Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
FITZ
The pain was the first thing he noticed, followed closely by the sharp metallic smells of blood and hot metal.
I’m still alive. Why am I still alive?
His memories were blurred and disconnected, but Fitz was fairly certain that he was supposed to be dead. He knew it from the moment he jumped on the powder ball.
How am I still alive?
“Good morning. It’s a beautiful day.”
The strange, scratchy voice broke the silence so suddenly that he would have jumped, had he strength left in his muscles to do so.
His heart hammered painfully against the inside of his chest, as if with every beat he was striking the organ against an anvil.
He struggled to open his eyes, and finally succeeded in cracking open the left one.
It was hard to discern more than vague shapes in the dim light.
Fitz was able to make out a dark ceiling above him, and blurry spots of lamplight, but moving his head in an effort to take in more of his surroundings only served to transplant the hammers from his chest to behind his eyes. He stilled.
There was a sound of something small and hard like nails tapping against metal, and suddenly a dark mass of feathers with bright, beady eyes took up his entire field of vision.
“Good morning! What do you think you’re doing?”
Is the bird…talking?
“Raven! Get your dirty bird feet off him!”
A smooth, alto voice met his ears, and the bird disappeared in a rush of air and feathers. A pale, freckled face framed by a frazzled mess of red hair took its place. Concern creased the area between the woman’s wide, green eyes as she searched his face.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, exhaling as if in relief.
“You…sound surprised.” It took far more effort than he expected to speak, and his voice sounded gravelly and foreign.
“Just grateful. You had me a little worried for a while.”
Cool fingers brushed across his forehead, and Fitz closed his eye in response to the gentle touch. It was a familiar gesture, one that reminded him of how his mother used to comfort him when he was a child.
And yet not, because those leaf-green eyes and the voice like honey certainly did not belong to his mother.
“Do I know you?” He didn’t mean for his question to come out so harshly, and he regretted it when the cool fingers immediately withdrew.
The voice took on a decidedly more clinical tone. “My name is Darby Shelton, and I’m a surgical intern at Walton Hospital. Do you remember anything that happened, Captain Monstrego?”
The hammers returned with a vengeance as he tried to cast his mind back. “We were in the orchard. Caught by surprise. They threw a powder ball.”
He felt Darby’s fingers pressed lightly against his right wrist, likely checking his pulse.
I’m surprised she can’t just hear it, with how loudly it’s pounding in my ears.
“That’s right. You were injured pretty severely, Captain, but from what I could tell, all of your men are still alive.”
The sentence jogged a memory, blurry and faint, of white-washed walls and a red-headed angel. She had said something similar. “Merry?”
“I treated him myself.” He could hear the smile in Darby’s words, even if his eyelids were too heavy to see it. “He’ll be fine.”
“That’s good.” Darkness was pulling at his consciousness, beckoning him to the blissful oblivion of sleep.
“Get some rest, Captain. You’re going to need it.”
The light was different when he returned to the waking world, with brighter, more natural colors mixed in with the glow of lamps.
His right eye still refused to open, but his left had regained its full functionality.
Distant street noises and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds that filled the space, and Fitz felt a slight pang of disappointment in his chest at finding himself alone.
Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Darby likely has dozens of other patients, given the massacre that happened today. Or was it yesterday?
His eye roved around the room, this time actually able to focus on and catalogue his surroundings.
The ceiling above him was rough wooden planks with exposed beams, connecting down to brick-and-mortar walls.
From his position in the center of the room, he could see a wall of shelves to his right, full of odd-shaped containers and piles of metal and wooden scraps.
Beside the shelves hung a board with neat rows of hooks that displayed a variety of tools—wrenches, pliers, turnscrews, and several different kinds of thin, round blades.
Beyond his feet was a tall, narrow door, and a tall frame that had been draped with a dark piece of fabric.
To his left stood a tall-backed chair with deep green cushions and a narrow rack of clothes.
A cot lined the floor parallel to him, underneath a narrow window close to the top of the wall.
His headache was returning quickly along with his lucidity, and he lifted his hands to put his fingers to his temples. His left arm was strangely uncooperative, and when he finally raised it high enough to see, it fell back limply to his side in shock.
I must still be asleep. My mind is playing tricks on me.
Fitz squeezed his eye shut, counted to ten, then opened it again. The room was the same as it was before. He let out a slow breath as he lifted his left hand once more.
There was no possible way the contraption of metal plates and gears in front of him was his limb. Sure, it might bear resemblance to an arm, complete with a hand and jointed fingers. It might even move as he directed it, albeit at a sluggish, slightly delayed pace. But it wasn’t his arm.
It couldn’t be.
Panic and shock were like two bands around his ribs, squeezing tighter and tighter until he could barely breathe. Fitz pressed his other hand—his real hand—to his chest, then drew it away as quickly as if he had touched a hot stove.
He slowly tilted the back of his head, tucking his chin and throwing off the thin blanket that covered his torso. His breathing deteriorated into shallow, uneven gasps as he took in the sight of his body.
Or rather, what had once been his body.
Metal plates covered the left side of his chest like half a suit of plated armor, somehow fused into the skin.
They curved away at the bottom of his rib cage, forming an arced line that connected with his hip.
His leg, from mid-thigh down, was constructed in much the same way as his arm, with small connected plates and visible gears and joints that ended in a heavy-looking metal boot in lieu of a proper foot.
Large, curved metal pieces covered the side of his thigh, connecting the artificial limb to his armored side.
His joints creaked and squeaked as Fitz valiantly tried to force himself into a seated position.
The weight of his new limbs was too much for his weakened muscles, however, and he succeeded in little more than causing dark spots to dance in front of his eyes from the pain and effort required.
His chest squeezed uncomfortably tight, and his mouth tasted like iron.
Darkness swirled around him, accompanying the thoughts just as equally dark in his mind.
What kind of monster am I?