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HiA pt 2: Consequences

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Hearts in Amestris
by Puckish-Elf
Chapter 2: Consequences

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

The sound jolted Kelsey to half-consciousness.  Her heart hopped, her eyelids fluttered, and her whole form twitched.  A half-formed thought sparked through her slumbering mind.

A sound.  Someone’s coming.

She froze, going stiff with caution, holding her breath so as not to make a sound.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

Slowly, her frazzled brain got a grip on reality, and she realized what the sound was.

It’s my watch.  Ticking.  My freakin’ watch.

A soft snort escaped the slumped girl’s form, a tired prelude to a laugh.  She smiled blearily, cracking her eyes open.

Kelsey leaned forward, wincing as she straightened from the slouched sitting position she had slept in.  A bookshelf was not the kindest thing to one’s back—what with being filled with hard, pointy shapes—and it was especially unkind to Kelsey’s particular back.  She practically lived at a computer, having both a desk-job and an obsession with recreational Internet use.  She pushed her shoulders backward and her sternum upward, grimacing as she felt her bones grind, until a satisfying pop echoed between her shoulder blades.  Kelsey relaxed her back with a sigh.

She pulled off her glasses, wiped the sleep out of her eyes, and then carefully used her shirt to wipe the previous day’s dirt and smudges from the lenses.  “I want a shower,” she grumbled for about the umpteenth time since her arrival in Amestris.

Kelsey clambered to her feet, extended her arms over her head, stretched a little up and to each side, letting out a satisfied sigh after each movement.  She stood on one foot, rolling her ankle until it gave out a loud pop, then gave the other one the same treatment.  She dug her right hand into her jeans pocket and extracted her State Alchemist pocketwatch replica.  It, too, got a wiping-down from the bottom of her shirt.  Kelsey smiled down at the trinket lovingly.

She hit the top button, taking a simple pleasure in the way the spring-loaded lid popped open.  It took a moment for her to discern the time from the watch’s face.  Kelsey was a child of the technological age, accustomed to digital timekeeping, and even after fawning over this watch for three solid weeks was still not used to reading analog.

Ten forty-five.  In the morning or at night? she wondered, feeling disoriented.  The sun had been setting when she came in, but with the way she had been sitting, she could have just as easily slept four or fourteen hours.  The lights are all on in here…gak, I still can’t tell if these people prefer gas or electric…if it was night I guess they wouldn’t be on though, huh.  A little smirk curved onto her face at the sense of victory she felt for having gotten a full night’s sleep in such extenuating circumstances.

Feeling fully awake now (or about awake as she was going to get without coffee, another luxury she missed dearly), Kelsey sat right back down on the floor, going cross-legged and plopping her purse in front of her.  She unzipped it and dug through it, pulling out the first item needed for her morning ritual—a hairbrush.  She had consciously tried to keep as many of her habits from home as she possibly could.  They served the important task of keeping her hands occupied, which kept her sleepy mind relatively blank as it woke up, which helped Kelsey to have a fresh, optimistic outlook for the start of each day.

She started with her hair.  It had always been her favorite part of her body, and just because she had been unable to access shampoo or conditioner for over a week didn’t make her give it any less attention.  Kelsey pulled the hair tie out of the bottom of her braid, looped it around her wrist, and pulled the plaits apart slowly and methodically.  She ran the brush through her long, now-crimpy hair, dragging it from scalp to ends, taking care not to pull or split the ends.  She lost herself for a while in the rhythmic motions, taking a good ten minutes just playing with her hair before she carefully separated it into three bunches and plaited it back into a tight, neat braid.

She replaced the brush in her purse and pulled out her next item:  lip balm.  This same tiny tin of balm was the one her stepmom had given her the day Kelsey went into the hospital upon her diagnosis of diabetes nearly two years ago, she reflected briefly.  On went the lip balm, applied and adjusted with ritualistic perfectionism.

Kelsey replaced the balm, dipped into her bag for the next item, and grimaced—the gum.  She only had so much, and since it essentially had to take the place of toothpaste indefinitely, she had decided to ration it, much to her chagrin.  One piece every other day.  Today, fortunately, was a gum-day, and she popped a piece in her mouth with a swelling sense of hope.  Gum-days were good days.

The next part of her ritual had nothing to do with her supplies.  Kelsey took a few minutes to, quite literally, pick her nails.  She was a raving perfectionist when it came to particulates getting under her nails—or rather, in keeping stuff from getting under there.  Her nails were naturally tough and flexible, and grew long of their own accord, so keeping them clean was of paramount importance to her.

Lastly, Kelsey pulled out a bottle of something that to her, in this place, was more precious than gold—alcohol-based hand sanitizer.  Very, very carefully, Kelsey squeezed a tiny dot of it into her palm, no bigger than half of a fingernail in width.  She quickly spread the stuff over her palms, between her fingers, over her fingertips, in the webs of her hands—and as soon as she rubbed it in, it dried in an instant.

Her morning ritual complete, Kelsey replaced the bottle into her purse with an air of satisfaction.

Kelsey’s fingers brushed against something inside her purse—a hand-sized, black nylon, zippered case.  Her air of satisfaction shattered, and worry creased her face.

There was one part of the morning equation that she was missing…the most vital part…but she had been putting off thinking about the consequences…

She scowled.  Stop running away, Kelsey.  You have some time to think now; use it.

Out came the black zippered case, along with a long plastic tube that looked like an overinflated pen.  After that, a tin with writing in both English and French that originally held licorice candies, but now rattled with something hard and plastic.  A plastic tube with a pop-open top, a plastic pouch of small syringes and a little glass vial of clear liquid joined the items on the dusty carpet.

Kelsey lined them all up, and stared down at them, worry slowly twisting inside her guts.

They were the supplies for treating her diabetes.  This motley collection of objects was her life.

First, she unzipped the black case.  Inside was the little gyzmo that read glucose levels in the blood.  Next to it was the lancet device—the poking thingy.  Above it, secured ever by its elastic strap, was a second pop-open tube.

Kelsey grabbed both tubes and popped the tops, eyeballing their contents.  These were the most important prescription in her collection—the testing strips.  One-time-use only.  One per drop of blood.

Two full tubes, she marked.  Around one-hundred strips.  I’m supposed to test five times a day.  I normally get away with three or four at home.  But here…Testing in the morning is vital.  It gives me the proper gauge to go by, so as long as I count my insulin correctly I don’t need to test during the day.  And at night is vital too.  If my blood sugar is too low when I go to sleep, I won’t wake up in the morning.  At all.  But I need to leave some wiggle-room…if I have High or Low symptoms during the day, I HAVE to test.

Her hands flitted to the lancet device next.  Two spare drums of six rotating needles each.  More than enough.  That’ll last me…eh, three months, easy.

Next was the odd pen-shaped object.  Kelsey popped off the long grey cap to it.  Underneath was a plastic vial of clear liquid—Humalog insulin.  It was the drug she needed to take every single time she ate, since her own pancreas was unable to produce insulin for her.

Full thing of Humalog, thank God.  That’ll last me…about a month and a half.  Maybe two, if I push it.

The wriggling feeling of worry grew to a hollow sense of dread at that thought.

Next, the top came off of the candy tin.  Inside were white plastic structures that looked like cones with the ends elongated and tapered off.  They were the needles that screwed onto the end of her Humalog pen.  Her blue eyes flitted over them, counting.

Ten.  She examined the plastic packet full of traditional syringes.  And ten of these.  Kelsey visibly winced.  I’m gonna have to re-use…a LOT.  She had already used a few of the pen-needles over the course of the last few days; she had no choice.  This is gonna suck.

Lastly, Kelsey picked up the clear vial—the Lantus insulin.  It was the drug that kept her body regulated, the insulin that kept her blood sugar from spiking too high or too low.  Half a vial.  Two months, it looks like.  Thank God this is a once-a-day thing…I’m gonna have to use the syringes for both kinds of insulin.  It was possible, since the Humalog pen had a rubber stopper just like the Lantus bottle, though it was unorthodox.

Kelsey took her hands off of her supplies and leaned back, closing her eyes as she briefly crunched the numbers in her head.

The Humalog will run out first…as long as the needles don’t break from re-use.  She suppressed a shiver.  It was one of her deepest fears, one that she had carried since her diagnosis—the fear that someday, a needle would break off halfway into her flesh.  Thankfully, it hadn’t happened once, but the possibility was there…

So I have two months.  Then I’ll start getting sick.

The sense of dread in her guts became a cold, gripping fist of horror.

Once she ran out of insulin, the glucose would gradually start to build up in her bloodstream, unable to process.  It would wreak all sorts of havoc with her body.  Firstly, she’d lose energy, since her body would have no fuel.  She’d lose bodily warmth along with the fatigue.  She’d become nauseous almost all the time.  The osmosis between cells and the rest of her blood would be stopped up by excess sugars, meaning she’d become perpetually thirsty.  And perpetually hungry, since there was no insulin to properly process the sugars she needed through the body.

Starvation and thirst in the land of plenty.  Her fists gripped her knees.  Not again.

They were all the classic symptoms of Hyperglycemia, of having too high of blood sugar.  They were the symptoms that told doctors when a person’s pancreas had failed and they had developed diabetes.

Last time, I lived with it for two months.  But I was close…too close.

After checking into the hospital, Kelsey had been informed just how close she was to Ketoacidosis.  It referred to a side-effect of the body’s inability to process sugars.  Without that source of energy, the body began to burn proteins for energy instead.  A by-product of protein burning was a substance called ketones.  And if too many ketones built up in the body, they could build up in the brain…

…too close to a coma.  Talk about bullets dodged.

So if I really, really push it, I have four months.

The cold, gripping horror traveled from her guts and up into her chest, seizing her breath.

Four months to find a way home, or I’m dead.

Slowly, methodically, Kelsey closed up her supplies and replaced them in her purse.  She swallowed a large lump that had built up in her throat, but to no avail.

And suddenly, she clenched a fist.  The fist hit the carpet, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

“Damnit!” she hissed under her breath, still afraid of attracting attention from people who actually belonged in this library.  “Damnit damnit, Kelsey, don’t think like that.  There’s a solution.  There’s always a solution.”

Optimism.  Even though Kelsey normally based her decisions off of logic and facts, she had to have faith that Someone Up There had a plan, and that Things would always work out in the end.  That was her creed.  It was a belief that ran through Kelsey almost stronger than Catholicism, the religion on which she’d been raised.

“This place can’t be as archaic as that…if they’ve made such advancements in prosthesis as automail…then maybe they treat diabetes too.”

But that still leaves the test strips…that technology can’t possibly exist here.  It was only developed in the last decade in my world.

Which means I’ve got…two months of test strips.  Not having them won’t kill me…but it’ll be hard as hell to stay healthy and regular.  Things could go south very fast…


“…there has got to be a way.  I know there’s one.  Just have to look around…to pay attention to the world around me.”

Echoing the words her father had repeatedly told her as a clumsy, space-cadet child—

“Kelsey Ann Smith!  You almost got hit!  Pay attention to the world around you!”

--brought a smile to her face.  She was still a space cadet, but hopefully, she wasn’t so clumsy anymore that she couldn’t survive in this world.

“Kelsey Ann Smith, you need a plan.”

She squirmed a bit so that she could dip her hand back into her pocket, once more withdrew the dark, silvery pocketwatch, and flipped it open.

“Eleven-oh-five.”

She placed the watch on the ground beside her purse, and, grimacing, dipped into the bag for the last time.  Kelsey withdrew the black nylon pouch, and with practiced motions that looked as if she could have done them in her sleep, tested her bloodsugar.

Turn the end of the lancet and push to arm.  Press against finger; press button to poke.  Squeeze.  Blood.  Pull a strip out of the tube and stick it into the reader.  Wait till the gyzmo is done beeping.  Tap drop of blood onto end of strip and watch it suck the blood up.  It’s thinking, it’s thinking…

112.

“Just fine.”

Kelsey deflated in a sigh, packed the device up, and stashed it in her purse.  She seized her pocketwatch and stood, dusted herself off, and slung the purse over her shoulder.  The watch remained in her hand; she squeezed it like a good-luck charm.

Money.  I still.  Need.  Money.  Trying to find treatment for diabetes and rationing supplies and all that aside, surviving’s gonna be a little hard without an INCOME.

Her heart sank.  Just when she had worked herself into a flurry of optimism, too…

And as often happened when Kelsey was feeling down, her attention span chose that moment to flutter away into the distance.

Since I’m here, might as well look around…can’t linger too long though…

She wandered away from the row of books she had slept against, ambling down the aisle.  She didn’t really stop to read the titles on the shelves, her blue eyes glancing over the volumes without much interest.  If Kelsey had been looking for something specific, it would be different…it would also be different if she wasn’t trying so hard to think about nothing just then.

After rounding a few corners and passing a few dozen shelves that looked packed with about the most incomprehensible and uninteresting books possible, Kelsey came upon a small, rather cramped studying area crammed within the labyrinth of shelves.  It consisted of one square table, two chairs, and of course a few short stacks of books piled willy-nilly on the table.

Kelsey felt a stab of regret that she hadn’t found this place last night; sleeping in a chair might have been easier on her back than against a bookshelf.  Nonetheless, she shelved the ‘what-ifs’ and sat down, idly picking through one of the piles on the table.

A particular title caught her eye.  She gave a double-take.  She gave a triple-take.  And her eyes widened.

Wait…The Mirror of Alchemy?  No way.

“This is a beginning alchemy book…what’s it doing in a library for State Alchemists?” she muttered.

Kelsey took the book from the pile and pulled it forward to examine it.  It looked rather loved; the hard cover was battered, the corners were bent, and patches of the cover on both sides and the spine looked scraped off.  However, opening the book revealed it to be perfectly legible inside, though the pages gave off the peculiar aroma of old sweat mingled with ink.

Just like your standard high school textbook, Kelsey thought wryly.

She let out a sigh, her fingers brushing idly over the cover of the book.  Alchemy was one subject that would never be taught in high school.  A subject that was beyond her…

Wait.  What the hell am I thinking?  Anyone can do alchemy, right?  Some people just have a talent for it.  It’s different here.  Alchemy is possible in this world.  So it’s just like any other science.

Kelsey’s eyes widened behind her glasses.  Her heart fluttered with curiosity and stung with hope.

I was never that good at math…let’s hope it doesn’t come back to bite me now.

She flipped open the book and began to read.
Sorry about this chapter being slower than the first...not to mention two pages longer...>.> I needed to establish some conflicts in the story/within the character...so here we are. >.> Next chapter should--meh; I wanna ramble about what's going to happen, but I SHOULDN'T, it's bad to spoil your own fics! *head/desk* XD;;

And I'm sorry if this character comes across as emo...cause that was decidedly not my intention. Conflict =/= emo. *nodnod* Not like some of my OTHER characters, who eat/sleep/breathe/bleed emo...*cough*Will*cough*. XD;; That's okay, though, right? Cause we love da emo boyz. *squishes them* :3

The reason this chapter took so long to get posted was cause I was debating whether I should add the next part--which will become Chapter 3--to the end of this chapter or not. I decided to spare you after seven pages of rambling and just make the next part its own chapter. ~.^

Fullmetal Alchemist, Amestris, and all related names are (c) Hiromu Arakawa, SquareEnix, and Studio BONES.

| Part 1:[link] | Part 2 |

Cheers!
© 2008 - 2024 Puckish-Elf
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Serendipital's avatar
I gotta say, this is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really AWESOME! I don't think I've ever seen a self-insert done so well!