Arknights : Final Rebirth - Gladius Belii

[E] Chapter 16 - Strain, Exhaustion...

"Mono/Dialogue"

'Inner thoughts'

Narration

[Message/communication apparatus]

Date: 21st December 1080

Location: Safehouse Omicron, County of Toron, Victoria.

POV: Nyx

I woke up on the floor... drenched in sweat... and blood that made its mark along the corner of my mouth... my eyes were hazy but never have I seen such clarity for years... My eyes trailed along the cold wooden floor, further reinforced by the freezing winter of December.

There I also saw a pool of both blood and blackish venom... my venom... they had coagulated and dried... this will be very hard to clean up. I expected the worst, but I was naïve and arrogant... Dad would be sorely disappointed with how much false bravado I put up.

I also take note of my left hand, completely chaffed off skin and there are even signs of flesh breaking... I tried touching it with my other hand...

"FUCK! AH!" A part of my flesh fell off... it just fell off... It stung, like getting a chunk of your flesh being bitten and torn away like a piece of meat... I quickly repressed the pain but it did little to quell my tears, so I could only suffer all by myself; quietly so.

Not wasting any more time, I pulled a nearby box with medication in it. Quickly tending and bandaging it, my flesh would regenerate in time... further increasing my suspicion that I might as well be an alien... I had seen people with similar wounds, they never recovered... but I did... what the hell am I?

Lethargically I roused myself up, my throat burning in pain and discomfort while my body was being assailed by exhaustion. Before I even managed to sit back up, I vomited more blood... this one is fresh... My vision grew hazy again... but I persevered...

This is just the worst possible outcome of my routine outside of mercenary work and or doing other activities, normal activities to be precise. Training can also work in easing my mind, sadly it appears that I had gone way too far.

I'll have you know that even I would get sick of seeing blood 24/7... it will be too stale or even tasteless to see it so often. Thus I elected a healthier off-time of doing nothing other than normal stuff... with Arts training in the mix....

"Welp, enough of that..." Grunting painfully, I start stumbling forward into the bathroom, I just toughen it up because what else can I do? Feels like someone is boring a hole through my lungs to make things worse. I just stick along the wall for something to hold onto, can't afford to exacerbate my wounded arm despite my regeneration and the process itself being slow.

I still don't understand how I didn't smell unpleasant despite being drenched like this. I don't have biology class in my repertoire of past life experiences, thus my knowledge of that kind of stuff is limited.

The bath never takes long, I never needed to since a simple rinse here and there would be sufficient due to my strange body... Helps that my battlefield habit is too hard to let go of... I don't want to stay too long here while being wounded to boot....

Not to say I can't indulge in a slower and more relaxed bathing, it is just that I really need to recuperate and... analyze the video recording.

Yes, I always keep a video recorder on to better understand what the hell happened yesterday, specifically what happened during my Arts training. It was annoying at first, but you gotta do what you gotta do, not much room to compromise there anyway.

The most troublesome part after bathing is my hair... it is really a hassle to spend half an hour grooming it. I had become self-conscious about how I styled my hair, weirdly enough. Should I cut it? I don't know but I'll let future Nyx deal with that.