#broken bones

Whumpee thought of home. They thought of Caretaker. Back then, when it belonged to them still, they would make pancakes together on Sunday mornings. Only on Sunday mornings. It was their special pancake day.

They thought of their parents. Their siblings. What would they have said, if they knew it didn't belong to them anymore? Would they be horrified? Whumpee had been, when they first realised. The horror was gone by now. It was just a faraway extension of their faraway mind, thrown around and broken in more ways than Whumpee could count.

Whumper was screaming at it. Only it, because their mind was far from the basement. It didn't respond. Whumper only got angrier.

For a moment, Whumpee was it again. Back in their body. The pain was unbearable.

And there they went, floating away again, probably losing consciousness for a time.

When they next came to, they were alone. It hurt, just like it always did, but it was nothing but a low hum. A bit of background noise to the real deal: their thoughts. They thought of Caretaker again. Did they go on to make pancakes every Sunday, even after their kidnapping? Or did they leave the habit behind? Whumpee wondered which they would've preferred.

It stirred. Their treacherous body. It ached and screamed, but Whumpee wasn't there, they told themself they had no right to it anymore, no right even to the pain. It stirred again. It retched.

Whumpee knew that Whumper would be angry. They tried to rein it in, but the damage was already done. So they let their thoughts wander instead, leaving it to deal with its own filth. It had become so easy to let themself go, to allow themself the privilege of retreating into a far corner of their mind, only ever coming back up for air when it was absolutely necessary.

The door opened and closed, and it was beaten again for making a mess.

"No!" she snapped. "Get away from me!"

"What's wrong?" they asked gently.

What was wrong? What was wrong? Everything was wrong. She would have to go back, and she was out, she was already out, but now she would have to go back, and they would poke and prod and sedate and mutilate and—

"Whumpee?"

Whumpee looked up at Caretaker, tears streaming down her face. "I can't go back."

"Back where? Whumpee, you're not making sense."

"I can't go back!" she repeated insistently, almost yelling, and Caretaker took a step back.

"Okay," they tried to say placatingly, but it wasn't enough, it wasn't an assurance that they won't make her go back. "No touching. No looking. But that's definitely purple and swollen, and I'm not a doctor, but I think—"

"I don't care what you think!" she barked. "It's not broken. It's fine. It'll heal on its own in a few days."

"That's definitely a several week long heal-time," they said, and Whumpee shook her head.

"It'll be fine in a few days." It wouldn't. "You don't need to worry. I can still do chores around the house."

"I'm not making you wash dishes with a broken wrist."

"It's not broken."

"Whumpee…"

"It's not! And I won't hold you back, we can go back to normal, everyday life, this doesn't need to be a big deal, so don't make it into one!"

"What's with your aversion to hospitals anyway?" Caretaker asked, and Whumpee tried to remind herself that this was partly her fault; she never disclosed to Caretaker where Whumper had kept her. "Nobody likes going, sure, doctors aren't fun, per se… But you act like they're out to get you."

Because they are.

"Let's just forget about this," Whumpee said.

"You have a broken wrist."

"Let's forget about this," she hissed.

Caretaker threw their hands in the air and sighed. "This is not okay, on any level. But fine. If it gets worse, I'm calling an ambulance."

"The day you call an ambulance to this apartment is the day you can be sure you'll never see me here again."

"Again, what's with the aversion to medical stuff?"