yep, this is still a thing (and turned into a triplet which I still need to write the third part of)

written with Lamb's "Last Night the Sky" on repeat


He's become used to breathing differently here. Slow and shallow. His heartbeat has also slowed, though still deep as ever. He has no concept of his body as a whole, only pieces of awareness when a stray thorn pricks his skin.

That's how things are now. At first he was terrified, enough so that he begged for death. When death didn't oblige he willed himself to adapt, to become apathetic instead of agitated. (Neither state was preferable, but he had no choice.)

Time no longer exists. He could have been here for an hour or for years. This endless non-existence is his fate, and he accepts it without feeling.

(it's fine, he thinks, but it isn't fine, it's never been fine)

There are times when a nameless face flashes into his mind; a nose here, a lock of hair there. Someone he should know, or knows already, or has always known.

(the person is hope and he doesn't want hope)

He accepts the images passively, even though he wants them destroyed. They keep coming until he has a blurry full picture, until a name is just out of reach and he finds himself straining for it and holding himself back at the same time.

"Kanae." He's only thought it but he hears it spoken loud and clear. The name is a burst of light and need and hope so strong it shakes him. His body comes back to him and with it vision and pain and feeling.

KanAE (hedoesn'twantthisheshouldbedeadpleasefindleavemealone)

Space rumbles around him, an avalanche of sound and movement. Petals crowd his skin, thorns cutting deep, vines restricting his breath but he fights, struggling beyond the pain, rising above it-

Then everything stops.

Terror fills the void. His time is up, he's pushed too far. He never wanted to die but he never had a choice, did he?

I'm not ready.

A distant scream, not his voice. That face bursts into his mind.

Everything begins again, so fast: The vines around him fall away, blood drips over his eyes, his hand reaches for nothing yet finds another's hand-

"Karren." The name he's been searching for. The one he belongs to. She is life, warmth, emotion, everything he's lost. She's saved him.

Arms around him, pulling him up and away. He falls against her body, and his hands grips her sides with desperate strength.

"You came back for me." He can barely speak, doesn't even know what he's saying, but he is safe, he's home, nothing else has ever mattered.

Her hands on his cheeks, her lips on his forehead bring water to his eyes. Her voice, those words, cause the dam to break.

"I'll always find you, Shuu. Forever."

#####

He wakes in bed with a sob caught in his throat and tears on his face. The darkness of his room, the sliver of moonlight on the bedsheets, are like a punch to the gut. He's out of bed without a thought, grabbing paper and pencil and writing down a number that dances in his head.

He stares at it, no idea where it came from. Then the pencil falls from his hand, and he barely reaches the bed before crushing exhaustion overtakes him.

When morning comes he wakens with instant energy. He keys that number into his phone, so mind-vivid he needn't have written it down, and waits, breath held, through the rings.

You've reached the mailbox of: "Karren von Rosewald." Please leave a message after the tone.

He doesn't know what to say, but when he speaks the words are as if he'd planned every one.

"You don't know me, and this will sound crazy, but I had a dream last night…"