fandomweekly | [#119] Help, I'm Alive (Resident Evil)

Theme Prompt: #119 – Heartbeat
Title: Help, I'm Alive
Fandom: Resident Evil
Rating/Warnings: M - Gore, Body Horror, Mentions of Self-Mutilation and Insect-Based Horror
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 835
Summary: Zoe has survived an attack that she really, really shouldn't have.

"My god... god, Mia -- listen..."

Mia can't hear her, she doesn't think - fair enough, as she can't quite hear herself, either, over the sludge and blood pouring out of her throat as she tries her damnedest to push air out of it, sticking between her sounds and her teeth and gumming up the space there.

Not over Mia, on the floor of the dark corner of the main hall with her, now that Daddy's moved on to pick some other bone with his and Mama and Evie's new captive - arms around her and head to her chest as she whispers too-loud that god, you're alive - hang in there, Zoe; you're gonna be fine... Dammit, Zoe, I'm so, so sorry, her voice shivering as if it isn't a hot night, or wasn't, before the chill had begun to wash over Zoe's skin.

Zoe can't seem to recall what Mia would be sorry for, either, through the sick, scared sounds - or that of her heart thump, thump, thumping, under Mia's ear.

"Listen," she tries hacking again. "Listen, do you hear it?"

Mia holds her tighter, and she feels her breathe; feels her body, 's warm as blood - if that isn't hers.

"I'm here, Zoe - we're safe. He's gone. You're all right. Hang in there."

This tells Zoe nothing till she adds, "Your heart's still beating. Strong."

While her question's answered, Zoe doesn't understand how the thoughts of Mia's connect; how they don't contradict.

Her heart shouldn't be going on so strong, so loud - she doesn't believe. Not when she still bleeds with every sound she makes - now shuddering in Mia's hold, coughing and seizing as the mold overflows in her tattered insides.

She's already become like the others - like Daddy, who split his chest open to the bone before her very eyes, when this all began; like Mama, whose guts crawl with roaches and centipedes, making her damn mind tremble as she thinks of what may sneak into her insides as they mend; like Lucas, who's been sulking as if it's supper that he's been having revoked when their parents've banished him from rooms missing limbs like a puppet.

This isn't okay; her thoughts submerge themselves into cold, cold black. This shouldn't be okay.

"No." Zoe feels Mia's head shake; feels her fingers bite between the backs of her ribs - wonders if it's good that she can still feel pain, or if it should be fading. "You're right, Zoe - it's not okay. It's not okay."

Zoe blinks; she opens her mouth, and another stream of black ichor pours from it.

She supposes that it's possible that she spoke, again, without hearing herself.

"It's not okay." Mia swallows; her voice unhitches with a sound like a sob, and she presses closer to her. Warmer. She's stained dark in Zoe's vision, and she repeats the thought to herself, harder. "It's not okay. But I'm gonna make it, Zoe - we're... gonna make it."

Zoe coughs - a question failing to form.

"You hear me?" Mia asks her, turning her blood-streaked face up to face her, her eyes pleading. "We. We're gonna fix this. We're gonna get out of this..."

Her chest rises and falls, twice - shallow, clogged, ineffectual.

She remembers, through so many more clogs, why Mia was sorry. Remembers Daddy leading her in through the front door, soaked with rain and seawater, looking about oh so hauntedly. Remembers him carrying in Evie - and the little girl's smile in the dark, at the end of her dream that night, right after she read Mia's note.

And it's pain greater than that in her middle that she shuts her eyes with; greater than that of the ache in her heart that's still sprinting sprinting sprinting sprinting toward the moving mirage of bodily stability.

She doesn't know if it's okay, either, that she just can't blame her, now.

"Yeah," she tries to say. "Yeah."

Her arms lift, and she clings to Mia, back, to slow her sinking.

"I, I." The swallow of a mouthful of something acrid and thick. "Me too. 'M still here..."

"Yes," says Mia, rocking her in her arms. "Yes - you are. And we're gonna get out of this, okay? We're gonna get out of this - together..."

"Together," Zoe coughs.

She shuts her eyes, unto another pour of fluid, warm, down her cheeks; her brow hardens.

Together.

She still has Mia, here, and it's too late for either of them to go back from anything.

But - fine. It's fine.

As long as she has her to hitch herself to, she'll know that she ain't too like the others, as long as that holds true. She's not. Not yet.

Not too far gone.

And that, as comes achingly to her, is what the "together"'s for, on Mia's end.

She has things to fix, and oh, is her help not anything Zoe's about to decline - not in this state, the burn of spent soreness in her chest supplemented by one of grim, grim gratitude and assent, amidst the nonunderstandable.