of the soldiers, the cheers of victory. Every sound, good and bad, was echoing deep in the patient's mind. Finally, their body caught fire.
The patient expected it to hurt. But after the initial shock, they realized they were looking at an endless starry expanse. The flames leaped from their body and formed a small pillar nearby. The patient looked down and saw their own body could move again, but they weren't real. Their flesh resembled mist, as if only a visage of a person. They were back in that place, with cold sand beneath their feet. The patient sat up. Their body had no form, but still followed the rules of one. They needed to exert strength to move. Fully standing, they saw a beam of light in the distance. Bright yellow on the outlines, but on the inside, a pure white. The beam crackled off in some places in a bizarre broken perfection. Like a tree, the patient thought.
The patient began to walk towards the light. They didn't know why, it just felt like something to do. The small pillar of fire followed. It was confusing at first, but easy to ignore past the initial shock. They walked for hours. Maybe. It could have been minutes. It was too hard to tell. It was easy to lose track of yourself in this space. It seemed like the light never got closer either. After a small eternity, the patient sat back down.
There, they played with the sand. It would stay grainy and loose, like ash, when the patient would merely make mounds. Loose ideas of something, vague recreations of a random house or castle would prove impossible. The sand just wouldn't hold. So, the patient spent the next many hours watching loose piles of sand drift to an imaginary wind. Actually, that was interesting. The patient picked up more sand and watched the direction it would fall. As they did it, more and more, they noticed it was drifting to a different place every time.
The patient let another handful of sand fall and carefully watched where it landed. They placed their hand deep within the sand there. Something was there. Not actually, but in the way the sand fell. After hours, they had a loose outline of something. It was a large ring in the sand. More time passed of sand dropping, and another ring inside that ring had formed. And again, a final time. Three rings, one each larger than the other.
Like walls, the patient thought. But what could lie between walls like this? More sand dropping, then. Little mounds piling between each wall. Houses? The patient decided to try something. They reached into the sand, imagining the kinds of houses that could be built within walls. Normally, the sand was loose, and distant. Now, it compacted, and shaped far easier. Even though they lacked actual talent in sculpting, it seemed the precise idea of what was to be shaped helped mold the sand.
Paradise…right? Days passed. The patient had created an entire model of a massive city. Each level was made greater than the last. No…Paradis, the patient thought.
The flame behind the patient flickered. The patient hadn't seen the flame do much of anything but move. Its definition was a thin red outline, followed by a yellow body, and a deep black core. It shimmered erratically.
"Mold it.", it spoke.
The patient's breath caught in their throat. "What…what do you mean?", they said.
"You've molded Paradis. Fine. A distraction. I've helped you enough. Fix yourself." The flame shimmered with every word it spoke. Each letter resounded in the space.
"I don't…", the patient waivered.
"Now" the flame spoke. The patient reached into the sand. Attempting to conjure an image to help the sand. Of themselves. But who were they? Why couldn't they think right? Was it the anesthetic? That had been so long ago. Surely it was whatever injury they sustained. Then, images of fire, of heat and rubble appeared in their mind. The sand formed a leg, and with it, the image of a large creature. No. Not a creature, but almost a person. A distorted beast with the body and face of a human. It was a twisted vile thing. Something of demons.
A Titan.
The patient looked down and saw they had made an entire sculpture of a person laying down. They had an unrecognizable face. Presumably, this was the patient. Fully manifested. But there was something missing.
"Your mind. It needs your mind. Stretch forth thy hand" the flame said.
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to. Take back what's yours. Fight for it."
"What are you?", the patient thought as they reached their hand out.
"Ambition.''
The flame condensed into a fine spear and appeared in the patient's hand. The patient breathed in, preparing to finish this strange nightmare as they struck the head of the sculpture with the flame.
KRAKOOM!
A resounding light of energy sparked off of the sculpture. Everything was white.
"On your feet."
For the first time in a long time, Zoe Hange opened their eyes. Both of them.