Mercy Seat part 5 (revised)
The last part of this wasn't sitting right with me, and I realized why. It stepped too far out of the action of the story. I was going for flashback mode when flashback mode wasn't really warranted, and using passive verbs to boot. As a result, I've revised the whole part, working on uping the tension and mental confusion, which resulted in a much shorter, but I think much stronger and cleaner part.
Previous parts may be found here
Half an hour after Jude and Amelia decided to leave him alone for awhile, Xander finally decided to go clean up. The bathroom was not inside the Hole, he quickly discovered, but was a separate building, little more than a porta-john, around the back. If he was expecting any brilliant advances in the science of toiletry in the four years he was missing, he was sorely disappointed.
He pushed open the door to the men's room side of the building, and was greeted with a single, slightly stained toilet, a similarly grungy sink, and a cracked mirror, illuminated by a bare, 100 watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. A white t-shirt with an artist's rendition of the crater was slung over the obligatory handicap access bar. He lifted it up.
"The Hole" it read, in bold letters across the front. "Established September, 2003." The back boasted the crater-drawing, with cheerful yellow lettering proclaiming "I survived the Sunnydale Sinkhole" in what Xander interpreted as sarcasm. He replaced the t-shirt and turned to the mirror.
His face was thin. Very thin. His cheekbones stood out in stark relief over the darkened hollows of his cheeks, which were lined with faint white scars under about a day's growth of beard. His hair had grown down to his shoulders, and seemed to have been shorn off roughly by a dull blade at some point in recent history. A long, greasy lock fell onto his face, completely covering the crater where his left eye should be.
He brushed his fingers over a long, pale scar that ran from the middle of his forehead to just in front of his left ear. He'd never seen it before, but it looked as though it had long since healed. He wondered what had made it.
Similar scars in various stages of healing crisscrossed his torso, from three bright, angry red claw marks over his right collarbone, to the faint, three inch line of where his last date's sword had pierced his stomach. His ribs were faintly visible where he'd lost weight, and he could see clear outlines of each of his abs. He looked leaner and stronger than he ever had before, though he suspected the definition was as much from lack of padding as from actual muscle mass. Had someone shown him a picture of himself like this, he wouldn't have known who he was looking at.
He sat down against the toilet, his fingers running over the scar on his face again. The faint stirring of memory played at the edges of his mind, and he closed his eye.
He pictured a wiry, dark-skinned teenager battling an army of deep brown creatures, with velociraptor claws and small, curving horns. He shuddered.
A name sprang to mind: Kelebeletse Molebatsi. Kelly. It was accompanied by a cloying, smokey scent and the sensation that he was being smothered. A quick series of jumbled images flashed through his mind, the dark-skinned teen, the brown demons, and an older man, weathered and roughened by something more than the African sun. A flash of pain over his left eye, and a painted marble with a deep scratch marring its surface. Someone whispering urgently.
Voices.
//. . . understand Africa . . . .//
//Can I have what he's on?//
//. . . couldn't save her,//
The sensation of his body turning to sand, slipping through someone's fingers, lifted up and scattered by the wind.
//. . . didn't save her . . . .//
//. . . understand what you have to do . . . .//
Someone hands him an elaborately carved pipe and a lighter. He brings it to his lips.
Why did he do that?
Malia, screaming as she was ripped apart in front of him.
//. . . SHOULDN'T save her . . . .//
The teen, Kelly, her stomach slashed open, her large intestines sliding through the demon's hands.
Pain in his eye, in his head, in his ears as the voices batter against him.
Xander lurched forward off of the toilet, spinning as quickly as he could, and vomited violently into the bowl.
<--{5}-->
Previous parts may be found here
Half an hour after Jude and Amelia decided to leave him alone for awhile, Xander finally decided to go clean up. The bathroom was not inside the Hole, he quickly discovered, but was a separate building, little more than a porta-john, around the back. If he was expecting any brilliant advances in the science of toiletry in the four years he was missing, he was sorely disappointed.
He pushed open the door to the men's room side of the building, and was greeted with a single, slightly stained toilet, a similarly grungy sink, and a cracked mirror, illuminated by a bare, 100 watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. A white t-shirt with an artist's rendition of the crater was slung over the obligatory handicap access bar. He lifted it up.
"The Hole" it read, in bold letters across the front. "Established September, 2003." The back boasted the crater-drawing, with cheerful yellow lettering proclaiming "I survived the Sunnydale Sinkhole" in what Xander interpreted as sarcasm. He replaced the t-shirt and turned to the mirror.
His face was thin. Very thin. His cheekbones stood out in stark relief over the darkened hollows of his cheeks, which were lined with faint white scars under about a day's growth of beard. His hair had grown down to his shoulders, and seemed to have been shorn off roughly by a dull blade at some point in recent history. A long, greasy lock fell onto his face, completely covering the crater where his left eye should be.
He brushed his fingers over a long, pale scar that ran from the middle of his forehead to just in front of his left ear. He'd never seen it before, but it looked as though it had long since healed. He wondered what had made it.
Similar scars in various stages of healing crisscrossed his torso, from three bright, angry red claw marks over his right collarbone, to the faint, three inch line of where his last date's sword had pierced his stomach. His ribs were faintly visible where he'd lost weight, and he could see clear outlines of each of his abs. He looked leaner and stronger than he ever had before, though he suspected the definition was as much from lack of padding as from actual muscle mass. Had someone shown him a picture of himself like this, he wouldn't have known who he was looking at.
He sat down against the toilet, his fingers running over the scar on his face again. The faint stirring of memory played at the edges of his mind, and he closed his eye.
He pictured a wiry, dark-skinned teenager battling an army of deep brown creatures, with velociraptor claws and small, curving horns. He shuddered.
A name sprang to mind: Kelebeletse Molebatsi. Kelly. It was accompanied by a cloying, smokey scent and the sensation that he was being smothered. A quick series of jumbled images flashed through his mind, the dark-skinned teen, the brown demons, and an older man, weathered and roughened by something more than the African sun. A flash of pain over his left eye, and a painted marble with a deep scratch marring its surface. Someone whispering urgently.
Voices.
//. . . understand Africa . . . .//
//Can I have what he's on?//
//. . . couldn't save her,//
The sensation of his body turning to sand, slipping through someone's fingers, lifted up and scattered by the wind.
//. . . didn't save her . . . .//
//. . . understand what you have to do . . . .//
Someone hands him an elaborately carved pipe and a lighter. He brings it to his lips.
Why did he do that?
Malia, screaming as she was ripped apart in front of him.
//. . . SHOULDN'T save her . . . .//
The teen, Kelly, her stomach slashed open, her large intestines sliding through the demon's hands.
Pain in his eye, in his head, in his ears as the voices batter against him.
Xander lurched forward off of the toilet, spinning as quickly as he could, and vomited violently into the bowl.
<--{5}-->