been a bit since i did anything cccclinic related. so here’s a good ol’ story summary!
cccclinic, or contemptual counterpart consciousness clinic, is the story about how Noa’s self-sabotaging behavior puts him in a 3-year long coma, and, now stuck in a body that won’t move, he endures the events of cccc as they take place inside his head during this period.
⚠️TW // medical themes, mentions of abuse, dehumanization
Noa falls ill at a train station, remembers being rushed to the hospital, and then everything goes dark. he wakes as a conscious cadaver on a cold operating table. vivisected. he can’t turn his head to view the peripheral. can’t breathe or speak. but he can oddly still express with his face. had he been paralyzed? was this some sort of sleep paralysis sequence?
perhaps it was. perhaps it wasn’t. but his demons arrive soon enough.
first there’s Soul (later Leo), the doctor. a reckless and confused individual that represents Noa’s self-sabatouge. with a strange fascination in the physical and mental workings of Noa’s body and mind. as if he wasn’t…human himself.
Soul uses Noa as a verbal diary. someone to rant to. someone to get his anger out on after tending to the others. wait, others? it tears Noa apart that he can’t respond in vocal kind. can’t ask questions. can’t feel…alive. Noa usually spends his days in silence, petrified at the complete mercy of his own Soul. wondering when he’ll return and what mood he’ll be in.
it slowly sinks in that this is his life now, dream or not. and no matter how hard he tries he can’t wake up.
does anyone miss him in the real world?
eventually, and it is a terrible shock, Noa learns that somehow his brain and heart are missing. and that one now belongs to “the Mind embodiment” (later Simon). Soul describes him as a snobbish restater of things Soul already knows. a needless anxiousness that gets quiet when its mad. and then tries to built itself up out of weak junk enough to rival Soul’s status. this Mind is battling a cancer, and no one is optimistic about it. Noa is terrified what that could mean for his body back in the real world.
Noa starts writing haikus in his head about his situation. he finds that the rhythm is the only way he can communicate, and mouths things out to himself. then he starts gathering his thoughts and asking Soul soundless questions—who doesn’t take it too fondly. Soul’s used to talking to corpse; an object. not a person who can respond. and suddenly this safe space for exerting his anger just aquired opinions.
and then Soul starts to change. it starts getting more noticeable every visit. he starts hiding himself behind layers of clothing. behind mental blockades and repetitive thinking. first he wore a different uniform. then thicker gloves. then forgetting about what he was even talking about. then expressing hate towards the idea of apologizing. eventually he’s so far from what Noa used to be that he’s hidden behind something akin to a hazmat-type wear. as if Noa was a disease or animal. and it hurts.
despite all this hate Soul constantly feels and expresses, Noa still sees himself in him. he sees a frail scared frame crushed under the weight of an appearance that tries to make him look larger than he is. that self-sabatouging behavior that never left either of them. and, despite the apathetic procedures and spite, Noa keeps pushing to communicate with Soul like a real human being. to pull him back. to beg. to cry. a part of him thinks that if he consoled himself, he could feel more alive.
with some prodding, Noa discovers he has a third counterpart called “the Heart embodiment.” Soul hates talking about him because he views him as nothing. an emotional mess to ignore and suppress. an it. Soul hisses out from behind a gas mask that this Heart is scared of him, and aims all its hate towards the logical Mind. he uses a tone that reveals how much he’s relishing this authority—as if Heart and Mind were guinea pigs in a cage. it only works to dehumanize both of them further in the frightened mind of Noa. but Noa keep pushing. perhaps now from a different angle.
Noa has a lot of time to think, to plan his words and wonder, but never stops being frightened. worst of all in this change Soul has exhibited, Noa’s started to recognize what he was running from. an ex. a verbally and physically abusive ex. someone who crossed his boundaries all the time, and he’d be constantly scrunching himself into smaller and smaller labelled boxes. to feel less lonely after moving out of his parents’ house. to feel like he was needed inside a work-life balance that never waited for him to catch his breath.
he’d felt like a dead man walking from the day he broke up with her. it didn’t fill him with confidence. and that’s what ran Noa into the ground. it quiet literally left him as a corpse. with no breath to say ‘I’m sorry.’ maybe if…maybe if he returned to her. then it’d all be ok. when he got out of this liminal clinical hell. she could hold him again.
Soul knew he wrestled with this idea, and blamed him for it. for all of this. for wherever they were, for whatever was happening, and who they were becoming. day by day Noa felt himself grow more cold. it felt like he was actually dying. under the torment of Soul, a self of his and the only other face he saw. he was scared of the familiarity in the guilt-tripping, yet Soul spoke out against returning to the arms of his ex. a hypocrite! but a glimmer of something beyond the self-sabotage. a want for…better. and Noa shared that.
Noa had parts of himself walking around outside of these walls, and he hadn’t even seen them. didn’t know what they looked like. what would an embodiment of his Mind look like? his Heart? did they even know about him?
the questions lie on his tongue, unanswered. and every day he starts growing colder. but his hope remains, and thats what keeps his here.
how long would it hold out?
and then something else opened the door.
something that wasn’t heaving and steaming with anger. something that didn’t struggle to walk.
Noa couldn’t turn his head. he hadn’t been able to move on his own since the day he got here. (how long had it even been?) and suddenly the fear of unknown he thought he’s overcome came flooding back.
approaching him was something upright. something white. cut EEG wires dangled from behind makeshift plague doctor wear that concealed the face, and a flowy white coat trailed behind a body gripping a mobile IV.
it came very close to examine the presumed dead, and caught sight of Noa’s wet staring eyes.
it stared back from behind the wear with an intelligent, scared gaze. like that of a cat lowering the arch in its back.
[ …Noa? ]
—to be continued—
this story has been one i’ve loved and connected with for a long time. it’s in the process of a rewrite and spice-up, and i’m excited to share it with everyone! i hope ya’ll enjoyed this post and i really want to thank you for reading 💛 it means a lot every time! i have many ideas for returning to these few, and am still in the process of researching for their story, so be patient with me! this is what i have for now. goodnight everyone! 🫡🫶✨