Discover Top Posts Tagged with #drown tw

Limnophobia. ((i think i owe you things: have some memes in the mean time orz sdjfldsf))

phobia drabble prompts | accepting | @paramounticebound

LIMNOPHOBIA: your muse saves mine from drowning.

Saturday, 2:17 A.M. No one expected the torpedo to come in the dead of night while the ship continued moving quietly through the ocean. It was calm then, with a clear sky glittering with stars. But that was before. After the quiet night was filled with screams and the groaning of the great medical transport as it was torn apart.

Friday, 6:00 P.M. “No, no, this is wrong again,” Fox laughed. Even cramped below deck with most of the other nurses and patients, her spirits were lifted. Mostly due to Khan and his struggle with a few English phrases. Part of her was sure he was doing it on purpose, just to make her laugh. It was a way to pass the time, playing cards and teaching each other languages, mainly English.. It wasn’t always like this, of course. In the beginning, she was sure the injured man hated her. Despised her with every fiber of his being, but there was a war going on and she wasn’t about to allow it to poison his life forever. For weeks she burdened him with her presence, pestering with food and water and conversation. Filling his ears with tales of Leningrad, of the Summer Garden, of the great palaces of the Czars, and of course, folklore. He was unable to escape, a German shooter had caught his leg and his femor had fractured as a result. The leg was doing well, every day she cleaned and dressed it thrice ( had they not still been in the field he would be at less of a risk of infection, but with dirt and blood and rotting corpses, she would take no risks with any of her wards ), ignoring how high on his upper thigh it was. After a while, it seemed he didn’t care much either.

“You are saying it is not Cumrade, Cumrade?” Khan knew very well that was not how it was pronounced, but he also knew that it would make his nurse gasp with laughter and he could not find it within himself to resist. How far had he come already from months ago when the other soldiers had found his unit – what was left of his unit. The terrors of war continued to haunt him, he could still smell metal and smoke and ash. Feel the mud as it was kicked up into his face, the tearing of his flesh as a bullet found its mark, and the rush of blood over his hand as his knife found its own. See the bodies of his fallen friends, those he trained with, those who protected his back and he theirs. How their bodies froze beneath the snows or festered on milder days, crawling with maggots. How long he remained on the field, waiting for death he could not say, pain had him far from lucid when they found him. A whirlwind of dark movement before an explosion of bright, white sunlight. The vision of a woman snapping at another man, animatedly telling him what he was doing was wrong and might cost the soldier his leg. God, his leg. He’d expected her touch to be as sharp as her words, but she was gentle, and redressed his would with ease. As if she were merely wrapping a gift and not his mangled thigh. Morphine kept his senses dulled until he drifted away again. Each time waking to her presence. Fox would not allow him to wallow alone, to fear the booms overhead by himself. At first, he hated her for it. Too traumatized by his experiences to speak or feel the need for human contact. As the weeks wore on he began to look forward to her, however. Day by down, he woke expectant of her smiling face, there to change his morning dressings. And oh, how fear had gripped him when another had taken her place and how she had laughed when he snapped at her for it later. Now look at them, smiling, staring at each other as if they were the only ones aboard the ship.

“Stop! This sound wrong!” Fox insisted, wiping tears from her eyes. “It is Comrade, Comrade,” others were beginning to look over. Envious or hateful, it didn’t matter to her. She treated them all the same, save for him, for they were something more. Friends, yes? Friends looked at each other in such ways. Or at least she told herself they did.

"I have to make my rounds now, you silly man.” Fox hissed, switching back into their mother tongue. “And you need to rest.” Khan gave her a mock frown and settled into his incredibly uncomfortable cot. It was better than the floor, at least. “I will be back later to change your dressings, save your frowns for then.” Teasingly she tapped the foot of his good leg and left him to check on the others. Aware that he watched her retreating back until she was too far into the rest of the ship he was unable to follow.

Friday, 9:58 P.M. “You were gone a long while,” Khan observed after his nurse had cleaned and dressed his wound. She always left him for last, mostly so she could settle into her own cot next to his right after.

“One of the soldiers upstairs had some sort of mental break,” from early on, she didn’t hide things like this from him. Mostly in the hopes that if something similar ever happened to him, he would tell her. “He awoke thinking we were all Germans. He grabbed a scalpel and -- “ Well, he hadn’t harmed any of them. Only himself. They’d spent most of the time trying to calm him and after, wrapping up his body to be returned home. Khan nodded as if he understood without her having to say anything at all.

“Fox,” he whispered after a moment. The nurse had laid down on her cot, facing him. Khan wished to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that the war had done this to them, but she was fast asleep before his words came out. Exhausted by the day after day work with no rest. “Sleep well,” he murmured instead, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest before he too drifted off.

Saturday, 1:42 A.M. “Khan? Are you awake?” Fox whispered, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders. Her soldier had been murmuring in his sleep, well, whimpering really. Eyes opened in the dark, peering up at her. Sweat beaded on his brow, she could practically feel his frantic pulse without even touching him. “Everything is right as rain, I’m right here, Comrade, I’m right here.” Clammy fingers grasped for her hand, holding them tightly. With her other, she stroked wet hair out of his face. This had happened before, his nightmares. It took her multiple attempts to actually find a method that worked in calming him. Trial and error until her whispers found a soothing outlet.

“We are only two days from port,” her voice was husky with sleep. “Soon you will be home in the Soviet Union, we will be home.” Ever caressing, the words drifted away to be replaced with a quiet melody. A song she had heard babushkas sing, a song her mother detested, but her father often hummed. One that spoke of their rich country, of the beauty in the landscape, the unforgiving winters, and the white nights full of romance and longing.

“Fox,” Khan finally managed to whisper. “Promise me you’ll -- “ A sickening thud and the sudden lurch of the massive carrier cut off his promise.

Saturday, 2:17 A.M. The torpedo made contact on the level below theirs, though the contact cause their walls to buckle. Water surged through, forcing its way past steel bolts. They ricocheted around the hull like bullets from a gun. Fox grabbed to Khan instantly, hoisting him up. There was no time to think, no time to grab anything. Their ship was compromised. If she could just get him up onto the deck and into one of the lifeboats, it would be fine. They had been trained for this. Well, not exactly. They had been told it was a possibility, but that medical vessels were likely not targets. Foolish men. In war, everyone was a target. Luckily, Fox considered every possibility.

“Can you stand,” she asked him, slinging his arm over her shoulders. Try as she might, there was no way she would be able to carry him completely. “We have to get to that door before the water keeps it shut.” People were screaming and try as she might to warn them, they couldn’t all hear her over the noise. Water sloshed around them while they moved, Khan hopping too and frow on his good leg, trying not to pull Fox too hard. She was so thin beneath her uniform, why had he not noticed that before? If he lost his footing, they would both go down. He pulled away an inch, ready to tell her to go on without him, to save herself. Fox wasn’t having it; her arm tightened around him, pressing him against her body as she yanked him onward with more strength than he thought she had.

By the time they reached the door, the water was up to their shins and rising faster. Fox left Khan’s side to pull it open, a few of the more able-bodied soldiers coming to join her. They, in turn, also helped her get Khan to the upper deck. “Get him into a lifeboat,” she managed before leaving his side to help others reach the door. Khan tried to stay behind, but the men listened too well. They raised him up and carried him to one of the lifeboats that swang back and forth dangerously. The ship was tilting. Blood raced through his heart, quickening the beats until it ached. Soldiers kept pouring out of the door, but he didn’t catch the near white hair that belonged to his nurse. A metallic pop sounded through the air, another shot taken from beneath the dark waves. The ship shuttered and groaned, slipping further down. The lifeboats were nearing the water. Men were jumping overboard, desperate to get away from the sinking ship before it dragged them all down to a watery grave.

“Fox!” Khan yelled, pushing others to bring himself to the edge of the boat. Damning his leg, for he was unable to pull himself up. Others asked him what he was doing, telling him he was insane and needed to stay put. He just kept yelling and scanning the darkened deck for the nurse. Bodies were already floating face down, lips turned blue from the low temperatures.

Below deck, there was nothing more she could do. The others were accepting death or were already dead. Water was up to her waist by then, by the time the second torpedo hit. Liquid surged around her, climbing ever higher, pushing bodies into her way. Panic, thus far pushed away, rose with it. As a Russian, ice and snow were woven into her bones, but this was something deeper. Something darker. Too long submerged and she’d remain forever. Stairs were climbed on hands and knees while the ship continued to tilt, then she surfaced, and what she heard stopped her dead. Amongst the screams of the people and the ship, Khan, yelling -- screaming -- her name. A beacon in the dark. Sliding across the deck while water began to lap at the surface, Fox hurried toward his voice only to find that his boat was already drifting across the waves. Too far to reach by jumping, she’d have to swim. The only problem was, she didn’t know how.

“Jump!” Khan was yelling and she swore she saw his face drain of color when she answered with, “I can’t swim!”

“Jump,” he repeated, the others joining in his call. “I’ll get you, I promise, I promise. Jump now!” If she didn’t soon, the entire deck would become submerged and she’d be stuck further out and risk being pulled below. Dread pooled in his stomach, even from the distance he could see her shaking. “I promise!”

Fox breathed in deeply, knowing that it might be her very last chance to do so. As a soldier, Khan had faced fearsome things every day, she could do this, she could face this fear. With a running start, her feet sliding, Fox jumped into the water. Icy fingers pulled the rest of the air from her lungs and she was submerged. Willing her body to float up as her limbs lashed out, pushing, kicking, doing anything she could until she broke above the waves. Khan disappeared, replaced with the need to survive. Seawater flooded her mouth, choking her as she gasped for air. Again, she went down, sputtering. This was it, she was going to drown.

Strong hands grasped her body, pulling it higher and higher until together they broke the surface. Had her limbs not been frozen solid, she would’ve succeeded in drowning them both with her panic. “Breathe, breathe,” he whispered, kicking his legs ( even his injured one ). Fox tried, vomiting up the water that had stolen her air, then she was gulping down the cool night air, clinging to him. “Kick your feet, we have to get onto the boat.”

“You shouldn’t be in the water with your leg,” Fox managed, trying to do as he directed. Trying to do more. Two other soldiers from their lifeboat jumped into the water to help them the rest of the way and hoist them up. Two freezing bodies, one dripping blood from his leg, his wound reopened. Dry jackets were removed from able bodies and placed over them as ores were taken up. They were only two days from port. Two days and stranded. “We’re going to die.”

“I did not live through this war, suffer with this leg, spend days listening to you go on and on, and jump into that water just for us to die now.” Khan ground out. He could’ve just let her drown, but he had found the strength to throw himself over the boat. “We’re going to live, you promise me right now, we’re going to live.”

“I promise.”

Tuesday, 4:32 P.M. Their boat drifted for three days before they were spotted. In the beginning, a few soldiers tried to row closer to their destination, but without food or water, they tired easily. Fox and Khan clung to each other, fevers rising and breaking with the sun and the moon. Despite their condition, Fox still tried to check on his wound, fearing that it would become infected and he would lose his leg. He truly had to be blessed by God, for thus far, it had not festered. In turn, Khan sang the song she’d taught him, not caring that the others heard or watched. Knowing that after this they’d never again be able to part.

#drown tw

Trending Tags

Recently Viewed Tags

#drown tw