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The weight registers before the pain.
Weight, and dampness on her face.
She lifts a hand - it feels heavy, distant - to touch it.
Tears on her cheeks. Blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
And then pain hits all at once.
She makes a high, strained noise, tossing her head back against the ground while her body tries to move up, to free itself, but doesn’t budge under the crushing weight that has her pinned.
Trying to move only causes wet coughs to wrack her body. She covers her mouth, and when she pulls her hand away it’s stained red with blood.
She groans and settles back down, arms sprawled on either side of her head, and breathes raggedly. Internal bleeding, then. Great .
After a moment her eyes flutter open and she finally looks down.
I must be the unluckiest person alive , she thinks miserably. But then, anyone else as unlucky wouldn’t still be alive.
She only wanted to see the old building one last time before they tore it down. She remembers when it was brand new, ages ago. She’d grown fond of it, but like all things, time took its toll and people moved on.
So when the rumble of construction vehicles outside toppled over an unsteady support column…
Her stomach took the brunt of it, pressed painfully under the weight of cold marble that she can feel on hot, bruised skin. Her legs have gone completely numb. Her ribs are shattered; she can feel them shift and grate with every labored breath she takes and it hurts like hell .
And they’ve punctured her lungs, hence the blood. In fact, as her mind clears, she realizes that’s what killed her. Her lungs filled up and she died for a moment, before her body healed just enough of them for her to wake up.
If she remains here it will happen again, and again, and again, and again…
She covers her face with one hand as more tears slip out. You’d think after decades of this I’d stop crying every time… But she cries anyway. Because it always hurts and she’s always alone and has to get out of it herself.
Which she always manages. And it’s always awful.
She allows herself one more moment of rest, then wipes her eyes. Here goes.
First comes the agonizing task of sitting up. She props herself up on her elbows, her broken body protesting with every movement. It’s late, no one is around, so she allows herself to gasp and wince and cry out, trusting that no one will discover her.
Sometimes she wishes someone would. That someone would help. But then they’d learn what she is, and that…no. That can’t happen.
With all the strength she can muster she begins to push the column off of her, rolling it down over her legs. It will hurt them too, she knows, but she can’t feel them anyway, and her extremities are always quicker to heal.
It takes time and effort and it hurts the whole way through, but she finally rolls it off of her and weakly prods it away with her feet. Then she collapses onto her back and closes her eyes with a sigh while her body begins the healing process.
Her legs heal first and soon she can feel them again, scrunching up her face at the unpleasant tingle of the limbs regaining feeling.
Her lungs are next. She turns her head and coughs up the remaining blood onto the marble floor, and once most of it’s out they begin to heal up and she can breathe again. She takes several long, deep, grateful breaths.
Next is her stomach, and that she knows may take a while, so she tries to forget about it for the time being. Easier said than done, when it twinges and aches without her even moving.
But the worst, by far, are her ribs. She can feel every awful sensation as the pieces mend and draw back together. Even after years and years, she hates the feeling of broken bones healing the most. Those, too, will take time.
When she finally feels like she can move without passing out, she turns carefully onto her side and gasps. “F-fuck…”
Hips . She was so distracted by the pain everywhere else that she didn’t notice her hip bones, too, were partially broken. She lies still a moment until they heal a little. Then she turns over some more and props herself up on one forearm.
“ Ah… ”
She wraps her other arm gingerly around her still-healing stomach. Oh, god, it hurts so much. More tears slip down her face and she can’t be bothered to wipe them away. They splash onto the marble floor.
Another attempt to sit up is thwarted by a surge of throbbing pain and she wails , throwing her other arm to the ground to help keep her from falling forward onto her mending ribs. She buries her face in her arms, hands clenched into tight fists, and waits out the wave of agony.
When it finally passes she wipes her eyes again and sits up fully. It takes careful maneuvering to prop herself onto her knees, but once she does, standing stand is a little easier. She sways but catches herself before she falls.
Her labored breathing echoes through the empty building. The roof is half-gone, revealing a night sky full of stars. She can’t appreciate it now, the building or the stars. She’s loved this building nearly her whole life. Of course even it managed to hurt her. Everything did, eventually.
One arm still loosely draped across her ribs, she begins the slow walk back to her apartment. She has to take short, stiff steps, trying to keep from falling and avoid making it all worse. She could stay here and wait it out, but it’s cold and she feels like hell. All she wants is her comfy couch and heated blanket and a safe place to break down.
By the time she steps shakily through her front door, her body has mostly mended. Mostly .
The ache lingers; it always does. She leans back against her closed door and sighs.
Mrrrowwwww .
With a faint smile she looks over to see her cat Simon perched on the counter, expectant.
That’s right. She’s hours late getting home; he needs fed.
“Hey there, Si,” she greets him with a pet to his soft fur, comforted by the way he nudges his head against her arm and begins to purr.
Leaning over to scoop out the cat food hurts, but she bears it. Simon rubs against her leg on his way to the bowl and begins chewing eagerly.
All of her movements are slow, careful. Taking a hot shower, changing into soft pajamas, having a snack and some water.
Finally she curls up on her side on the couch and puts on some late-night TV. She pulls the heated blanket up to her neck and wraps her arms loosely around her still-hurting ribs and stomach.
Simon soon comes over and curls into a ball on the carpet beside the couch, where she can reach down and stroke his fur and feel a little less alone in the world.
Nearly two centuries of pain and survival have still not managed to squeeze from her her greatest wish: that when she is hurt, and scared, and tired, that someone would just hold her until it’s all better, and maybe even after. Her body may repair itself back to new every time, but the loneliness...that is a never-healing wound she lives with every day.