` ` Pain Like Water ` `

Pain feels like water, these days.

Revelation has never quite been able to explain exactly what pain feels like before. It is one of those things they are highly aware are out of their reach in terms of descriptions- they haven't a lot of things to compare it to. So, they settle for something familiar enough: water.

Some days it is like the dripping of droplets against their skin from the shower head. Light but present, tingling endlessly. Ticklish sensations both along the expanse of skin tucked away neatly beneath their coat and beneath the skin itself, just enough to be uncomfortable, to be known. As if Revelation could ever really forget its presence.

Then... Other days, it is more like running, scalding water. They remember the first time they burnt themself through their ignorance of how the faucets here worked, the way their hands jerked back as lingering heat held their hand a moment longer. That would be a similar enough comparison, they think.

Pain surely scalds. It does now, anyways.

It sends tingles of pressure and heat along their arms and hands, swarming the exposed skin. They had tried to keep their coat- but now it hangs nearby, the heat too great for them to have kept it on, now. Besides... curiosity can be a morbid thing: it is impossible to not show interest in the ripples along their arms like tides. Maybe this is what the scientists felt- what the men farther along in this facility experienced when they ripped people open to study the contents. This same morbid sense of *what* that comes with watching something you know is unnatural, that is against the usual order of things.

Maybe that makes Revelation no better than them. Maybe.

Ah... the shower comparisons likely arise from their current setting- that is their vague assumption, as much as they can think at this moment. It's getting a bit harder to compartmentalize everything, as time moves and the scalding does not let go of them just yet.

Their breath stutters a tad as they finally glance back up at the bathroom mirror. Ah, right.

Beneath their cheeks lie the tiny beginnings of white.

They flutter, a finger waving a greeting.

...Something nauseous rises in the back of Revelation's throat at the sight.

With shaking fingers, they reach to brush the sensations. They're soft, resembling the cotton of Revelation's shirt. Not... too bad... Surely not normal though, right? Revelation doubts most people deal with this. The jolts of wrong jutting through their careful wiring are enough to inform them of that, they think.

Their hand yank away from the things as white flutters a bit more forward, as if reaching. The sensation-

Oh.

Their cheeks burn.

The suddenness of it startles a soft gasp from Revelation's throat, ripping itself out in response to the way more white shudders out. Their hands tighten impossibly on porcelain, scrabbling softly as their body asks for something to cling to in response to the burst, something to steady their twitching form.

Mistake.

As their nails dig against the slick, wet surface, they hear- no, feel- something crack. The sound registers dimly, before-

A shout rips out of them.

Their hand burns, worse than any kind of faucet mishap. It burns, like the suns outside had touched its tender surface, leaving it cracking and swarmed with the heat. But the worst part is the tearing.

It registers- Something is tearing out of them.

They feel thrumming, followed by internal nails scritching against their own flesh before tenderly breaking through, politely itching open a door before shoving itself through the entrance that is far too small for it. Revelation has picked at dead skin before, calluses along their nails and palms- but this is far different. These are ribbons, shaved and flaked off. It isn't clean by any means either- clumps of it like the last shavings of a soap bar falling down a drain fall from their arms, producing white, foaming bubbles beneath, sudsing and violently cracking through the remaining walls of skin. The white trails out, weakly flecking into a larger mass: long, solid shapes that are splattered with a deep red that sends alarm bells screaming through Revelation's ears.

Burning, tearing, flapping-

It makes them gag.

Dimly, they realize they are shaking as they stare at white forms fluttering around, gripping and pushing out- and it finally dawns on them what the shapes remind them of.

Fingers.

Nausea burns through them. Those are twisted, feathered fingers reaching outward, searching for purchase on the same sink Revelation had- digging and tearing out of Revelation. Something is damn well trying to escape them, bubbling and popping open any flap they can find to do so.

White.

All they can see is white, white white for a long, dizzying moment

spiraling, circling, nauseating colors

Red blending in alongside it, too much like drain

It's getting difficult to see now, tickling, soft things spreading over their eyes, their nostrils, their mouth

Where did their skin go

It hurts. It hurts

The scream that tears from their throat is the only action that is theirs. The only thing that still belongs to them outside of vague instructions ringing in their ears, something deeply ingrained that forces their trembling legs back beneath them. A response to the crimson beginning to pool in the floor beneath them.

They scramble, gunshots firing along their soles and joints as they whip around, eyes wild as they scrabble towards the only thing not caught in the cycle of red and white: blue. This thing inside them - they choke on another gag - tugs at the fabric of it as Revelation digs for the pockets they have memorized, for the chemical turquoise burned into their memory.

They don't even register the acrid burn of it as it slides down their throat- just their gasps as the bottle falls against the floor, glass knocking against something hard.

They squeeze their eyes shut against the blinding light, teeth clamped so hard they feel them crack, as the itching crescendos. Shuddering, weak coughs escape them as a pulling sensation takes over, like something knitting- and once again, curiosity demands their eyes open, to watch.

Their skin is taffy.

The word is unfamiliar, but feels right: their skin kneads and bubbles further, before beginning to pull itself back open the open wounds. Revelation stares is sick horror as their skin refolds and melts into itself, stitching and stretching like pulled taffy being massaged back into itself. It's a war, then: skin that reforms, followed by foaming white ripping back open whatever it can, creating mesmerizing spiderwebs.

Revelation can barely think anymore- the only thing keeping them upright is training, by now. They just lay, writhing and gagging as their body fights against itself.

Who knows how long they lay there.

They only understand it is over when they manage to finally blink, met with the feeling of their body simply twitching in reply. Each limb feels impossibly heavy, fatigued by the fight in a way that leaves them barely able to move.

They manage to twist their head just enough to look to their arm. The skin is... there, again. Unmarred. The only indication of the struggle is the blood caked into the black hairs there, and the pool of it Revelation lays in.

Something is still tickling Revelation's cheek, but it fades soon enough. They haven't the energy to itch it.

They're... together, at least.

That's what is important.

They let their head fall back against the cold floor, forehead against the tile.