if flying is a feeling like this - a single moment where there is nothing but you and the silence and the endless possibilities of elusion - he wonders what it feels like to drown.
his feet slip through the forest floor, mud and worms and twigs burrowing themselves deep into the space between his toes, underneath his nails. he's long given up on phasing (those voices, so loud against the ones screaming in his head) and he knows that if he stops now, HE will be right.
it is a losing battle waging war on the outskirts of HER innocence being lost to cold marble and blood and that fucking atrocious smell that is HIM and HIS goddamned everything, but he'll fight to the ultimate death for whatever last bit of HER soul he can have.
at least, when SHE came to finish him off, SHE had the decency to make sure he was ninety-nine percent drugged out on morphine and one-percent coherent before crossing back over the threshold of no return. SHE sat on the edge of his bed, cried the remaining pieces of HER heart out to his broken body and told him that a small piece of HER would still be his no matter whose wedding band was on HER finger.
(all he'd ever done was save HER from HERSELF after HE'D shattered HER to pieces, only to get slapped in the face when HE came back into HER life with HIS golden eyes and apologized HIMSELF out. like nothing had ever happened - like he was just some pawn in THEIR fucked up little chess match.)
but he's done playing games.
a carve of moon slits between the black clouds of night, rising higher and higher, white light cutting tree trunks in half as he weaves through bushes and ducks under branches, a shadow amongst thousands. everything is spinning, his mind on an adrenaline rush he can no longer find the will in himself to control. with each step he takes it feels like a part of him is unwinding, layer by layer being stripped away by the truth he still aches to be false.
he doesn't stop running until the sun begins to tear its messy path through the blackness, painting the sky above him a bloody ink red. and only then does he allow himself to sink to the ground and break into a million little pieces (HE'D won HE'D won HE'D won - )
because, after all, wasn't that what SHE'D wanted all along?