the doctor is in

[whathedoves]

Who: Yuuya and volunteers.
What: I think there might be a nightmare plot going on right now? There are some logs...
When: Nightmare Plot
Where: The doctor's office at St. PigeoNation's
Rating: PG-13...? Gore, blood, dead bodies

Spoilers for a pigeon dating sim.

There's no mistaking the sterile, tidy white room Yuuya has stumbled into, though the power of dreaming makes it feel both infinite and infinitely small, a claustrophobic space that still stretches on nearly forever.

The curtains are drawn around the cots, obscuring whatever carnage is there. But Yuuya knows - and any glance around the curtain will confirm - that every cot is occupied. Someone is dead in each of these beds.

Outfitted with tools of the medical trade and some less legal equipment (Dr. Iwamine's cleaver has been sterilized and sterilized, but it still looks bloody), Yuuya is equipped for the grisly task of turning lifeless stock into meat. At the other end of the office, the door is locked. The desk is stacked with files, full of the unspoken threat to his only brother's life and future.

It's the same as before, when he'd had to lift the human girl from the floor and turn her into pieces. The poor thing, the poor thing ... but she had just been one human, right?

The place on his wing where the doctor cut him is open and inflamed. Maybe the toxin will kill him before he can get through all the bodies.

It's worth hoping.

Are you another one of the doctor's volunteers? Did he blackmail you, too?

No matter your level of participation, Yuuya isn't likely to be happy to see you.

Comments

[whathedoves]

[It isn't a hallucination, is it?

He can swear he sees her eyes moving ... but maybe it's just wishful thinking? Or the poison, or the little piece of him that consistently fights resignation to Iwamine's whims.]

I see you there! [But he sounds desperate.] You can blink, yes?

Once for yes, twice for no, that whole deal? Ha-ha ...

[cyan_maid]

[Can he? Can he really? She would cry out in relief if she could, and she would blink if she could, but it feels like everything is too heavy and stiff when she tries. So, she'll settle for moving her eyes around in the hopes that he'll give her another option.]

oops i'm temporarily without sad bird icons sorry for dissonance

[whathedoves]

[Slowly, after watching her for a very long time, Yuuya takes a step back and lowers his head. His voice starts with its usual cadence and very gradually unwinds.]

I guess it's finally happened. I snapped! What a weak will. It was probably the doctor's intention all along.

Now I'm talking to a corpse, too? I'm as crazy as he is [No. The doctor's just cruel, he reminds himself. He was always like this.]

It wouldn't do any good to say I'm sorry now, would it? There was only supposed to be one human at this school, ever.

It is a-okay

[cyan_maid]

[What? What is he talking about? She wants to ask, and tell Yuuya he's not crazy, she can understand him - and what does he mean by a corpse? She is very much alive!!]

[whathedoves]

[The horrible dissonance between dream logic and reality logic is astounding. It doesn't make any sense for Jane, a girl from some other reality, to be in a school where only one human was allowed to attend, was allowed to die.]

What do you even want with her? [Nobody's even here to answer, Yuuya.] You think she's of any use to you?

[He should cover her up, at least. He'll find a sheet ... Yuuya takes a pretty clumsy spill when he goes to look for it. He grabs for the bed to steady himself, but unfortunately ends up grabbing onto her instead as he goes down.]

[cyan_maid]

[And down she goes, too!

...Well, not really. How Yuuya's heavy enough to pull her arm down Jane will never understand, but her fingers brush his feathers almost reassuringly and definitely by accident.

He sounds so upset, though...she wishes she could move to hug him.]

[whathedoves]

[The dove shudders visibly when Jane's lifeless hand follows him down. Touching it just off the bat is too painful, so he promises to set it back as soon as he returns with the sheet.

He leaves her behind long enough to find a clean one and returns to drape it over her face and upper torso, not caring to look as long as he can.

Then he takes up the tools, placing knives and saws in the shallow medical tray beside the bed.]

I am sorry.

[cyan_maid]

[Sorry for what, she wants to ask, her view of the world now obscured by the sheet. She can see some vague shadows, but that's about it, and that worries her. Why did he cover her face...?]

[whathedoves]

[Sorry for the skin and tendons he's about to open up at her ankle joins, for one. He can't even bear to mark it out, first. He can either handle this with the utmost respect, caution and slow - or he can rush through it to get it over with as quickly as possible.

And Yuuya's a coward, so he cuts fast.]

[cyan_maid]

[Oh, God.

Someone's cutting into her ankles.

Jane has never felt any pain worse than this, and she can feel a scream building up in her throat, but she just can't - get it - out!!!!!!

Yuuya, where are you?? Help!!!!]

[whathedoves]

[With no way to hear her distress and seeing no unusual amount of blood from the cutting, there is nothing to stop his cuts, not even when he needs to take up the saw.

There's a solidness in human bones not present in birds. The heaviness stalls him a little, though Yuuya has focused so entirely on work alone that he's shut almost everything else out.

He pauses to wipe his face. Birds don't really perspire, but he writes it off as sweat anyway.]

[cyan_maid]

[Jane has never felt anything more agonizing in her life, and every bit of her screams to fight back, but she can't, and she has no idea why. A brief thought strikes her - could she be dead? - but that would be ridiculous. How could she feel and see and hear if she were dead?

The cloth near her eyes begins to dampen. Is she crying?]