bsumone | ❝ A Life isn’t about finding yourself ❞

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It happened quickly and without warning. Not that someone can really expect much of a warning for something like that. He'd been walking home and then everything just went dark. He didn't see anything after that but he heard it all and he felt it all. Every cut of the knife into his flesh, every bite of the saw into bone. It was excruciating. Like nothing he'd ever felt before. And the sounds to accompany the pain, as well as the constant drip drip dripping of his blood on the floor. The sound of, first, one hand hitting the floor and then the other. Muffled swearing. Not accustomed to dismembering a body, perhaps. If they just gave it some time, they could try again. An infinite number of attempts with this one. Not that he wanted that. It was too much to deal with again and again.

At some point, Dongsoo has to have passed out. The sounds are gone, the pain is duller. He didn't get a look at the place where he'd been, but this place seems... different. A quick glance from side to side tells him that he's in a morgue. Had he been in a morgue previously? No, right? Had whoever taken him tried to kill him in a moment of panic, perhaps?

The dulled pain makes way for a new sensation. Fleshy tendrils extend from his wounds. His wrists reach out for his hands, pulling them back into place, stitching them back onto the ends of his arms, flesh rejoining with flesh. While those wounds heal so, too, do the rest on his body. Every scratch, every stab wound and everything in between. Everything heals perfectly, leaving no trace that there had ever been any wounds in the first place.

It's only once he's fully healed and he sits up that he realizes he's not the only one in this morgue. Not that he could have stopped anything that just happening but... oh.

Galen’s seen some strange things, both in the morgue and in her backroom clinic. A dismembered and very dead body stitching itself back together and sitting up takes the prize. She’d just been brought another and was filling out the custody paperwork before she turned…

And screamed.

Dongsoo holds up his hands (which show no sign of having been unattached just moments before. There's not even so much as a mark left behind), waving them and shaking his head. Perhaps not his greatest attempt at getting someone to stop screaming, but it's the first thing that springs to mind. A mind that is far from clear right now, as he tries to be rid of the haze of his own... death? Near death.

"No. No don't scream. I..." How does he possibly start to explain this? 'I know you thought I was dead, but I got better'? "...I didn't know you were here."

Honestly? The shock passes quickly. She’s seen some veery strange things, after all, she simply wasn’t expect a previously dismembered corpse to simply pull itself back together and sit up in her morgue. This is the last place strange things happen to her. Taking just a moment to get a breath, her eyes sharpen and without any explanation she steps closer to grab one of his hands and examine where it had been severed from his arm.

Not a bruise or even a scar remained. Those dark eyes turned from his wrist to meet his eyes. Very much alive. No clouding, they’re focused. Even his skin seemed to have its color back.

“Does it hurt? Putting yourself back together, I mean.”

The shock doesn't pass, it just finds someone new to inhabit. His eyes widen and he scoots back on the table a little when she approaches him. There's nowhere for him to go, however. He doesn't manage to move terribly far before he finds the other side of the table, one hand clutching the edge. The last time someone approached him with such confidence after seeing him heal, he was cut. Then pushed off of a building. Forgive him for being shocked and a little concerned.

And ready to flee, depending on these next few seconds.

Dongsoo blinks at the woman when she's grabs his hand, then looks down at it when she does. "It's... painfully uncomfortable." It hurts, but not as much as being pulled apart.

Galen stared for a moment in fascination. She could heal flesh and bone just as cleaning – or rend it if need be. But this man was dead, of that she was certain. She turned his arm a little to peer at his healed wrist from different angles, all gently, never pulling further than the joint can move at this particular angle. Very clinical.

Then, she turns her focus back to him.

“You were dead.” It’s not a question. She was certain of his state when he came to her in pieces. Even she couldn’t bring someone back from that. Sure, she could put a corpse back together, but she couldn’t give them life once it passed.

“Can you feel even when you’re dead?”

Looking from her face to her hands and back again, he watches her fascinated expression as she examines his wrist. Her initial shock has long since worn off and there doesn't appear to be any horror or disgust beneath her fascination, nothing that he would expect from someone finding out what he's capable of. That's not to say that it isn't there, but if it is? She's certainly skilled at hiding it.

Dongsoo clears his throat a little awkwardly as he nods his head in response to her statement. An unnecessary response, but one even still. He gently tugs his arm free of her grasp and rubs his wrist where it had been cut. There's no wound and no lingering pain. Had he not been found when he was, no one would ever have known that it happened. There would have been time enough for him to heal and walk away from his own murder. Attempted murder?

"Not when I'm dead, no. That all sort of stops when my heart stops, I guess."

"The heart or the brain?" He may not even know the answer, but she can't stop it from tumbling out.

Without giving him time to reply, she huffs out a sigh and turns to gather up the paper work that came in with him.

"I don't know what additional documentation may be out there, but you should destroy this."

"I don't know." Was that even a question he was meant to answer or was it more of the rhetorical sort? He's been this way for as long as he can remember yet he still can't entirely explain how it works (but isn't that the case for the majority of perfectly normal people too? They can't really explain how their body does what it does, they just know that it does it). Maybe it's the heart, maybe it's the brain, maybe it's some combination of the two. He's not sure he really wants to find out.

Dongsoo blinks in surprise when she's huffs off and returns with the paperwork. He stares down at it for a moment. Is she just letting him go? Just like that, letting him disappear?

"Enough. Probably too much." Though he can't be sure how much of it is about Dongsoo the person, and how much of it is Dongsoo the connect. He reaches out to take the paperwork and looks down at it before he begins to tear it up. He sets the pile of torn paper on the table next to him. He'll destroy it more completely when he gets the chance. "Thank you for this."

"You'll have a clear path to the exist in about six minutes. Shift change will make it easier for you to walk up from the morgue without a lot of questions." In six minutes, a lot of staff will flood into the halls, making one man slipping out of the morgue less conspicuous.

❝ A Life isn’t about finding yourself ❞

Choose your own adventure

cw: vague description of dismemberment? very mild body horror-esque elements?

Re: cw: vague description of dismemberment? very mild body horror-esque elements?

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