#I need the fizzzzz--- | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

justices-blade · 8 months ago

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"Edward." His name a chime in their voice, unabashedly endeared at the sight of him. "Ah, please refrain from too much movement. I can come to you."

It was a doctor's hands instead of a friend's hands that reached him, gaze sharp and scrutinising each swathe of fabric, each tear and scuff. Fingers hovered above shoulder, spell swirled at poised fingertips and faith soon doused his wounds.

"It is unfortunate you seem to have ended up with wounds that hinder your mobility. Hold as still as you can, please." His shoulder and hip called most strongly to their spell, a flickered light in the dark found by keen focus. Traces of a vicious spell, too, lingered on him though with his need to scuttle from place to place their attention remained on injuries that a move too sharp could worsen.

"Aside from the injuries, how are you feeling? Did you have fun?" A hum in their voice as hands held steady to mend. "No need to shy on the details, we both know I quite like to listen."

“Oh! Hey Arval!!”

Their warning was a good idea, because of course he’s going to try and get up to greet them. After taking those hits on the field and also reaggravating them after wrestling with Larcei in the tent like a dunce, though, he’s more than just a little achey. His leg’s gone right back from ‘yay limping time’ to ‘no i’m not doing this anymore. sit down’, too.

“Oh, thanks! Wait, lemme just…” He tries to be a model patient for them, really, but the squirming he’s doing to try and get them better access to his cuts and gashes isn’t really productive, mostly just ripping his shirt at his shoulder a little as he waffles over whether to try and roll his sleeve up more or shrug it off. He does get the memo when they move on to his hip though, now faced with the challenge of staying very, very still…

Agh. Two wars, and it’s still boring as sin. The relief from skin and flesh knitting together is still palpable, and he does stay still, at least for that. He tests his leg by lifting it a bit after Arval steps away, finding it feeling a bit stronger with a grin and a thumbs-up.

“I had a ton of fun! Our group of Deer found a bunch of Lions, and their leader was there too! They were all really strong, and when I tried to go wa-pow, they went bam! And when I—” He mimes a few punches, here, and continues to speak half with his hands and half with his mouth, “They went: Fizzzzz. Boom!”

He nearly falls forward with the squinty-eyed lancing gesture he makes in imitation of Louis, before coming back upright with a laugh. “You know?”

A snicker, before a candlewick lights up in his mind. “Actually, I didn’t see you out there! You a winner, or just on medtent duty?”

#;answered #;e. battle of the eagle and lion | 2024 #laruarva #;s. more than pale shadows | arval #YAYYY FRIEND

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buryitriseabove-blog · 7 years ago

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grey.

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They started the new version of this country all full of hope. But as with anything, things fuck up.

Some billionaire got interested in the place and for a good, undisclosed price, bought it over.

Things started changing.

The guy was into hippy dippy new world shit, and sold a lot of it (how else did he become a billionaire?) and decided to run his country that way. He wanted the country to be rated on general happiness rating (GHR). From the outside that looked great. “Oh look!” other countries proclaimed. “He is putting his countries happiness first, how wonderful!”

Being grey is the opposite of being happy. So I was poor from the beginning.

And the rich had the advantage from the start. They had enough money to invest in their happiness.

All the best psychiatrists got bought off by the government and kept for the rich, for the people who had the money to access them.

Protests about this system of care were just laughed off and patronisingly rebranded as “community bonding”. “You all gathered here for one cause, lots of people joining to do something, don’t you feel better now? Aren’t you cured? We fixed you!”

The protests ended soon after that. We resigned to our fate. To be fair, not many people turned up anyway. A grey person can barely get out of bed, never mind see people, march, be heard. It’s much easier to hide our physical affliction from the world and stay in our rooms. The world is cold and harsh and tiring.

So we trudged on, if we could. We waited. Endured. Ended.

-------------------

A lot took their lives, not wanting to continue on in a world where you were punished for your affliction.

Late at night you would see them. The clean-up teams would have them gone by morning, making sure everything on the streets looked clean and normal and okay. It would be bad for the economy otherwise.

Their bodies lying lifeless. In abandoned parking lots, street corners, the public parks.

The worst ones to walk by were the ones covered in bright red blood dripping from their veins. They still had parts of them untainted by the grey. There was still hope for them.

Those with grey through and through, grey blood seeping from their bodies, they were already gone. They didn’t have a chance. They let go and wouldn’t suffer anymore. You hope they finally have peace.

There’s something depressing about seeing the lifeless body of someone who still had a chance. The clean-up teams always made sure to get rid of them first.

Anyway. Those who took their lives in the early days probably had the right idea. ------------------- They started the Census last year. It got rolled out in the rural areas first so they could collect and tally the data all in one day before travelling onto the next small village. Sometimes they could do four villages in one day.

We had no clue about them then. Rural areas keep to themselves - they avoid the online world due to it’s negative economic side effects. We had no chance of being warned.

Then the first Census arrived in a city. They didn’t know what to expect. They went around homes, asking questions, assessing hues. They wrote down numbers and ticked boxes and made comments. Then they left.

It wasn’t until that first city got their evaluation through that we found out what it meant.

Households who didn’t reach the cut off for the HI (Happiness Index) were deemed as an ‘economic risk’ and had sanctions brought against them. Wages were cut to save the economy that was being damaged by their poor HI level. Pensions were cut. Some had televisions, laptops, mobiles taken from them to boost their HI for the next Census.

Landlords started throwing out grey tinged people out their apartments to save them from facing any repercussions from housing low HI people. It was “too much of a financial risk”.

The first posts appeared during the evictions. People live blogging, filming themselves being forced to leave. Some spoke about their families no longer having enough money to feed everyone because of their illness. Panic struck those of us afflicted with grey.

That’s why I had to leave.

I love my family too much.

-------------------

My genetics were meant to prevent this.

Swedish and Scottish genes met together to create a red haired, blue eyed baby.

When you read up on what I am, it's said that those who have features close to the primary colours are far less susceptible to becoming what I am. I guess I'm the exception to that.

And trust me, I didn't choose this. Nobody in their right minds (excuse the pun) would choose this.

In a world filled with colour you don't choose to be grey.

------------------- You notice it slowly.

A bad day and your feet tinge grey.

A couple of weeks and your legs have turned too. You can feel the drained colour dragging you down as you walk along the street.

Then, as you get worse and it takes over, and your whole body becomes grey. You can try hide it with clothing, but when it’s really bad it taints those too. You become a fully grey being.

-------------------

I was doing okay. Only my feet and hands were grey, better than the months before.

Then the first posts of the sanctions popped up on my feed. I felt like I was drowning. The grey storm cloud was swirling above my head, covering my body, seeping into my veins, submerging me. Months of progress lost in an instant. See? The internet is bad for a GHR based economy.

I immediately ran a bath to try and calm down and do my exercises. To go through the motions of ridding myself of this grey cloud.

I got in, the heat of the water stinging my grey tinged skin. I grabbed my supplies to get better.

The ruby red nail polish was my go to. It was a present from my mother when I first started becoming unwell. It was the one thing that worked. Primary colours are the best way to help those afflicted by the grey. I really needed it to save me now.

The polish came out in a gloop. I submerged it in the water and shook it. Merely sticking some colour on my nails wouldn’t help. It was about the rhythm, the concentration, the process of painting them that helped to calm me.

I watched the strokes of red leave the bottle and hit my grey nail. You could see the red dulling on impact. I had to work quickly and efficiently to make sure that the grey didn’t taint them. That I had the bright, beaming colour to focus on. The red would be completely gone in no time in this head space.

I tried to focus. But the red kept crackling away like a broken TV set. Fizzzzz-pop. Fizzzz-pop. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn't get that red to stay red. The static would come and turn it back to grey.

I burst into tears. I was too far gone. Reading about the sanctions, the evictions, the starvation… it had all been too much for me.

That’s when I decided I had to leave.

My family would only be able to survive without me.

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#personal #personal writing #my writing #working on it

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