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View Full Version : Shadows of the Republic: Shadowplays



Áed Estién
Mar 7th, 2010, 04:55:26 PM
(Open, but please see thread on RP Discussion forum before posting)


http://www.nyahalcyon.net/rpg/shadowplays.jpg



"Now, Mister Eed, time for our bath."

I don't have to see her to know that she'd never have been my type. Voices say enough, and this one's particularly annoying. It's a new one - haven't heard it before. That doesn't make a difference, though - I've heard vibro-saws that sounded less grating on the nerves. The way she says my name--- mispronouncing it --- just makes me want to punch her.

"I'm not having a bath with you, so shag off!"

Not that they ever do. Or care. For them it's just a job. S'pose I should count myself lucky they haven't replaced the nurses here with droids yet. Happened in the last place they had me staying, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Of course, I can't blame them - it's not easy, for them. I'm lucky I lost my sight, I wouldn't like being around me either.

This one's got soft hands. I can feel them as she's bustling about with the buttons on my collar. Soft hands. Young hands. Too cold. Trembling a bit - can't say whether from coldness or revulsion. Her breath warms the scabbed flesh on my forehead.

She gives me a little laugh, but I can almost taste her disgust now. Her voice can't hide it, and her fingers.... her fingers are so slow now, undoing my clothing. Careful not to touch the ugliness underneath. The scars. The puckered flesh. The rotting skin. The horrible, awful mess that is me.

I can hear her suck in a breath as she pulls off the last piece of fabric - gently, ever so gently.

"Lost your appetite, eh?"

It's dinnertime for them soon. Poor thing!

I hear the clicking that means she's summoning the machines needed to make bathing possible for me. A low whirring announces them. But I can never hear where it's coming from - the distinction's not possible anymore. She taps me on the right side - right then. A hand slides underneath me, brushing against the thin skin there. It'll leave bruises in the end.

Getting me into the bathing tub is hard work. She is out of breath by the time I'm strapped into the floating harness. "Don't fight it,..." I hear her murmur, with a plea in her voice that alerts me to the fact that she's been told what it means. But they have all got it wrong. I'm not afraid of the pain it puts my mangled body in - the pain makes it bearable, sometimes.

What I'm afraid of - deadly afraid of - is everything else it makes me feel.

There's a pain much worse than anything, and it has nothing to do with blood and guts and flesh and matter. And as I sink down into the lulling cocoon of nutrients they have me floating in, there is nothing I can do to stop the waking nightmare that pulls me back to a time I wish I could erase forever from my mind.