Can we have a little drubble about Selma’s reincarnation afterwards someday? How were her first days go?
You certainly can, I plan to write a second part to this but I covered the resurrection itself here from Selma's perspective and will cut forward to her first days after part 2.
.....
Harsh. White. Searing.
A painful light invading her eyes. Too bright.
It hurt.
She tried to speak but the sounds coming from her tight throat and thick tongue were garbled. Her skin was on fire, everything was cold and hot, shocks traveling through her body.
“She’s alive!” a voice, familiar and distant.
The sound of scrambling and booming, thunderous laughter.
Eyes squeezed shut. Pain, noise. Everything too much.
She lifted a heavy wrist.
A hand. Large. Shapely. Different. Familiar, grasped hers. So hot it burned. She clutched tighter as the world around her began to sharpen.
Voices speaking, too loud and fast to make sense, blurry, fuzzy. Her head was full of sparks.
Slowly sight and sound came back into focus. A large figure was shouting at the open skylight.
“She lives! Do you see me, Victor?! Do you see?! Your fallen angel is a worthy son! You denied me to your last breath but I am yet your legacy!"
“Stop that!” the figure holding her hand snarled. She tried to place it; it sounded like a voice she knew but also one she didn’t “We need to make sure she’s alright! There’s no time for you to gloat! I need you now. Please, Mr. Frankenstein!”
He was polite. Why did that seem strange?
As her vision cleared, she struggled to put a name to the face before her. The broad, smooth, face of a man in his fifties. Did she know him? Her head swam when she tried to sit up. The man shushed her and gently guided her back down, “Easy now, there’s a good girl. Don’t try to sit up just yet, we’ve performed a miracle worthy of Jesus Christ himself,” he smiled weakly, the shadow of something-someone familiar in the gleam of his teeth.
He took her wrist in his hand and laid two fingers on it, “Pulse is slow, her skin is like ice,” he muttered, his brow furrowing with concern. As the large figure came into view. The patchwork face of the giant was immediately recognizable to her though how exactly was uncertain. The answer seemed to come to her then drift away, lost in a sea of barely coherent emotions and sensations. Pinpricks speckled across her eyes and she shut them for a moment until the throbbing in her head died down.
“Is she supposed to be this cold? Her heartbeat is so sluggish, is this normal?”
“If I am any indication then yes. Perhaps it is an affect of the chemicals used during incubation. The question now remains did we bring back Miss Morris or is this a new life?”
“Of course, it’s her! It has to be her! There was no point otherwise!”
“Dr. Jekyll, please, restrain yourself. We must remain impartial. It will be a tragedy if Selma is lost for good but we must remember that what we have created we bear a responsibility to. No matter our grief, it is not her fault for being born.”
She didn’t understand any of this and the bickering was beginning to grate on her. She tried to speak but could only manage a weak groan. Somewhere in the back of her mind a memory stirred and she knew one of these men was a doctor and she recalled the concept of a hospital. Was she sick? She felt sick. It would make sense to be sick right now.
The doctor, Jekyll, as he had been called, clasped her hand in his and gave her a reassuring smile. It helped. She tried to smile back but the muscles of her face felt stiff.
“I’m going to check your cognitive functions, you don’t have to try to talk if you aren’t ready but if you can understand me, I want you to squeeze my hand to indicate ‘yes’, aright?”
She decided she liked Doctor Jekyll. He seemed kind.
Was that right?
She squeezed.
He looked relieved, “Good, very good. It looks like you remember language. Do you know who this is?” he indicated the giant man.
She hesitated. She knew him but it was so muddled she couldn’t be certain how. When the giant smiled the seam through his upper lip parted and exposed the teeth and gums beneath. The ghoulish sight didn’t frighten her as it would have if he were a stranger.
Frankenstein.
Was that his name? Or was it his father’s?
She squeezed.
“Good, I’m not going to ask if you know me. I’m sure my face is new to you. All you need to know about me is that my name is Henry Jekyll and right now I’m taking care of you. Think of me as your doctor and, Adam,” he gestured to Adam, who nodded reassuringly, “Is your friend. Do you remember your name?”
She froze. She tried to conjure up a name. There were flashes of memory, fragmented, disconnected. She tried harder, ignoring the pain in her head as she strained to pull her name to the surface. She knew she had one! What was it? She struggled to find some recollection of identity for herself in the mire that was her brain. She made an agitated gesture, shaking her head. Tears welled in her eyes.
Seeing her growing distress, Jekyll attempted to sooth her, “It’s alright! It’s alright if you don’t remember, it will come back to you in time,” despite its lack of recent use the comforting tones he had once used on his patients came back to him easily. Once Selma had settled, he glanced at Adam expectantly, “It will come back to her. Won’t it?”
Adam shrugged, “I have no idea, I recall nothing from before my own awakening, although I had not the ability to speak or any understanding of language. It seems she has retained at least some things,” he mused. He gestured to a small office off to the side of the lab “I need to go document all of this. Can you take care of her? Would Hyde take care of her if he comes back?”
Jekyll hesitated, he looked at Selma, still clinging to his hand for dear life, “He would. She’s safe with me-with both of me,” he said.
Adam gave a single, curt, nod and lumbered off.
What had happened? Why did her body feel so strange? As her awareness of herself sharpened and strength returned to her limbs she lifted a hand to her chest, where a loud, slow, pulse was beating.
Something was wrong. Where was the wound? Hadn’t there been a bullet? Blood everywhere, running over her fingers, she had felt the wet pulsing through the hole in her skin then…
…then blackness.
Here she was now, no blood, no wound, her fingers were resting against neat stitches. Sewn. Alive! Then why did her body feel so much colder? Heavier? Overwhelmed with pain and confusion, she began to cry in earnest. This was not right!
Jekyll watched her anxiously. Maybe it should be Edward…she knows Edward. Edward, at least, wouldn’t be too much of a coward to give her his shoulder. No sooner had he thought the words when he felt the itch of black fur sprouting from his cheek. No! No, wait! Not yet! I’m not ready! I’m not-
-not who Selma needs right now.
To caught in her weeping Selma didn’t notice Edward’s return. Not until a thick, hairy hand touched her shoulder. She looked up, doing her best to wipe at her eyes.
“Hullo, lass, it’s good to see you again. Do you remember me?” he smiled, his jutting, jagged, teeth seemed nearly too large for his mouth.
Edward!
She nearly fell from the table flinging her arms around him. He caught her, pressing his cheek to hers and when she felt the dampness on his whiskers, she neither knew nor cared which of them was weeping. She squeezed.
“Welcome back to the land of the living, Slema Morris.”
She remembered Edward.
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