Writing Meme - The Sentinel Ficlet
pattrose had a cheery prompt: "The Sentinel. What would Jim and Blair do during a Pandemic?
And I meant it to actually be not quite as old school doom and gloom, but... oh dear. The (mild) horror fan in me got away and ran with this dark little mood piece, so it comes with a warning, and under a cut.
Please note, TS is set in the late 90s, so really no internet letting us all connect as we have done in 2020. We would have been much more on our own.
Reaching
The walls press in, they feel hard and heavy and close and they hurt. But they can't stop him hearing what is going on outside. All over his city, people are sick and suffering, and terrified, and angry. They are mumbling prayers as they hide away in their houses, they are screaming curses as they bang on doors and fight for entry, for supplies, for safety, they are crying to each other by phone or through locked doors and windows.
They are, even the furthest of them, all over his city, within his hearing if he reaches out. But his senses, no matter how far they can stretch, can only make him aware of what he can do nothing about. He is a protector, but he cannot protect them from this.
Jim stands at the window, as still and cold and silent as stone. He knows, somewhere inside, that Blair has fallen finally asleep on the couch, the herbal tea that "can't hurt, can it?" cold and stale on the table by one dangling hand.
Every so often he pulls the senses in and checks over his roommate again, watching for any heat, any flush of fever, any wetness in the lungs and throat, any hitch in breath or pulse, any... anything at all that isn't normal. He knows the chances are slim to none, but he can't stop himself checking on Blair any more than he can reaching back out over his city.
The smells, so many and varied and all of them sickening, are everywhere.
The streets, as far as he can see, are almost empty. A few straggling homeless or petty criminals, the odd dawdling police car, an ambulance... probably too late, wherever it's headed. The illness - what the Sentinel sees and feels and almost tastes as a formless dark - comes fast, and hard, and all the medics, faceless in their worn, stained protective gear can do, is note the latest statistic. The latest name.
So many people left the city, left all cities, all over the country. It didn't save them, or the people in the places they left the cities for. All it means is that there's no medic to note them, no names kept and remembered.
No Sentinel to feel their passing.
Jim is careful to limit the number of people, sick and well, he can focus his sense on at these distances. And his promise to Blair means that he never stays focused on them till it's too late. He learned that lesson through Joel, Serena from Forensics, and the two small girls in the house down the road.
He won't do it again, but Blair doesn't know that he's still reaching out further than he should - further than they knew he could - for Simon and his son, for his own father and for Sally who is there with him, for Blair's girlfriend, and others. Even if something was wrong with any of them, it would make no difference; Jim knows he can't do anything in time, but though the reaching hurts, he has to do it, he has to know.
Though if something was wrong... Jim closes his eyes, just for a moment. If something was wrong with any of those people, all of them too far away to touch, what would he do?
They both hated this, hated not being able to go out and do... something, anything to help, to protect, and to save. That there was nothing that could be done had broken something in the Sentinel, and maybe in Blair as well; it would take a long time to mend.
He tastes the air again, the soft, cool, treacherous air which carries the formless dark: tastes it from a distance so it can't touch him, or Blair. To the Sentinel, it is ragged and hot and mindlessly, indescribably hungry, but that, he knows, is his own mind hating it so much.
He checks Blair again.
They have plenty of supplies, and can defend them come what may. He knows that if it doesn't lift soon, he and Blair will have to leave too, but he is tied to his city for a while longer, and something, somehow, in the air makes him think it may be better to wait. The end, one way or another, will be soon.
***
And I meant it to actually be not quite as old school doom and gloom, but... oh dear. The (mild) horror fan in me got away and ran with this dark little mood piece, so it comes with a warning, and under a cut.
Please note, TS is set in the late 90s, so really no internet letting us all connect as we have done in 2020. We would have been much more on our own.
Reaching
The walls press in, they feel hard and heavy and close and they hurt. But they can't stop him hearing what is going on outside. All over his city, people are sick and suffering, and terrified, and angry. They are mumbling prayers as they hide away in their houses, they are screaming curses as they bang on doors and fight for entry, for supplies, for safety, they are crying to each other by phone or through locked doors and windows.
They are, even the furthest of them, all over his city, within his hearing if he reaches out. But his senses, no matter how far they can stretch, can only make him aware of what he can do nothing about. He is a protector, but he cannot protect them from this.
Jim stands at the window, as still and cold and silent as stone. He knows, somewhere inside, that Blair has fallen finally asleep on the couch, the herbal tea that "can't hurt, can it?" cold and stale on the table by one dangling hand.
Every so often he pulls the senses in and checks over his roommate again, watching for any heat, any flush of fever, any wetness in the lungs and throat, any hitch in breath or pulse, any... anything at all that isn't normal. He knows the chances are slim to none, but he can't stop himself checking on Blair any more than he can reaching back out over his city.
The smells, so many and varied and all of them sickening, are everywhere.
The streets, as far as he can see, are almost empty. A few straggling homeless or petty criminals, the odd dawdling police car, an ambulance... probably too late, wherever it's headed. The illness - what the Sentinel sees and feels and almost tastes as a formless dark - comes fast, and hard, and all the medics, faceless in their worn, stained protective gear can do, is note the latest statistic. The latest name.
So many people left the city, left all cities, all over the country. It didn't save them, or the people in the places they left the cities for. All it means is that there's no medic to note them, no names kept and remembered.
No Sentinel to feel their passing.
Jim is careful to limit the number of people, sick and well, he can focus his sense on at these distances. And his promise to Blair means that he never stays focused on them till it's too late. He learned that lesson through Joel, Serena from Forensics, and the two small girls in the house down the road.
He won't do it again, but Blair doesn't know that he's still reaching out further than he should - further than they knew he could - for Simon and his son, for his own father and for Sally who is there with him, for Blair's girlfriend, and others. Even if something was wrong with any of them, it would make no difference; Jim knows he can't do anything in time, but though the reaching hurts, he has to do it, he has to know.
Though if something was wrong... Jim closes his eyes, just for a moment. If something was wrong with any of those people, all of them too far away to touch, what would he do?
They both hated this, hated not being able to go out and do... something, anything to help, to protect, and to save. That there was nothing that could be done had broken something in the Sentinel, and maybe in Blair as well; it would take a long time to mend.
He tastes the air again, the soft, cool, treacherous air which carries the formless dark: tastes it from a distance so it can't touch him, or Blair. To the Sentinel, it is ragged and hot and mindlessly, indescribably hungry, but that, he knows, is his own mind hating it so much.
He checks Blair again.
They have plenty of supplies, and can defend them come what may. He knows that if it doesn't lift soon, he and Blair will have to leave too, but he is tied to his city for a while longer, and something, somehow, in the air makes him think it may be better to wait. The end, one way or another, will be soon.
***