#first time I’ve written about Harumi so don’t judge too harshly please

[narratorstrash]

Cotard Syndrome

A GKM au drabble for my mutual

(Warning; some disturbing descriptions, mental illness, $uicidal ideation, near-death experiences, mild swearing, revival & disrespect of nature, exploration of character undeath, headcanon that Harumi had permanent issues & scars from dying, like ‘chronic illness’ kind of issues)

When she had been sucked into and violently spat out of a mergequake, something had happened to Harumi. While she had hit her head rather hard when she landed, that wasn’t what felt wrong.

Rather than being happy that she had survived, a building sense of dread had dug into her weak soul and began festering. Slowly, as she began trekking through this strange, large world she’d been thrown into, she grew sicker and sicker. Certainly not a simple cold or fever as it only got worse no matter how much rest she got. She had spent a whole damn day trying to sleep off the horrible feeling, but it didn’t work. It only seemed to slow the ache.

Despite the illness dragging her down like vengestone shackles, she pressed onward. She had finally found a river, and rivers always led to civilization eventually, so she had set a course along its shore. An added bonus was that it was a fast flowing stream, so she could stop for a drink whenever she needed.

Yet the further she went, the more drained she became. Even when the silhouette of a large, shiny city rose triumphantly across the horizon, no second wind pushed her forward. She was left with heavy feet and a deep, aching hunger gnawing at her empty stomach, threatening to start eating itself. The pain only grew, spreading like blood in water from her legs, to her back, and creeping up her neck to her skull.

Everything ached, screaming for her to just give up— it would be so much easier if she did. And still, she pressed on until her legs finally gave out on her. Even then, she refused to stop, she refused to die like this. It was a death unbecoming of someone with her determination and iron-will, but even she couldn’t keep going if her body decided it was done.

She fell to the sandy ground, barely giving a grunt of pain when she landed heavily. The earth had turned from cool dirt to blistering sand hours ago, the limited comfort offered by foliage having disappeared into a massive swath of gold.

It was so hot even the river she had been following didn’t help. She felt so unbearably warm and tired and hurting everywhere and she just wanted to rest. She desperately needed food and sleep, but she knew she would surely perish if she so much as blinked too long. But it was so, so tempting. The cool mistress of death disguised as a short nap called her to rest where she lay, lulling her with the promise of peace— the peace of an afterlife she never got when she had gone down with the building in Ninjago City.

In truth, that’s all she wanted now. Ever since her revival by the Overlord’s twisted claws, her only true desire was to return where she had fallen, where she had sacrificed herself to save a little girl from the same pain she had experienced. At least when she had died, she’d done so for a selfless reason. Her life had ended on a somewhat decent note, helping a random family avoid the heartache she had suffered— though it didn’t overshadow her numerous other crimes.

She had at least accepted when she died, crushed under tons of concrete and drywall, body never to be found no matter how hard the green ninja had searched. And then the damned Overlord had to find her and decided he still had use of her. Sure, she had agreed to his terms for a second chance, but nothing could have prepared her for the horror that came with that new life.

It had started with her soul being slammed back into her physical form like a truck, a startled gasp filling her lungs and sending a sharp pain shooting along her broken spine. Yet that pain was nothing in comparison to the sheer agony that overwhelmed her mere seconds after.

Throughout the reconstruction of her body, she felt every moment of it in horrific detail. The invisible stitching of her skin, the forced healing of her punctured organs, the sudden resetting of her numerous compound fractures— it was a fate she would only wish upon the Overlord himself. While it only lasted a few seconds, it was without a doubt the longest, most excruciating experience any being could undergo.

When it was finally completed, she was forced to escape her impromptu tomb with her bare hands and a small push from her master. Then, she was left with vague instructions every-so-often and plenty of scars to show for the disrespect to the natural order she had become. For a long time, every breath she took burned like fire and the beat of her heart felt like a stuttering palpitation, her joints ached like an arthritic’s and her skull pounded with the strength and devastation of an earthquake.

In essence, being alive was somehow more painful than simply dying under the rubble of a collapsed building. Life always found new and interesting ways to be cruelly ironic.

Unfortunately, the moment she stopped fighting to think, she fell into the trap she’d been trying to avoid this whole journey. Her eyes slowly drooped closed, unknowingly falling asleep, and she stayed that way for a long time.

•.~.•

She didn’t know when exactly she had closed her eyes, but when she did, she had rightfully assumed that was the end for her. Yet not only did she awake, she awoke in a soft bed with air conditioning blowing her way from an unseen direction. A rickety bedside table held up a glass of water, a sandwich, and a bottle she could only assume was pain medication.

She blinked a few times, soothing her dry eyes, and breathed deeply to force back the chronic headache she’d been dealing with for months now. The burning in her lungs took her mind off the pain in her skull for a minute— a small win she would accept— so she focused on commanding her limbs to respond. Water would certainly help her situation, so she methodically flexed the muscles in her arm until she could feel it again and guided it to the table. With painstaking effort, her hand closed around the glass, the coolness of it acting as a slight balm to her calloused palm.

“Hey, you’re awake!”

The unknown voice startled her far more than she would willingly admit, causing her to clench her fist with a panicked strength that shattered the glass with frightening ease. The shards bit into her skin, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

“Who are you?” she snapped, immediately demanding answers, “What do you want?”

“Oh, I guess we haven’t actually met,” the ginger removed his headphones as he spoke, “The name’s Aaron Fox.”

Harumi glared at him, suspicion high; just because this man gave her a name didn’t mean it was really his own or that he was honest in nature.

“Not much of a talker huh?”

Only then did she realize he was holding out a hand, expecting a friendly handshake. She refused it with great prejudice, huffing a quiet laugh.

“I don’t talk to strangers,” she turned her nose away haughtily.

“I mean, I’m the stranger who saved you from dying slowly in a desert, but okay,” Aaron shrugged, glancing to the water dripping off the side of the table, “What’d you do to your glass?”

Harumi looked down at her injured hand, making a tsking sound of disapproval, “What does it matter.”

It was more so a statement than a question and it clearly confused the man before her.

“It kinda matters ‘cause you need water and there’s glass in your hand.”

She didn’t respond, pointedly ignoring him to instead bring her other hand up to pick the shards out of her skin. It stung a little, but no blood followed from the tiny wounds— unsurprising to her considering the state of her current existence. You can’t exactly bleed if your heart doesn’t pump blood correctly. Last she had checked, her heart would only beat once every five minutes or so and every time it felt wrong in a way that was difficult to describe.

“I’ll getcha some bandages,” the man excused himself, leaving her to slowly remove the particulates.

It was a slog to complete, the thick, small droplets of blood oozing from the tiny puncture wounds at a snail’s pace. Most people would have started bleeding the moment the glass embedded itself, but she didn’t count as most people anymore. By the time ‘Aaron’ came back, she had piled the shards onto the table and was putting pressure on the injury with her safe hand, hissing at the slight sting.

“Man, can’t believe you stomached doing that by yourself,” he cringed, placing a plastic cup on the table and rolling up the small damp towel in his hands, “Especially with how tired you must be. Your temperature was crazy high when I found you!”

He brought the towel close to her forehead, to which she smacked his hands away.

“What are you doing?”

Aaron blinked in surprise, “Trying to help with your heat stroke? Your fever was still really high before you woke up.”

Harumi glared, distrusting of this random man who decided to save her. In the end though, she was far too tired and in pain to keep her walls up forever. Honestly, she couldn’t keep them up for a minute longer. She finally gave in with an exasperated grunt and let him place the rag on her forehead. Almost immediately, the fabric began slowly absorbing the heat from her skin, allowing her to cool off faster than she would on her own. She lay back to keep the rag on her head without holding it, reluctantly relaxing to some degree.

“I got some bandages too,” he pointed out, “I need your hand.”

Despite her initial misgivings and wariness, she let him take her hand to disinfect and wrap it to keep any infection out. When he was done, he took the rag back, finding it no longer cold.

“Wow, already warm. You want me to-“

“Yes.”

“Okay then.”

He left with the rag, closing the door to give her some semblance of privacy. When he was gone, she sat up and looked out the small window across the room. She had thought about escaping when she first spotted it, but with her condition and having no clue where she was, that would likely do more harm than good.

So she chose to stay— not that she had much choice in the matter anyway. Her stay wouldn’t last very long though. She would make sure of that.