BeckyFarris

Flames, the color of a thousand shattered emeralds, thrust with malignant power, drove her back into the bookcase. Wood cracked and splintered. Volumes of Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, the collected works of Shakespeare, fell limply to the floor, shedding scorched pages like dying flower petals on the ground.

"Mom! No!" Spike cried out, wrestling against the abomination that held him back, but he was no match for its strength.

She lay limply, half propped on her side, a hand pressed against the open, smoking pages of one of the books. She was trembling badly, feeling the cold, consuming power of exhaustion and pain leeching over her.

As her blurry eyes focused on the fluttering pages trapped by her hand, she could hear his boots drawing closer, kicking aside a Tolstoy or a Stephen King. The Tommyknockers, perhaps. That would be fitting. Her mind fixed on the Tommyknockers. A tale of malignant aliens.

Malignant aliens.

"Leave her alone!" Spike was all but roaring in his fear and anger, still fighting the thing that held him.

"Are you ready to die now?"

The voice, cool and dangerous, and...as it always had...curiously reminding her of Errol Flynn, smoldered like a dry fire under leaves, seething in its own satisfaction.

Her eyes focused a bit more. Brows knitting, her bruised hand slid away from the pages on which they rested. The words printed on the pages swam for a moment like some strange alien heiroglyph before they registered on her mind. Watership Down.

It was Watership Down.

"Are you ready to die, Emily??"

Her eyes slipped closed.

Watership Down.

---

"...ten minutes, thirty seconds!"

"Blood pressure almost non-existant! I can't get a pulse!"

"Get away! Move!" Ahn clambered up on the bed, straddling Isel's limp form and started chest compressions. This was bad. This was very bad. Isel had never crashed so hard, so quickly.

"...ten minutes, forty-five seconds!" Shojo cried out over the din, still watching the countdown sweeping past on his screen.

"We're losing even latent brainwave activity!"

"Subject entering synaptic seizure," the computer said calmly, even as Isel's body began to tense and buck under Ahn's hands.

"Administer three cc's cyutocortizine!" Ahn ordered.

"Ten minutes, fifty seconds!"

"Cyutocortizine!" Ahn snapped, then looked around. "RUHM! Cyutocortizine!"

The dark Rescuun was just standing there, eyes wide and mouth agape. Ahn had to shout at him one more time before he jolted. "RUHM!"

Gulping, the young Rescuun turned and stabbed in the instructions to the IV machine. The clear tube began to turn a faint blue as the medication was added.

"Ten minutes fifty eight...fifty nine...eleven minutes!"

The seizure died down as the medication hit the blood stream. Ahn paused in his chest compressions a moment, trying to sense the heart beat beneath his hands. Everything in the room that had been chaotic suddenly went preternaturally still.

Shojo rose from the computer station and went over, forehead wrinkled as he looked at his sibling's limp form. Ahn's hands loosened and his shoulders sagged.

"Respiration at ten per," the computer suddenly said. Blinking, Ahn put his hand under Isel's nose, gasping as he felt faint puffs of air.

"Epinephrine," he said, almost breathless himself. Shojo turned around and added the instructions to the machine. The IV slowly changed colors again. On the table, Isel gasped and suddenly started to struggle, nearly knocking Ahn flying. The older doctor quickly climbed off the table and grasped hold of the wildly flailing arms, trying to calm his patient.

"Isel! Isel, it's all right! It's all right, you're safe! It's Dr. Ahn, Isel! You're safe here!"

The Weyer began to wail, still fighting as if Ahn meant to throttle him. Shojo reached forward and grabbed hold of his sibling as well, further restraining him.

"Isel! Isel, stop!"

As if a switch had been thrown, Isel went limp, the only sound his now soft weeping.

"Isel?" Shojo and Ahn loosened their grip and the weak patient drew up his arms, covering his face as he cried.

"No more, Ahn!" Shojo said, looking tensely at the doctor. "He can't do this to himself any more. It's getting to dangerous."

Ahn nodded weakly. Shojo didn't have to convince him...it would be Isel that needed the convincing.