Well, I liked this chapter, which is a good reason to post it on my birthday. Enjoy.
Oh, and apologies for the double-cliffie.
Disclaimer: We want that which we cannot have. None of these people, nor the places in which I put them, belong to me.
Of Knights and Dragons
Chapter XXIV: Oxygen
"Love. Above all things I believe in love. Love is like oxygen, love is a many splendid thing, love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!"
(Christian, Moulin Rouge)
This is what it is to be Erik at this moment.
Breathe. In, out. Air. Breathe.
Your forget your past. You forget that from Persia to Jerusalem to Paris you are wanted countless times over for death. You forget all the blood that ran red over your hands, your arms, the struggles of something desperately trying to survive as you crush the life out of it. You forget the sense of power, of superiority, killing brings. You think of air. Air.
Breathe.
Every breath you take expands your chest painfully, and your back scrapes up the wall, the slow grind of flesh on stone. As you move, so slowly, you can feel every burn and bar and abrasion that has left its mark as a scar upon your back. With each slow gulp of air your vision clears, only you wish it didn't, because sight brings you out of your mind, your own personal Hell, into the real living actuality of Hell around you.
You try to move, but you can't, and you don't know if your body refuses out of spite to respond, or if your movement is restricted that much by your bonds. You blink, and try again, but then your lungs and muscles burn and you realize you have stopped breathing and you let out the air in a rush that dims your sight and drops you back into your mind. And you feel a rush of relief at the action, because now you can't see.
Air.
Now the cell is invisible to you, blindness matching silence. You can't see the rough stone wall behind you, can't even feel the freezing cold of it against your bare skin. You know your shirt is hanging off you in tattered rags, because you can feel the edges burning their way past more recent lashes and scars in pain, but you can't see them, and maybe if you try hard enough you won't feel at all… nothing at all…
But then your body screams for air. Breathe. And the world surges back into focus, dragging you back up into Hell.
Faint light spills from somewhere down the corridor, and your lips move to whisper a plea that never reaches your ears, that it leave, but it's light, garish and cold, and it ignores you. Your sight shifts to greet the iron bars holding you in, and if you turn your head you can see the shackles that chain you to the walls. But you don't need to turn, because they've already rubbed your wrists raw, and you can feel them tearing into your flesh at the slight movement of breathing.
And as sight returns your first thought is oh God, not this, but you don't even try to say it, because God doesn't listen to those already condemned. Yet the knowledge that life has this irony burns into you, making you want to laugh, if only it didn't hurt so much—all that hiding to escape, and now to be caged again—but laughter requires breath, and breath brings sight, and sight hell…
Exhale. Air, rushing out of you.
You know you're condemned already by man and damned by God, but right now you only care about air. You need it, but you wish you didn't. You wish it didn't rage into you with such fury and make you catch breath when you don't want to breath—Oh God, no, not…
Breathe in. Stone scraping on flesh, metal digging into wrists. Air. Sight, rushing in. God, blind me, that I may escape this earthly hell. That mercy too is spared. Air.
It hurts, but tastes so sweet, so sweet. You realize you love air more than you ever loved her. And you hate it so.
Breathe out, sweet and blessed oblivion. Breathe in. Breathe out. Air.
This is what it is to be Erik, chained and alone.