Winter Months (Chpt. 1)
Content: Whump, Whumper turned Whumpee, Unnamed to Named Characters, Medical Whump, Cold Whump, Escaped Captivity, Multiple Whumpees, Caretaker x Whumpee, Heavy Brain Damage, Caretaking/Comfort, Rescue
CWs- Dead Dove Do Not Eat: Malnourishment, Gore, Heavy Blood, TBI/Head Trauma (Severe), Coma, Tube Feeding, Altered Consciousness, Amnesia, Sudden Verbal Issues, Death Talk, Loss of Sight, Amputations
Words: 3995
Good Riddance
Whumpee thrashed back into consciousness, scrambling at the frosted grass beneath them before reality unleashed the brunt force of wavering adrenaline.
They gasped at the sight of multicolored pops of clothing traipsing between the forest treeline. It was a sharp inhale of exhilarating and fresh air, followed by a shuddering exhale of arm-shivering shock at the possibility of freedom.
Was this real? Maybe this was it, they were going to be saved- Whumper! How could Whumpee forget?
They frantically craned their aching neck, skipping over his writhing body for a split-second, catching onto the smoldering house instead. Snowstorm flurries waltzed over the embering burst of flame. It was all surreal, heavy clumps of snow melting down the roof’s slope, the fire consuming more of the weakening structure. Their brain caught up, shooting back.
The man screamed out in pain, his hands seizing stiffly at his side. Red started to pool in the snow surrounding his head. It seeped down the side of his head, flowing heavily enough to bypass the fur of his winter hat. His legs slid and kicked against the frosted ground. Most of all a short piece of broken pipe stuck out from Whumper’s face.
Regaining sudden use of himself in way, his hands clutched onto the penetrated eye socket, those cries degrading into confused wails. The fingertips slipped on the features his facial structure, finding only a warm slick surface.
Shellshock and injury hit all at once. His movement slowed, his arms falling limp, his boots stilling. The crying faded from his throat.
Whumpee felt it too. They attempted to analyze themselves. With arms shivering to sit up, they failed, their chest smacking down on the freezing earth.
The meager conditions of their clothing allowed the dangerous temperature to stab through their scrawny frame. Gloveless hands reflected vibrant red fingers. Whumpee’s own sparse trail of blood of followed them. Blood allotted from the feeble skin where restraints once clamped to.
Icy burns were in every movement, and whumpee couldn’t take it anymore. They found themselves teetering to the right. A dizzy visage of Caretaker’s arctic shoes spun in front of them. It blinked, and then there was nothing.
....................
“Well look at that- Welcome back to the world of the living.” The voice was rich with compassion and seriousness, somewhat dry after decades spent outside in below freezing temps.
Whumpee struggled to open their eyes. Anxiety suffocated their hopefulness, their endless yearning for freedom hitching. What if this guy is no different? How can they walk back out knowing that humanity is capable of stooping so low? They almost wanted to refuse to see him, but the warmth was enticing.
The man was more handsome than Whumpee expected. That or maybe all that time in captivity made the average person much more attractive than they could remember.
Ski goggles were still fixated onto Caretaker’s head, breaking apart his short hair into a messy snow powdered shape. His stare, a definite window to his soul, seared with intrigue. He held a nervous smirk.
“Here.” Next thing Whumpee understood a hot tin cup of water was being forced into their grip. Caretaker continued, “You’re quite thin. Drink this, it’ll warm you up.”
Finishing stirring out of sleep, Whumpee lifted their arms to feel the plastic press of an IV. The thick blankets encasing them were heavier than what Whumpee imagined they would feel like. Their wrists wore wrapped bracelets of gauze.
Outside the wind howled as the blizzard grew angrier, as if it too hated Whumpee, battering snow against the windows in an attempt to break in.
“I- Thank you- Thank you really.” Whumpee’s voice was a trembling sound that feared to mark its place in the world. Caretaker watched them closely, searching for language on their stressed face. When nothing but eager thankfulness spoke to him, his gaze followed Whumpee’s bony hands.
He sat down on a rickety stool next to Whumpee’s arranged bed. Searching for nutrition to his morbid curiosity, he explained, “You two are incredibly lucky. If your wounds and conditions didn’t kill you both within the hour, the storm absolutely would.”
Terror stole the remaining confidence out from Whumpee. They fearfully wobbled the steaming cup of water as they finally observed their surroundings, exclaiming, “Both?”
Just a few feet from Whumpee’s bed was Whumper’s. A short shelf decorated with a mixture of impromptu and scrounged medical equipment separated them. Smearings dried blood were printed all over its surface, brightest underneath a bloody piece of broken pine. Its sharp end sold the tale of reality. Whumpee did it. They did that. They…
Whumper looked uncharacteristically like himself. His head was bound in a generous entanglement of bandages and gauze. The face was dead in terms of expression or, well, life. He seemed almost peaceful.
A mask and its ventilator whirred, bringing air to Whumper’s lungs. His own drip bag, trickled cold fluids into his veins, but the comatose body appeared pale even for Whumper’s skin tone.
“Hey, hey. Steady now for me.” Caretaker cupped his hands to Whumpee’s, helping them regain their grip on the cup. He reassured, “It’s alright. He’s alive… for now.”
Relaxing, Whumpee’s back hit their pillow. They didn’t realize how hyperventilation already overtook them, their panicked breaths already starting to slow.
Caretaker returned to his seat. His tongue pushed around the inside of his mouth in a contemplative fidget. He heaved a sigh trying to break the stuffy tension.
Building up the courage, he asked, fearing the possibility of answers, “Did he- Uhmmm. Do this? To you?”
Whumpee didn’t understand the conflicted barrage of emotions soon flooding up their mind, welling out in reality through a gulped down ache and watery eyes.
Despite the months spent daydreaming for this very moment there was a loss for words. They swore all they desired was Whumper’s death, and yet an unknown horror possessed them. Glancing between the two men, they grew only more rushed to answer.
They blurted out, “No.”
Together they felt the tension shapeshift in an awkward invisible silence, interrupted by the whipping winds. Caretaker released a relief hiss. A proud smile flickered on his lips. He gave Whumpee an encouraging pat on the knee.
“I hope that bastard burned in the fire then.”
“Heh Y-Yeah.”
Whumpee nervously laughed. Laughter! Oh how it felt so light, and far more straining than they remembered, bubbling through their every organ. An uncontrollable smile birthed from it.
Caretaker’s tensed shoulders lowered. He nodded, looking back to the unconscious Whumper. The glee in his expression swapped for macabre seriousness.
He added, sobering the situation, “He’s hurt bad. I’ll be very truthful with ya my friend, I doubt he’ll wake up, even if in a sense he technically survives. He lost a lotta blood and… I did… I did the best I could…”
“You did the work of miracles.”
Whumpee felt a need to reassure this man. Sitting underneath the dim yellow light of incandescents, warmed; closely by the water provided and distantly by the fire crackling in the background, Whumpee was rewriting their life.
They shall owe themselves to this man. They’d kill again for this man.
To kill… Whumpee’s palms somehow felt different at such a thought, as if they were envisioning the tingling sensation of having newly reddened hands. They regretted it, and they would do it a million times over if given the choice again.
To think that their emaciated arms even held enough strength within them to be so successful. Replaying the scene action by action, a sense of shaky pride swelled. Of course they were strong enough. They made it.
Continuing to look at Whumper, Caretaker disclosed, “Call me Otto.”
“I’m… Wren.” A new name for a new life.
“Well Wren, I hope you’re not planning to return home any time soon. It’s about the beginning of winter. No help can reach us if the weather stays like this. Hell, it’s challenge for them in even the calmer months.”
Wren knew that latter trivia intimately, and Otto could see it in their wide eyes, how they peered over the whispering steam with vigilant perception.
No one can reach us.
Automatically, they both found their stares dropping in attention, fixating back onto Whumper. Wren didn’t lie about Otto’s work. What where the statistical chances of Whumper surviving up until this point?
And this frigid storm… Ice continued to rake the sides of their shelter. Wren then noticed the bandages wrapped around their own fingertips, the frostnipped skin aching underneath.
“How long do you think he’ll… he’ll be like that?” Wren noticed blackened skin peeking out from behind thick gauze that encased Whumper’s hands.
The longer their focus lasted on Whumper the more it looked improbable that the man would ever wake. His lighter brown skin unveiled a grayish dark circle surrounding his unwrapped eye. The winter hat, his reliable and heavy boots, his long coat; all needed to be stripped from him. Creating a smaller silhouette than what Wren often saw.
In this new form Whumper was a human who was capable of blood loss, a being that grew hungry several times a day, and preferred his coffee dark.
Someone so human, with bones equally capable of good and evil…
Otto started, “I’d assume awhile. He’s low on blood. I couldn’t keep him from losing body temperature so fast, the hands and feet froze up before we even took off. He spent the ride here with heat packs applied on top the bandages against his face.”
“Are you a neurosurgeon or something?” They brought the hot cup to their chest, feeling the warmth of the glass transfer through his skin.
Guilt passed over Otto’s face like a shadow poked full of holes. The eyes dropped the lost of their optimistic. Otto’s gaze swapped to the fireplace, licking up the orange reflection of the flickering flames.
“Nope.”, He sighed, “You best wish your friend goodbye sometime tonight.”
Wren replied, pouting to hide their grimace, “I will.”
“He’s got a long battle ahead of him. He has to survive brain swelling, the direct damage to his frontal lobe, my shoddy workmanship, and the frostbite we picked up along the way.”
Whumper’s chest continued to rise up and down unceremoniously. Wren couldn’t stand it anymore, switching to the fire as well, but their morbid curiosity locked on whether they liked it or not. They tried to imagine what went through Whumper’s mind the moment of impact, the blinding world of white becoming washed in red.
They wondered aloud, “And if he does live?”
“He’s got high chances of being brain dead, or changed in every way you could imagine, from mobility to mental capacity…”
His shoulders tensed at the thought, going over the hundreds of outcomes that faced the daily victim of severe head injury. He wondered where the hell they would bury a man out in the middle of nowhere, bury a man in a place that matters.
Wren thought of it too, allowing the wilderness to feast off the soft of Whumper’s body. In the building quiet they formed a pact understanding, Wren’s thin frame exhausted through the simple act of sitting around.
“You should…”
Otto’s words lulled as if his mind was plagued. Sleep deprivation croaked in the back of his arid voice. Wren had no idea how much time had passed since they escaped. They still had a million questions left to ask. What was Otto doing in the middle of the arctic? How did he find them? What was this place? They sensed the exhaustion in the air though. Whumper, exhausting to deal with, even in at the bridge of death.
Otto finished the thought, “You need to rest.”
“I think we all do.”
Wren attempted a smile. It was superficial on his face, but the sincerity was authentic. They wanted it to please Otto.
The inner speech inside their mind celebrated at the sleepless smirk that crept over Otto’s face. It was blissful, perfect, exhilarating; a light fluttering bouncing around inside their weakened diaphragm. They fell back, inhaling a satisfied sigh at such an accomplishment. What a winning streak!
Crossing his way out of the room, Otto gave Wren a little wave, disappearing into the other cluttered confines of the arctic shelter. Fire crackling and winter’s cries remained louder in his vacant place.
Wren rolled over, nuzzling their cold cheeks into the pillow. Their thin arms got caught up in the billowing expanse of warm blankets, too feeble to move them, but Wren carelessly loved every sensation of it, indulging in the weight cased over their straining muscles. This too, an achievement.
When they opened their eyes, there was Whumper’s bed. Wren whispered, “Good Riddance.”
.............
Morning came in the form of Otto stomping through the shelter, arctic gear jingling and dangling off of, fussing to fit a pair of snowblindness goggles over his eyes. This repeated nearly every day. Wren woke up, received a hot tin of water and dried piece of meat.
Some days they spent together testing the health of Wren’s ankles, shuffling around crowded indoors, hopping above overturned furniture and busting their toe against dog dishes. Some nights Wren leaned their head into Otto’s chest, wincing between embarrassed snickers, as Otto wrestled wrap around them.
Soon Wren got themselves up in the morning, and on the best days could bundle up in winter clothes far too big for them, march outside, and follow Otto into huskies’ barn.
They watched Whumper get tended to as well, remaining unchanged for weeks, aside from being maneuvered into different poses, and eventually being fed through a plastic tube. Otto shared a disgusted look at the bed sores discovered.
Taking care of Whumper was turning into a lament session each day for Otto. He removed blackened fingers, dumped waste out in the forest, and as the coma prevailed, watched Whumper grow thinner.
There was no sugar coating it. Otto entered the shelter, unfreeing his face out form behind a collection of garments to keep himself warm. He greeted Wren, “It’s starting to look like you’re going to make it through the first month after all.”
“Has it really been that long?”
Wren sat on the floor, struggling to open a pack of rations. As they looked up hoping to see Otto’s relaxed stare, they were disappointed to see him with the mind elsewhere, his gaze focused upon the occupied bed next to Wren’s.
They both agreed to a solemn silence. Guess it were finally to time to do something about Whumper.
IV drip could only sustain a person in a vegetative state for so long without proper equipment. Malnourishment long forgot Wren, and moved onto Whumper, whittling away at what was left.
The ventilator whirred rhythmically, Whumper’s chest rising and falling, rising and falling…
“His body is starving…” Otto admitted. He licked his cracked lips, just throwing the idea out there, unable to fathom any kinder way to put it, “What do you want to do for him?”
Wren pondered that question every night, falling asleep to the ventilator's ambience, growing restless with regret. At least Wren thought such a depressing, mind-consuming feeling must be a sick form of remorse, Whumper haunting them, refusing to ever let them be free.
The winning turned into losing. Nightmare after nightmare, the punishment for their crime. They decided long ago what should happen to Whumper’s body.
“We should burn the body.” Their voice trembled, as if they were afraid Whumper would hear.
Otto agreed, nodding, his glance dashing onto Wren, taking the shakiness as deep sorrow. He prompted, “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
That night Wren turned into the main room, entering a domain where Whumper and them remained alone, the demons of their relationship dancing on the walls as a party of shadows created via the fireplace.
They wondered how warm Otto’s bed must be. An apathetic hint of excitement twitched on their pale face, debating if they were ready for human touch again, or had Whumper sullied it, ruined it like every else.
Otto’s puppy eyes managed to grow sadder at every flinch Wren experienced. The split-second fear appearing on Wren’s face when they lifted a hand too high into the air, or stood too close besides them in the kitchen, Otto must’ve felt the haunting too. Why couldn’t they just be free?
Thrashing, the pillow was knocked onto the floor. Wren’s jaw stung, the gritted teeth grinding against each other a few seconds more, before the reality of the waking world hit them all at once.
Per usual they opened their eyes to blight of Whumper’s presence. Their groggy glare observed in a horrified disgust, ready to close back up and take a chance with the vivid nightmares instead. The ventilator whirred. Whumper’s hand jerked.
There was zero hesitation in Wren’s scream. They fell from their bed, cupping their hands over their mouth, half-wondering if that noise came from themselves. Knocking echoed down the thin halls of the shelter, as Otto rushed to see what were wrong.
He found Wren cowering out from behind their bed, a thin finger pointed, extending towards Whumper. They rambled hysterically, “He moved. I saw it- I- Oh no- He moved and I saw it-”
“Hey shhh. It’s okay Wren. It’s okay.”
Otto watched Wren carefully. The young Wren’s entire body shivered. An instinctual rocking teetered them back and forth, and they their free hand clasped tight to their chests, squeezing the balled up grasp of hem of their oversized shirt.
Maintaining a relaxed tone, Otto heaved a relieved sigh, promising, “I’ll look.”
Whumper seemed the same as always for Otto’s perceptive, a wounded thing that housed a beating heart and a working pair of lungs.
He grabbed Whumper’s hand, rubbing his thump into the palm. There wasn’t a quiver of movement within them. He waltzed around the bed, now holding the other, repeating the circular movements, trying to get Whumper’s fingers to react. This hand was just a cold and lifeless as the other.
“I’m going to check one last thing.”
He rummaged through a small cardboard box placed on a stack of old instruction books. Wren’s weeping could be heard from behind him. Fumbling out a small flashlight, he drew Whumper’s surviving eye open, then turned the humble light on.
Every fiber of Wren’s attention was on Otto. They waited an endless minute, searching for an explanation in the raise of an eyebrow or deepened frown, but Otto kept himself stern, absorbed.
Finally, clicking the light off, he let out a nervous chuckle. He concurred, “The eye is reacting. Give me a moment.”
Wren made a muffled gasp, sinking into a fetal position. They listened to Otto speak in clear precise questions and commands, “Can you hear me? Follow this light if you can hear me.”
He pulled the light left, then right, huffing out surprise at the conscious movement. Otto turned towards Wren and simply nodded. Taking a step back, he paused to collect himself.
Wren raised themselves into an unstable stand. They wobbled over, clinging to Otto as soon as they could reach him. Hot tears streamed down the front of their face. Wren sniffled, as Otto clung back, pulling them into an ensnaring hug.
Otto ventured closer to Whumper’s bed again. He held one of those cold hands again, and commanded, “Move this hand if you can.”
There was a delay, the flickering fireplace and ventilator waiting alongside the two people, eventually the available fingers first twisted, then weakly half-curled.
.............
Whumper looked ridiculous to say the least, sitting up, renewed consciousness best controlling their half-lidded eye. Movement of their hands was getting better. It had been a few days since Otto shone a bright light directly into their one good eyeball. Unable to yet speak, Whumper only made general noises, but for reasons they couldn’t understand, felt strong shame and embarrassment in each sound.
Nothing better to do, they spent the day observing. The room was cluttered, disorganized, and inhabited by more gear than open space. Outside was snowy, and cold.
Whumper recognized snow, fire, things like wind, and cycles like the long-lasting nights and shortened days of the arctic. Muddied fog drenched every thought. Attempting to move felt like being underwater, but Whumper couldn’t remember what underwater meant as a concept, only that such sluggish weight felt familiar.
Otto asked them questions every day. Whumper answered, that’s what he could do best right now. Blink twice for yes. Blink once for no.
Do you know your name? Blink. Do you remember what happened? Blink. Do you know where you’re from? Blink-blink. Do you know this person? Blink. Their name is Wren. Blink. We pulled you out from a house explosion- Blink. In the middle of the arctic. Blink-Blink. Someone was torturing people there.
Whumper’s face made its first proper expression in a long while, confusion. His head reeled, the world refused to stay focused, sometimes caught in a blurry frame, where faces seemed unfamiliar no matter how many times they introduced themselves. Whumper better remembered the difference between Otto and Wren by their opposing visuals. Wren’s hair was so blonde it was nearly white, shiny and soft-looking. Otto was big; muscles, callused hands, heavy clothes.
The two of them taught Whumper a lot of things, that felt new, shocking even, not quite right, but they had to be true because it were all directly in front of him.
His left hand was missing the pinky finger. The right hand was missing the pinky and ring finger, and he had lost the tip of the index. He saw the world using only one eye. The other was destroyed in some sort of freak accident when the house blew up.
Wren was a funny guy to him. At night he tossed and turned, and yelped as if frightened. When Whumper regained the ability to speak, it wasn’t perfect, but it got the job done. Wren jumped too as if frightened. Wren did everything as if frightened.
“It hur-hurts.”
As expected they jumped at the first hint of Whumper’s voice, spinning around to make eye-contact with Whumper’s glazed over sight, his face devoid of anger. Devoid of any emotion really.
“What hurts?”
Wren asked like a dumb-ass, watching Whumper’s iris lift in thought, as if that were truly a viable question. They felt bad for playing so dumb, but in Whumper’s alive presence again, the brain just wasn’t computing.
The man managed out, “My… The thmng… My fa- My uhm… face.”
Wren couldn't not admit, it looked painful. Frustrated tears welled in Whumper’s eyes. Another new expression Wren never witnessed on the man formed, fearful confusion, matched with shuddering breaths and loosely clenched hands.
The man was obviously trying to remember something, straining to the point it were visible on his face. He heaved an upset sigh, hissing in a sharp inhale quickly afterwards, building a panicked cry.
“Hey look-” Where could Wren even start with this guy. They assured, “Otto will come home soon. He can help you.”
Whumper’s stalled to speak, a few tears being pressed out of their operating eye, “Hurts… Can’t- Can’t remem… remem… em.”
Wren couldn’t watch, keeping their focus on the floor as Whumper stumbled over the word remember several more times.
He finally aced it, unable to move on until it were possible for himself, finishing the thought aloud, “Remember my- my name…”
They didn’t want to for a moment, but seeing Whumper’s clenched hands shake uncontrollably, they decided to do the bastard a favor. Wren soothed, “It’s Faustin.”
That seemed to calm Faustin down.
He still quivered, his eye searching an invisible plane of depth before him for answers, the name dredging up little of recent times, only a firm reminder that he were someone worth having a name.
The name stuck right on, a perfect fit, a missing piece of himself. As for the worthiness, it wasn’t meant to be. He knew, unable to conjure reasons as to why, that he didn’t deserve Wren’s aid.
He uttered, “Than… Thank- Thank you.”
