Dust to Dust

Owen alone with his thoughts and little else. Takes place sometime around "A Day In The Death".


Owen wiped his hand across the marble counter in the bare kitchen of his bare flat. ...At least it looked like he did; he couldn't feel the cold contact sucking the warmth out of his fingertips. There was no warmth to take.

It was spotless. Owen hadn't touched it in weeks.

His apartment had stopped accumulating dust. He never thought he would miss dust, of all fucking things.

Now all the dead skin just clung to him. ...No, he WAS the dead skin. A walking piece of detritus that should have fallen off when it had the chance. He shook his head.

Is it suicide if you're already dead? Or just knocking the legs out from under a chicken without a head. God, would he ever ACTUALLY die?

Owen prodded the bandaged cut on his hand hoping to feel it protesting. It remained as silent as the rest of him.

He'd never been one for self harm- well, of the bodily kind. ...Unless you counted the alcohol. And the myriad of other poor health habits. The reckless behavior. And-- You know what: A knife. He never took a knife to his fucking skin. Gold star for Owen Harper. I guess.

But now suddenly he understood the need for it. For blood. He wanted his body to rage back against him. Wanted the red, searing sign that some part of him was there left to lose. That some part of him cared to hold on.

He didn't get it.

What WAS he?

...hell, what had he been before?


What made Owen Harper?


This train of thought started off the rails and now it was getting too existential for Owen to hang on to. He kicked whatever object was in front of him. He didn't feel it. He didn't feel himself pull his hair in frustration either, but realizing that he might pull hard enough to rip it out made him let go. Losing his hair was the last thing he needed.

...Losing his hair.

That was something.

Owen chuckled sardonically into the empty air. Was that all he was now? The last bastion of Owen Harper: his looks. He had always been casually fond of his vanity, but now it seemed like a goddamn lifeline.

Owen looked down at his hand again. His life wasn't measured in time anymore, not in birthdays and wrinkles. It was measured in damage. His body was his lifetime, and inevitably it would get fucked up as he knocked about in this numb aftershock of an existence, and that was his aging. That cut was one year off of his life. His first birthday.

Owen wasn't really sure how he felt anymore. About anything. He didn't have any rushing sensations, no sinking dread, no heart palpitations to let him know when he was excited, or furious, or scared. Everything he felt was just in his head... probably. He wasn't about to speculate on the impossible nature of his reanimation. Not yet anyway. The part of him that was a doctor could fucking wait until the rest of him that was a person dealt with the death of everything he thought being a person was supposed to be.

But he knew this was a breakthrough. A way to think about himself, and whatever the fuck this was, that he could get a grip on.

And that was something.

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