the blood in our future

Fill My Lungs With Water (I'll Breathe You Just the Same)

A/N: Parentheses in the title - you know what that spells out!! (You probably don't because it's incredibly random that I've kept this trend going)

Besides that, I feel like everything that's going to happen in this chapter will be a jumpscare for you. Have fun!

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Lucy Carlyle could not sleep.

Even though her bones felt weary and every bit of her skin hurt, she couldn't keep her eyes closed for more than a few seconds.

Her bed which had felt so nice when she'd tried it out this afternoon, felt too cold, too hard, all of a sudden. Whichever way she lay - something was always wrong, always itching, always prompting her to jump up.

Lucy gave herself another half hour to try and fall asleep. Then, her feet hit the ground.

With her head still pounding, she was glad to look at the windowsill and find the ghost jar empty of any green glow. Skull had talked to her for a bit just as she'd gotten ready for bed, cackling whilst spewing one dark prophecy after another, only interrupting this cheerful broadcast for the occasional insult.

Then, finally, after he'd mocked her one time too many about how she'd looked with her fringe sticking up to wash her face, she'd ignored his protests, shut his valve, and enjoyed the blissful silence.

Still, even if he was a real annoyance and told Lucy far too often that 'Death was already inside her', she found that she liked having him around.

She would never admit to this out loud, but she'd felt incredibly alone, those nights at the hospital. It had been cold, isolated.

Loneliness had burrowed its roots deep within her, back then. Once everything had been dark, once everyone had gone. When there had been so many sounds outside of her room - nurses whispering up and down the hallway, distant coughing - and yet, inside of it, it had been entirely quiet. Entirely void of anything she might call home.

The last night, yesterday night, had been the worst. It hadn't been a surprise, really: By then, it had been going on the longest. Night after night, loneliness had hollowed her out until she was empty, until there was nothing else left. It had taken root, grown inside her, and now there were its fruits blooming in her throat, too deeply intertwined with her flesh to cut them out.

And Lucy had supposed it was always there, somehow. She had always felt it, had always felt traces of it, had always felt some sharp thorn scrape her insides open, reminding her it was still there, still waiting.

At day, it had been easier to take. Mary or George or even some nice Fittes agent named Kipps had stuck their head through her door and the branches had retreated.

But at night? At night, she had been on her own. She had been at its mercy.

At night, it had threatened to tear her open, to turn her blood into poison. At night, it had whispered into her ear that she was alone, alone, alone, and with its blossoms choking her, there was nothing she could have said against it.

She'd thought about Norrie and the others. All of her friends who had never even made it to a hospital before their eyes had become unseeing.

She'd thought about her mum, staying absent day after day.

And she'd thought about this new life, the one she could not remember living. She'd thought about George, who, although clearly trying his best, could never make up for the fact that her boss and, apparently, former friend, seemingly hated her guts.

Because what good could it have been, that she'd fought so hard to get away from Jacobs only for her to end up in another place of employment where her employer didn't care about her?