I just can't help myself

[Maraoone]

((June Madison continues from no one knows where the ladder goes))

Her arm was bleeding now.

She raised it in front of her and observed how a dark red had blossomed at the bottom of the sling her arm was nestled in, moist, and how, at the bottom, beads of blood formed and largened, till they fell under the weight of their own gravity, drip, drop, falling like water from a broken tap. Her blood vessels, leaking without pause.

She didn't know how long it had been that way. She only knew that the trail of red that preceded her stretched down the elevated, snow-covered path far past where she could see. It should've worried her, but, a couple hours ago, she'd witnessed Kitty rummaging through the rubble of the hunting lodge bar, presumably picking at Dick and Darryl's corpses, plucking out whatever was of worth. More people she could only mourn from afar. All the grief and regret and devastation, all of those feelings, bodily divorced from her, separated by yards and yards of snow and air and debris.

It meant Kitty was too preoccupied to follow her trail. So it was fine.

She considered going back some time later, but she was too far up the trail. Going back didn't matter anymore. Not that she was too tired to go back, not that she was as tired as she was the first time, back when Medea had chased her up here. Her breathing felt slow, gradual, subdued, not the fast ragged hyperventilations of before. She felt less
tired.

There was not as much pain as there was supposed to be. The cold must have numbed it. The air seemed to be around freezing, the formerly powdery snow now having a more slush-like consistency, so it was warmer than before. But still cold enough for it to not feel like much.

She was supposed to fix it. It had been bleeding for so long, after all. But, though the blood dripped, dripped, dripped from the sling Dick had fashioned for her, all she felt was this vague stinging in the background, a shadow of the sheer fire that had swept her all those days ago,

But, might as well anyways.

At a portion of the trail where the slope plateaued, June stepped off to the side and set herself down behind an overgrown bush. She settled down her two bags, now mostly hollowed out, more space than things, and opened one of them with her right hand and only her right hand, pinning the bag against a tree trunk with her knee, so the zipper would actually pull. And then, with her right hand, she rummaged for half a second, not much left to rummage through, before she found her first aid kit.

It wasn't as bad as it could've been. It could've been the bone poking through, impossible to fix, a guarantee of infection, sepsis, death. Instead, what laid beneath the bandages was a couple of deep gashes, caused either by the splintered wood of the bar floor, or some nails that must've poked through the planks. Deep, but treatable.

From the first aid kit, June retrieved a roll of gauze. She set down the roll on her knee, and not the snowy ground, so as not to wet it, so as not to possibly contaminate her wound with mold, or bacteria, or whatever pathogens lived on this island. And then, gingerly, she unrolled the gauze with her one hand and, when she pulled out a strip a couple feet long, she craned her neck down awkwardly, and she bit down where she wanted the portion to end. Then, all at one, she pulled at the gauze in opposing direction, jerking her head left, pulling her hand right. The first effort stretched it narrow, but did not tear it. The second effort pulled it taut, but slipped it between her teeth. The third effort snapped it clean, but with the jolt, the rest of the roll of gauze fell onto the ground.

Okay.

It was fine. She only needed this bit of gauze anyways.

She lightly dabbed the cloth onto her wounds, and she got glimpses of their true nature in between dabs, in between gushes of blood. They were little canyons gouged out from her skin, deep enough that they would leave scars if she lived long enough for them to scar, but not enough to reach into muscle, bone. Still though, they bled incessantly, liquid filling up the wounds a second or so after she released pressure. They stung, but they did not hurt. They did not feel the way they were supposed to feel.

What was she supposed to feel?

Well, there were many things that had been done to her on this island, and many things that she had done.

There was a wound on her head where it had hit the concrete. Inflicted on someone else, returned in turn, karmic retribution. She should have gotten a concussion from it, but she had slept the night before and awoke alive. There was a slight headache, but only slight. What was she supposed to feel there?

There was a crook in her arm where there shouldn't be. The painkillers hadn't worked when she'd taken them and yet it, too, only throbbed, and nothing more. What was she supposed to feel there?

There was a ringing in her ears. Maybe from when Dick had shot Iris to death. Or from when June had screamed her throat out pursuing Jezzie. Or from when Kitty had launched a grenade at Dick and Darryl. Everything sounded less than it did before, all buried under a continuous ultra-high ring, the sound of the nerve endings in her inner ear dying. Everything sounded less. What was she supposed to feel there?

There was a chill in her hands, both the one that worked, and the one that didn't. Many hands had graced it, held onto it, pulled it up, and yet, they were all gone now, and now her fingers were clammy, and numb, and lonely, more than her arm, more than the rest of her body. They trembled. They shivered. Why were they so cold?

What was she supposed to feel there?

Angry? Who was there to be angry at? Who was there to shout and scream at? Jezzie? Kitty? The terrorists? God? None of them were here. None of them would care if, in this moment, she punched at the trees and birds and cursed and screamed, none of them would care, her anger would be pointless.

But, when you took the anger, what was left of her? What had there ever been of her?

When you seek to cure an illness, there is a hope of restoration, of returning to what was once the true you. But, she had never quite understood that topic, because what was she if not her problems? She had been a maladjusted, angry little girl since kindergarten. When you removed the years of strife and fury and hatred, when you took all that from her, then, what version of her would there be? The version of her from infancy, before she even learned how to feel? Would it even be her? What was she if not her anger? What was she if not sick?

She couldn't be angry, she couldn't be sad, she couldn't feel, she couldn't feel, she couldn't—

The gauze slipped from her shaking hands, and fell onto the ground, leaving her with nothing to treat her wounds. Her blood proceeded to drip freely onto her pants, onto the snow between her legs.

She couldn't use one of her arm, she didn't have enough rations, didn't have a single weapon, couldn't even fucking bandage a wound properly. She outlived Medea and K and Iris, and she couldn't bandage a wound. Dick and Darryl sacrificed themselves for her, and she couldn't bandage a wound.

She couldn't make it up to Iris, she couldn't find K, she couldn't protect Medea, she couldn't save Dick and Darryl, she couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't,

She couldn't

She

She wrapped her working hand around her non-working arm, and there was a slight ignition of the nerves there, but it was not enough. She let her fingers soak in the blood that was supposed to be warm, and it was not enough.

Her eyes went blurry, her breath began to shudder.

"I can't—"

Medea was gone, and she was supposed to feel

"I can't I can't—"

K was gone, and she was supposed to feel

Iris was gone, and she was supposed to feel

"I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T—"

Darryl and Dick were gone, and she was supposed to feel

She was supposed to feel what? supposed to do what? supposed to be what?



"I— I CAN'T DO THIS—"

She bent her head back, she pushed her fingers into the gashes, and she dragged.

She screeched.

"I CAAAN'T I CAAAAN'T NOOOOOO NOONONONO I CAN'T NOOOO—"

Another inch.

Her voice rasped against her throat.

"NOOOOOOO—"

More.

"CAAAAN'T—"

more

"NOOOOOOOooOoononono. no. no."

enough.

Her head sunk forward.

Her hand dropped.

Her chest heaved, in and out.







There was so much blood now.

"Oh god."

The flow was continuous, it was dripping from so many places.

"Oh god, Dick's gonna be so—"

It was all over her jacket, and her pants, and the snow, it was everywhere, it was everywhere.

"I— Dick and Darryl they tried to save me and I fucked it, I fucked it—"

She tried to push the blood back into her. She cupped it into her hand, and placed it against the wound, yet it oozed from between her fingers, from the sides of her palm, and it fell everywhere. She tried again, and she just made it worse. She kept making things worse.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm—"

She had to fix it. She could fix this. She had to fix it.

There was an extra shirt in her bag. There were gauze pads in the first aid kit. She just, she just had to—

She plunged her hand into the bag, jerked out the shirt. She wrung it around her arm, around the wounds, once, twice, thrice. One end of the shirt, she held in place with her mouth, the other, she held with her hand, the ends were met together, bunny ears, and then one end ran through the gap in between, she pulled tight, she pulled tight around her broken arm, her arm that now sang and throbbed and screamed in ever nerve, and then, she had something resembling a bandage around her arm. Then, she sprang her hand into the first aid kit, smeared blood over all her things inside. But, between her slick, messy, sticky fingers, she grabbed hold of five or six or seven gauze pads and, she jammed them between the shirt and her wounds, and she shuddered, and she whimpered, and she hurt, but she packed them in there and then, and then, and then, she bit the end of her shirt again, and pulled the other end, and she pulled tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and then, and then, and then, it was done.

It was done. The bleeding had went from a river, to a trickle, to nothing, just damp cloth. It stopped, more or less.

All the blood that was left, was soaked into the bandage, and the sling, and her pants, and the bottom half of her parka, and the snow around her. Everything dyed red.






"I'm an idiot," she spoke quietly, monotone. "I'm such an idiot."






She placed her now-bandaged arm into the now-bloodied sling. She moved the strap around her back, over her shoulder, until her arm was suspended. And now it was good as new. Then, she placed the straps of her bags, and she placed those, too, on the same shoulder. And now she was ready to leave.

Lilian, and Marshall. Those were the people Dick had mentioned, good people he said.

She did not know those people, but then again, she did not know anyone on this island. And, it didn't matter who they were.

She was drifting. She needed to find someone, anyone, before she drifted too far.

She pushed herself off the ground. And, unsteadily, step by step, she continued on down the path.

((June Madison continues in Color In Your Cheeks))