034 x 430 // text // plan your own...

[dignity_misery]

[She trashed the apartment this morning. The anxiety mounted above and beyond what could she could handle, that knot of glass and tar inside of her chest unbearable, the crying inside of her head pulsating too heavily. It's been building there, behind her eyes and deep in her stomach and lungs, for weeks now. She's been counting down to this day, or maybe it's been creeping up to her. Climbing over her, choking her.

The wreckage is inevitable, furniture overturned and porcelain shards scattered across the floor. Her dog is clawing at the bathroom door now, and for some reason that she doesn't understand, she has this to share with the network,]

CAROLENA MARÍANNA MORIR
09/08/1986 — 03/26/2011
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR .

[[ooc; This post is a catchall for Carla's suicide. This is a blanket trigger warning for the entirety of this post and any comments that may follow. She will answer any network comments, but it will be timelined to before her final episode. Action from folks involved in this fiasco are welcome, as well as any initial visitors on Sunday (it takes 24 hours for the dead to wake up.)

By the way, it's her birthday. She's 30 today.]]

Comments

[keepinitsaucy]

[Alright, that's really freaky.]

Er, Carla..? What's going on?

voice;

[dignity_misery]

[She sounds hoarse, not quite laughing.]

Bon anniversaire pour moi.

voice;

[keepinitsaucy]

[He really wishes he had retained some of the lessons from his high school French class.]

It's your... anniversary? Is that what you meant?

Private

[worldofourown]

Carla?

[ Not asking if everything's all right. He can all but sense it's not. ]

Private

[dignity_misery]

[Silence. Silence. Silence.]

Hello.

Private

[worldofourown]

What are you doing?

[ There's a tautness in the question. ]

action;

[synanthrope]

[She's reading a magazine and sitting in a nearby chair when Carla wakes up.]

action;

[dignity_misery]

[She was chained to the floor last time this happened. Barbet had known, what the virus would do to her. He had expected an animal, one that froth and snap. She hadn't disappointed him, she'd thrashed herself into exhaustion trying to reach him, had been able to smell his pulse so overwhelmingly, his blood and his flesh. She could have eaten him then, ripped him apart and screamed, lost herself right then and there in the first few moments. But he'd been ready, and he'd watched her. She doesn't remember his expression, sometimes she wonders if it was pained. Is that flattering herself? She thinks it must be.

It had taken her a few days to speak. To ask him what he had done.

This isn't quite the same. Her hands are restrained, that's familiar, but the anger isn't there, rage bubbling under the surface, there's just... exhaustion. She takes in a deep breath that she doesn't need.]

action;

[synanthrope]

[Saya sets the magazine down, her eyes a little paler than usual when she looks over at Carla]

Happy Birthday.

video;

[beyourarmy]

I don't feel right wishing you a happy birthday when it's like I'm looking at a grave marker.

voice;

[dignity_misery]

[She won't show her face. She looks drawn, sleepless and tense, flecks of blood across her face and her hands.]

That's what it is.

voice;

[beyourarmy]

Well, that kinda sucks.

...look, I'm from the year 1999, so this is kinda weird for me. What year are you from?

[intheblanks]

[This curse lingers on an old network post of Chase's, long enough ago that he doesn't remember it and hasn't chosen to check. But there's something about those numbers that leaves the two of them an oddity in common.

Another common factor: this room, this hospital, the flickering instant when one form of death is exchanged for the city's own particular facsimile of it. Chill, unbreathing, unvital but aesthetically alive. What an irony that this time it's self inflicted.

Chase has been here for a little while. It's been the requisite twenty four hours since some Warner-Brothers cartoon of a monster brought her to the hospital, already too late. Twenty seven hours or so since a middle aged patient on the cardiology floor had the aneurysm which meant Chase was in surgery while Carla was trashing her apartment. While she was talking to teenagers on the network. While there was a little time. Twenty three hours since two bodies were washed and redressed in hospital blue. Five since he sat down with his heart patient's girlfriend to assure her that chances of a full recovery were looking good.

It's thirty two hours since he last slept.

Be there at our waking and give us, we pray
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

It's about an hour since he sat down in the corner of Carla's room, and perhaps eighteen minutes since his thoughts tracked, briefly, along nostalgic pathways.

There are no tubes, no machines, nothing keeping her on the bed but the stillness of death, and that won't last long. It's customary for medical personnel to be with the dead when they wake.

He's here.]

[dignity_misery]

[She's been hiding this longer than perhaps he thinks. Her balance had shifted, watching Saya on the rooftop, discussing with her where the best place to jump might be. It had left Carla's heart speeding, her mind racing and she had spent the rest of the evening in the corner of a bar taking bets from drunkards on just how much she could stand. How long she could hold a cigarette to her skin, how deep she could wedge a knife into her hand. Superficial damage that kept her busy, and below ground. But the specter had followed her, over the next several weeks.

September was approaching, the summer gone, the light would be fading soon. She remembers how much more claustrophobic the studio had become in the colder months, heavy with shadows, the windows inevitably piled over with snow. Her birthday was only one facet of the sensation of anxiety and dread, but it was also the most obvious, the one with a name and a date and as it had made its way near to her, she had begun to quail in front of it. Maybe it was the uncertainty. What would it be like, this time? Would it be different here? Would it be different with her heartbeat and breaths. No, she didn't really believe so. She believed that she would look into the mirror and see the same frozen woman that had been there before. The same dark eyes that no longer light up, the same unfulfilled wishes.

Almost a month in the making, wrecking the apartment had been something, at least. A gift to herself, maybe. She'd never dared to pull apart Barbet's studio that way, and truthfully imagining it still fills her with a sense of fear that disgusts her. There's... so little, that's truly changed. (It isn't true, she believes it, but it isn't true.)

There's a part of herself, that knows she's going to wake up. That knows it will be painful and that she has done something terrible to herself. But of course she deserves it, that was the thought that had run through her mind. Toying with a locket filled with poison, she had wondered who she might impart that dose upon, who deserved to writhe and suffer. It had been her, of course it had been her, and the pretty thing had still been around her neck when Andrew Bergman carried her here. She wasn't expecting that, to be taken to the hospital, but she supposes it will expediate what she already expects.

Robert is there. She does not consciously acknowledge him, but she can smell him and she knows he's there even when she first stirs sluggishly out of the much too familiar arms of death. She makes little attempt to push herself up, curling in on herself instead with an uneven noise; someone attempting to contain panic to little effect.]

[intheblanks]

[She's hidden it terribly since the moment he met her. His stories of broken ballerinas and hopeless cases, of his own mother, all acknowledgement that there are some people who just want to die. Some get better. Some don't. But it's Carla who has opted for the inbetween and he'd thought (no: he'd hoped and he's never quite learned the difference) that she'd at least known better than that. He'd thought he'd made it clear to her.

People come back from dust and ashes.]

This is a hospital room in the city. You're quite safe and you shouldn't be in any pain. Feeling a little cold [Colder.] is completely normal.

[It's a script, usually adjusted for the needs of the patient, but she gets it read out as rote. What comfort is there for the self-inflicted?

He moves a minute after her stirring first begins to tug the sheets around her, crouching by the bed to hit a switch. Gradually a pool of electrical warmth will spread through the mattress, a replicant of body heat.]

And it shouldn't last long.

[Until she leaves the bed, and it becomes unshakeable.]

[signatures]

You wished for it?

voice;

[dignity_misery]

[Silence. And when she speaks there's a grim sort of humor,]

It's not that kind of warning.

voice;

[signatures]

Seems more like a wry remark.

[brobeforehos]

[This curse has hit her before. She remembers it like it happened yesterday, when in reality several months have passed since. Mavis Crawford, she danced and then she didn't. Of course she'd remember it. Anyone who danced to summon demons knew that.

But that's not what makes her stop. Wish for.]

Carla?

[dignity_misery]

[Many of these messages are greeted with an initial silence. Carla's usually a little more subtle when considering whether or not to answer, but she can't be bothered today.]

Mae.

[Acknowledgement, though not invitation.]

[brobeforehos]

[The silence isn't a surprise. But she has to say something, of course she does. This is big sister instincts kicking in. Or maybe lost causes instincts.

It's surprising now to realise that usually it's Carla who approaches and starts up any conversation. But not to be defeated, Mae takes a page out of her book.]

Cupcakes. It's one of those weekends with the horrible curses, and cupcakes could help.

action;

[halves]

[He's one of her last visitors, and he doesn't bring anything. Lou would be happy to stay holed up somewhere, even after managing to pick up everything he could throw away and finding a place for the things Carla didn't manage to break, but he still manages to get over himself and finds her room. He considered bring over Rex, maybe, but that didn't sound like a better idea than standing and staring at her with nothing to say. He doubts the dog wouldn't forgive her, Rex was ecstatic every time she even walked through that door, and never left her alone in the middle of the chaos.

This is stupid. Pointless. Lewis barely knows her, but even in her apparent disinterest she's been more generous than he could ever give anyone credit for. In the end the only catch ended up being what he saw - the creature inside her chest taking over her hands and throat. It was more than he ever expected to know, and feels he somehow owes her for it, even if it was never her intention to share. At least, he doubts it was. That kind of brutal, raw anger, eager to destroy everything before realizing the only real solution is to destroy oneself is more alienating than anything else, as he should know. He never got to that part - his father had managed to pull him away before his hands had squeezed out the last breath from his brother's neck. Then there were clearly lit rooms with drones dressed in white telling him he'd be all right if he just put his mind into it, and Lewis had to crawl all the way back to a sense of normalcy. Now it's her turn, he supposes.

(This is different. Of course it is. But like every other selfish creature, he can only see it as far as he can see himself reflected in it.)

Maybe she'll notice he's there, maybe she won't even bother to acknowledge him.]

action;

[dignity_misery]

[She has been sedated slightly, something she can't summon the will to be angry about right now. Maybe that's the sedation, or maybe it's just her exhaustion, her absolute and soul deep lack of energy to care about anything right now. She's tired herself out with thrashing and sobbing. They've got her hands restrained at the moment as well. Maybe they'll reconsider the restraints, when she volunteers herself for the psychiatric ward, because she's going to. She needs somewhere quiet and contained to think, and they'll offer her that.

She can smell Lou when he enters the room, her Reanimate sense of smell still mainly intact. She knows he's there, though she doesn't immediately react. She's enjoying the empty drift of her head, she prefers it over the shame and sorrow and disgust. She's reluctant to pull herself back, redirect her attention to him.

But she does it, dark eyes hazy, expression quiet.]

Hi, Lou.

[Her voice is somewhat hoarse, a little more raspy than it was before.]

Sunday

[itsjustafruit]

[Why ask why Crowley was wandering the hospital. There was no need to discuss his spectacular choice of timing. The fact was, he was there and for some reason he was carrying a tray with covered dishes from which wafted the unmistakable wan stink of hospital food.

He set it down on the bedside table and pulled up a chair.]

Cocked this right up, didn't you?

[dignity_misery]

[There were certain people that Carla expected to come, those who were already well-abreast of how precariously she's always been sitting on the side of living. She's seen all of them, avoided their eyes and pulled back from their questions, 'Where are you going, afterwards?'

She was not expecting Crowley, and there's nothing weighted between them to stop her from looking up at him. There was expectation here. She looks a little groggy, lightly sedated to keep her from panicking again, trying to claw this corpse off of herself.]

I got what I wanted, at the time.

[Her voice is a little hoarse still. She shifts to curl one of her legs underneath herself, her hands remain where they have been restrained.

She inclines her head towards his tray.]

What did you get?