A/N: have another drabble from my roleplay blog on tumblr, steadfastspirit! this is essentially cranking up the usual depiction of sonic's aquaphobia to actual phobia levels. this was written for an ask prompt: a peek at one of your muse's worst nightmares. excuse the symbols in front of sonic's dialogue, that's part of the formatting i use on tumblr.
do tell if i've misrepresented something in here!
! trigger warnings: drowning, aquaphobia, anxiety, panic attack !
It's all a myriad of blue. Pale streaks of light stream in through the pristine surface of the body of water, clear as crystal and day combined into one entity. As softly as the wind he treasures, and befittingly so because it's that same breeze which causes the movement, ripples are created on top of the liquid in such a way that all the rings spread out evenly and fade into normalcy. Small waves rise and fall in between their course, rising and falling in a steady beat that ends in a quiet splash. Ruptures occur underwater from both movements, the steady looking glass of azure wavering every time any occurs and ceases. Bubbles rise and pop in the bright light of the early morning sun, reflecting a flash that can merely be a mockery of the star's true power and magnificence during its setting and rising.
Had that sight fallen upon differing eyes than the hedgehog's own, it would perhaps befit the criteria of beautiful. Calming, serene, relaxing. It's all so quiet and still, but not in an awkward way where you're expecting a reply and get the equivalent of a chirping cricket. Perhaps it's because it's never truly dead silent. The water is always moving, always flowing, always calling in one way or another. It murmurs, muted words of an incomprehensible tongue that are probably not meant to be understood or translated. Maybe they exist merely to be there and add to the mood. It certainly accentuates the faded light show that the outside world is generous enough to provide to the underwater dwellers.
However, this is no eighth wonder to Sonic. What others may perceive as calming and soothing frays his nerves to no end and sends his heart into a pace much quicker than even the speedster is comfortable with. Bum, bum. Bum, bum. It thuds against his chest in a threat to leap out, straight through his skin and onto the pure nightmare that surrounds the currently fear-stricken hedgehog. One hand is fiercely clasped over his mouth, digits digging into the tan surface of his muzzle with a promise to rip his face apart should he tighten his white-knuckle grip. The mumbling of the water could not be farther away from soothing to his water-logged ears. Though others may interpret what they hear as gibberish, panic-driven mind decides to decode it as a taunt. It's laughing at him, talking in intervals between its maniacal cackles about how he should not be so terrified by his current position. ' Sonic the Hedgehog, ' he can hear it spit into his head without remorse. ' brought to his knees by water! Pathetic, useless, coward! Aren't you always the one to keep composure under stressful situations? Keep your title then, stop trashing like you're being held over hell itself! Prove it, prove you're no . "
The worst part is he can't prove it wrong.
He dares not to breathe not an inch of the air surrounding him. It's only useful to underwater creatures; fish, sponges, urchins, sharks, octopi, squids.. Octopus, squid! No, no, where's the bottom of this damn place?! It needs to be close, within his cone of vision, his perception of depth. Desperate sneakered feet kick and scramble harder than they were doing so before, an almost pitiful mewl mixed with a squeak produced by Sonic as he tries to find some ground to plant his feet on. Some sort of root to ground him to reality, to provide him with faith that he would usually have but can't find now, not when he's in the middle of the ocean and drowning! DROWNING!
His hands let their vice grip on his mouth go, leaving red marks that speak of utter desperation. Twitching out of control, only being usable by way of adrenaline, they join his legs and general form in their flailing about. Eyes shut, wanting to keep the dreadful sight away form his stinging optics, the hero kicks and punches this way and that. He moves his arms in a circle, as he's seen many swimmers do, in a desperate attempt to knock into some perhaps deeply rooted survival sense that would allow him to kick his way out of his hell. His very definition of hell, alright.
The clumsy strokes of his arms are little aided by the desperate trashing of his lower limbs, and by teh time he stops to dare look at his progress, he's been sinking lower and quicker still. No, no, no, no, no! Breath he can't afford to lose robbed form him in a drop of his heart, injected with not fear, but blinding panic, Sonic shifts into ' GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE ' mode. Or more so than he already is.
His fur almost blends into the backdrop of what spells his impending doom, cobalt hued strands matching the quickly darkening of the ocean's depths. And perhaps, fate must have made it be so. Befitting that he's the same color of the place where he would draw his last breath. A wet, suffocating, painful last breath in a place where he can't go where he wants to, where he's trapped seentially in a cell with no bars. Chaos, some of those would so help him right now. They would make him regain optimism that this can pass, that this is short lived, that it's all but a small hurdle he can leap across with ease and grace. Land on the other side with a flip, too, maybe.
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Both hands give up their useless flailing to cover his mouth and nose again, eyes shut as he lets out a desperate sound against the soaked fabric of his gloves with tightly pursed lips. Shaking, shaking his head NO as fiercely as he can, he screams into his hands again and kicks his legs as if that hadn't proved futile before. Had he been conscious of his actions, he would have slapped himself at how much that sounded like a wail. A scared cry for help from an individual terrified by his current predicament, heart running miles and miles and miles he wishes he could run along with and skipping beats like that is its job. Producing blood to his body? Fuck that, he's going to make him light-headed and lose consciousness! Absolutely fantastic!
Pun definitely unintended, Sonic's vision begins to swim. Head overcome by too many pangs from both terror and lack of oxygen, the blue blur is all to aware of how close he is to giving into natural order. He shakes his head miserably once again, twice again, thrice again. In one last desperate attempt to summon salvation, the teen drops his hands and opens his mouth with a garbled SCREAM that all but rips through his throat and aching chest.
━ ༄ " HwELp ! H-rrRRR-EElL P! "
To his all too real expectations, only the cacophony of the ocean's laughter is what he receives as a response to his plea. Sonic attempts to take a breath only big enough to call out again, even if in vain, but he's interrupted by his own strangled gags. His hands grasp at his throat, mouth zipped tight as the hero complains low in said area of his anatomy. A moan, a whine, a whimper, a muted vocalization of his terror. All he wants to do is scream out, SCREAM as loudly as he can until the weight in his chest stops being such a BOTHER. STOP IT, STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP! PLEASE!
He's going to die here, he's going to die here, he's going to drown drown drown drown drown! DROWN DROWN DROWN DROWN! CHAOS, FuCk, d Amn I t !
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The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?
There is black for a mere two seconds. Two seconds that feel like two eternities too long. Long, cold, bottomless, hopeless. It's nearly the embodiment of everything that Sonic isn't and everything he runs from, as much as he denies it. Even in a half conscious state, he's uncomfortably aware of this. It's certainly better than being stranded in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by water without an end and no viable way to get to the surface. Not for an aquaphobic hedgehog, at any rate. Nonetheless, it's not a place he wants to be in at all. If before he had been drowning and suffocating, he was suffocating here. Half of the bad, but not pleasant, Chaos no.
And that is when his eyes fly open, immediately and reflexively sucking in a breath.
He's expecting relief. He's expecting, wanting to let go of the putrid horror that clings to his chest, dragging him down just as much as the water had. He wants to be able to BREATHE in clean, dry air. He wants to inflate his lungs over and over and over and over, just to be sure he can and to prove he can. To prove to the damn water that he made it safe and sound, that cowards is not a word that should EVER be used in reference to him. Never. Never. He can breathe, and he can move, and he. is. not. drowning.
But he can't breathe. The gasp he had taken may as well have not been there, for it was so minuscule and insignificant in terms of being useful for his can see the leaf canopy above his head, he can see the stars filtering through its gaps. He can't feel the wind, he can't feel the grass, he can't feel anything besides his running heart and how suddenly warm he feels.
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A still gloved hand quickly snags his chest, wide eyes containing pupils that are little more then dots. His visions swims, pulsing. He can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't breathe. He still can't breathe. WHY CAN'T HE BREATHE? He can feel his clearly active chest and how it drums against his first, he can even hear it as if it's galloping like a horse right next to his ear. But he can also feel how tight it is, how heavy it is, how burdensome breathing is and how short pitifully so it is.
Heaving in shallow breaths, the blue blur backs up against the bark of the closest tree. Forcing sharp quills to all but stab suddenly and forcefully into the trunk, Sonic regains control of his hand and finds it to tingle and twitch as he shakes violently. Shaking his head and sending his head quills into a frenzy, the panicked hedgehog holds on tighter to himself and uses his other hand to pull at his ear, sharply, as if that would flick a switch and tun his cold swear nonexistent. Hadn't he been warm a second ago?
The water needs to still be there. It needs to, why else would he be this paralyzed? It's there, it's there, it's always there! High above his head, low stature a curse and he berates Mother Nature for it, crashing relentlessly against him and all but destroying his center of balance. Spiraling, being beaten against underwater rocks alike a ame of pinball, one straight from his nightmares. That needs to be what's happening, why else would he be like this?! The nightmare is over, it's over it's over!
It's there, it's there. It's here, it's-
No, it's not! It's not there! You're on a hill for Chaos' sake, how can there be water up here?
But it is, it just is! Circling him and leaving him cornered, making him want to cry out in a brief moment of forgotten ego. His pride, his worth, his dependence, it matters little to him currently. He's dying, he can't breathe, he can't move, he's dying, someone needs to be there!
He feels sick to the stomach. He feels dizzy. He feels disgusted. He feels desperate, He feels disconnected. What isn't he feeling at this point in time, besides death's cold embrace?
Or is it after him now too? Is it coming then? Is this a preface to his end? Is he going to die like this, shaking like a wet leaf overriden by panic? So now he's dying out here in the middle of nowhere without a reason?! Why? And since when has he been so petrified of death? Great, he's losing hIS ficKInG Mi nD now.
Stop that! Stop that! This isn't the first time this has happened, control yourself!
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━ ༄ " Sh-shu-shut up! "
His voice is disStOrteED to his ears, like NedlEeS are being pushed out of his thRoAT rather than W OrDS. Thoughts make him feel worse, make him so muCh Dizzi Er anD si CK. KnoC ! !
Sonic lets out a strangled gasp, unConsciOUSly curling into himself and attempting to RegAIn the breathing he's lost his grasp on. Shallow breaths puff out of his mouth. cHeESt heaves, bUCkS, shakes, aNNd not EnO Ugh sufficient oxygen could be stored.
He doesn't know of it's the drEaM or the A fTErmAth that he despises m O re. He cAn onlY ride This Out Until it Passes, hE kn Ows from DreadfUl Experien cE.