Breathe.
Flex your fingers.
The only thing left here is fire.
Hot tendrils stretch out to the sky, feed the poisonous clouds clinging so heavily to it, like child to mother. There will never be a sunny day again.
Cool breeze sweeps over ashes, ashes. Over the last remnants of summer grass and spring flowers. Over the cracks in the sidewalk, the fallen people. Over his face. It comforts him, like his mother used to.
The sky is sagging with the weight of the world now, and he fears it might cave in at any moment and strangle the last bit of life from his struggling lungs. Lungs that felt too much like balloons, like those popped balloons at the carnivals he would go to as a child.
'Mummy!' The woman would turn at the familiar voice, staring down at her little son with his upset expression. In his hand, the brightly coloured ribbon and the dying balloon. She would sigh and smile, like parents do. Tell him 'Be careful this time, okay?' and go fetch another one from the smiling vendour to hand over to the youth, even though they both knew the warning fell on deaf ears.
He wonders if it was an important lesson, that balloon. That dying balloon with its bright colours and hopeless face, something that (much like himself) would never be able to touch the sky.
But now the sky was coming down to touch him instead, dipping lower and reaching deceptively friendly arms out to hold him.
Breathe.
Breathe.
His breath came only after a lengthy, difficult struggle, and in his mouth he could taste ash and rust.
His head tilts to the left, away from the crumbling, burning buildings, staring out at the sideways destruction like it was his first time seeing things blackened by fire. Living things. 'You should be moving now', he says, knowing they were not listening. They wouldn't listen even if they could, would they?
On his other side, to the right, he knows there is Yoh. He does not bother wasting his energy to look, doesn't want to look. They had all stood so valiantly at the end that he wanted nothing more than to curse the god that maintained the grey ceiling he was staring into. All the why's in the world could fix nothing. They had gotten so far.
Was it fitting then, ending this way?
Fitting for them to be reduced to this, to corpses and corpses-to-be? Maybe Horo would agree. Survival of the fittest, and they were simply not able to climb to the top of the food chain. Not fast enough.
A shame, a laugh. He allows himself a small chuckle to go along with the sentiment, something that didn't last long. He needs to breathe his rattling breaths, to listen to the far-away voice that was so close.
'What's so funny?'
Again, he does not waste the energy with looking. He doesn't need to, to imagine those wide-black eyes staring down at him, at the fallen people and buildings around him. Innocent as a child, clothed in blood. Hao has stopped by his side for a moment, staring at the eyes that were staring at the sky. Maybe curiosity drove him to stay, maybe amusement. He did enjoy watching people squirm.
'You should have tried harder.'
He smiles, even though there is no humour or good intentions behind it. 'Try harder?' He can't hear himself too well, but it doesn't stop him from going on. There was no possible, physical way he could have tried harder. None of them could have.
None of them could have.
Eyes that had fallen nearly-shut reopened, surprise clear on his face. None of them could have.
It was supposed to be this way all along, then. So Hao was right.
Hao had always been right.
Breathe.
Breathe.
There is nothing in the world left to laugh about now, and so Lyserg finally decides to laugh.
There is no worry for him now, not anymore, and he wastes more oxygen with the scraping, mocking noise - a shadow of the former sound, even if that itself had not been substantial in the least. He misses Yoh's laughter and wishes he could hear that instead of his own, and the thought brings more laughter, more coughing. The new tang of blood.
Rust?
Only rust.
He is drowning now, and the amusement has left Hao's face. He turns and walks away, and Lyserg gets a little solace in knowing he marred Hao's perfect day, even if it was just a little smudge. He hopes it will be a smudge that lasts forever.
The laughter does not.
The laughter is dying, and the sky is so low that he is certain he can feel it, feel the heartbeat that the world is lacking, and rythmic in-out of soothing evening breath.
Of breathing, breathing.
Of silence.