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Daisy is always tired these days. Sure, she manages to do her daily physiotherapy exercises, but there are only so many sets she can do before her body gives up on her. And then there would be exhaustion from the physical exertion, and a deeper, more sinking exhaustion from within her.
She doesn’t remember the last time she felt truly awake.
Jon has gone off to read more statements. She would sit with him in his office but she can’t bring herself to move from the break room table, where she has been nodding off for the past half hour.
She doesn’t remember the last time she felt truly awake.
The Buried had kept her physically awake throughout those eight months. There was no reprieve through sleep; the dirt and rocks and soil made sure of that. The endless haze of exhaustion made her feel like a corpse strung up by ropes, unable to fully rest on the ground. Until Jon showed up.
Basira told her that she had passed out for 48 hours after the coffin. 48 straight hours of sleep. It was blissful. She didn’t get any nightmares, or dreams even. Her brain had completely shut down after being awake for so long. It would have been the finest luxury she had ever experienced in her life, if not for the fact that she felt just as tired after she woke up.
The concept of sleep seems to have completely stopped working for her after the Buried. She feels the desire to sleep almost constantly throughout the day, and napping or sleeping fail to give her the energy she so desperately needs. The catnaps in the day sort of help, but only in the sense that she is temporarily relieved from feeling her exhaustion weighing her down like a rock. Or an anchor.
It feels like she is still in the coffin.
Basira tells her it’s sleep debt. “You were awake in there for so long. Your body is trying to catch up.”
Daisy knows this. She thinks she will need a lifetime of sleep to recover the debt she accumulated in the Buried. Maybe even a permanent state of sleep, one where she will never have to wake up from to deal with the reality of her body.
She doesn’t remember the last time she felt truly awake.
She is in bed most of the time. If not in bed, she’s on Jon’s sofa. But she’s been falling asleep anywhere in the archives, really.
Jon gives her blankets (thin ones, always thin ones). Jon is kind, and Jon is patient. They share a blanket sometimes, when they are both so exhausted they snuggle up to each other and fall asleep. Occasionally, the exhaustion is even able to take away the guilt of being around him too, which is sort of helpful. She is so sorry, but she is so so tired.
Daisy always feels lost these days. Everything blends together. Time slips by her like sand; seconds become minutes, and minutes become hours. She used to have a strong grasp on time. Need to wake up early to gather information, need to start hunting for suspect by noon, and need to submit the Section 31 follow up report by 5pm. Routine came easily to her. How could it not when she was driven by a simple, singular goal (desire): to Hunt?
She has nothing to do in the archives. She knows they don’t need her help, Basira especially. She got employed, in the loosest sense of the word, to Hunt in the first place anyway. She doesn’t want to Hunt now.
She can’t.
It’s hard to be useful around the office. Her muscles are too atrophied for her to walk long distances from the Institute for takeout, even if the Eye didn’t have a hold on her. She isn’t good at research, and it’s not that she’s particularly interested in doing it anyway.
Basira is strict with her physiotherapy exercises. “You will get better,” she says. Daisy can’t tell whether she says this to encourage her, or to reassure herself of Daisy’s potential for use.
So, physiotherapy exercises. Daisy does them dutifully every day. It’s tiring, but she does them anyway because she has to get stronger. And what else is there to do? They offer structure, something to keep track of every day. Has she done them on Monday? Check. Tuesday? Check. And so on.
It is hard to remember what else she does in a day. Recalling memories of recent hours, or days, are tough when there is nothing much going on in your life. Days blend together, and time passes without her notice. Every single moment of her life feels the same, static and monotonous. And yet the days fly by, sometimes fleetingly, sometimes tediously. How does time simultaneously go by slowly and quickly?
Time stopped mattering after the Buried. Time did not exist in the coffin. When they told her she was in there for eight months, she barely registered just how long of a time that was to be trapped somewhere. Eight months, 243 days, it barely mattered to her. All she knew was that it felt like an eternity. Time didn’t mean anything. It was just the past and the present. A painful past for others, and a painful present for her. That seemed right. There was no future, as time did not move. Past and present. Past and present.
Now she is in the future she thought was once unattainable.
Listening to the quiet is difficult when there is too much quiet. She desires movement, action, but she is terrified of conflating that with Hunting. The blood, the hunger, the chase, were the only things she knew. She thinks they still are.
Jon reminds her that they aren’t. Now, she knows guilt. She knows suffocation. But she also knows choice, humanity, and resistance.
She misses the chase. She misses having objectives. It’s boring and difficult when the sole objective now is to live and be human, but she supposes that’s the best she can do.
Daisy doesn’t always feel present these days. She thinks it’s the Lonely at first, trapping her within its influence at the Institute. She imagines the fog spilling out of Peter Lukas’ office, pulling in unsuspecting victims like Martin Blackwood.
But Blackwood wasn’t a victim, was he? He willingly subjected himself to the fog, apparently to ‘keep Jon safe’. It was a choice, just like how Daisy has made the choice to not give into the Hunt anymore.
She feels the pull of the fog, when her mind goes drifting off into nothingness. The dissociation feels somewhat familiar to her, like when she tried doing it in the Buried, albeit unsuccessfully. But her brain is free to wander now, without restraint, when it gets too much. She finds that receding into your head is much easier when there isn’t dirt squeezing and suffocating you, reminding you that you are present, and that you exist.
She thinks she still hears echoes of the singing. The choir almost sounds comforting, reassuring, now that she’s not in the coffin. Logically, she knows the coffin isn’t calling to her anymore. She knows she is in the Institute, protected (dubiously) by the Eye.
She also hears the calls of the Hunt. A sharper, louder, and much less comforting sound, but one that sends a euphoric rush through her blood and a longing that threatens to pull and pull and pull.
Daisy finds she can’t hear anything in the fog. It blocks the sound out. It feels nice, not hearing or feeling anything. She doesn’t have to think about filling the time, or staying awake. Giving in to the numbness means there is no guilt or confusion or temptation.
Jon thinks about Martin. She knows this, because she hears him mutter his name in his sleep, his hands vaguely grasping at nothing. Daisy silently gives him her hand when this happens, and he holds her close until he gasps awake. He realises Martin is nowhere to be seen and he lets go of her, mumbling a silent apology.
The grip of Jon’s hands is tight, and it’s not like he cares to trim his nails often. The sensation is grounding, though, and she clings to him as she pulls herself away from the periphery of the fog.
Living felt like the most terrible, deserving punishment in the coffin. And it was. Living shouldn’t feel like a punishment now, even though it still does. But she is not in the Buried anymore, because Jon saved her. The Hunt can’t have her anymore, because she wants to be better. And she won’t give into the Lonely, because she owes it to Jon to not make him go through another loss. To live without Fear is impossible, but she can hold on to the present like she wasn’t ever able to before, on her own terms, and not let go.