The next few days, or what Slaine assumes is a few days, because he has no concept of how long they actually are, pass in absolute agony. He remembers lying on that bed shortly after Kaizuka left, and everything else feels like a hazy dream. He fell asleep, only to be woken by his throat hurting, or coughing, or a headache, or dizziness, or the chills, or the fever that never seemed to go away. All of those added to the sense of detachment that lingered over him, sinking him further and further into what felt like a drug induced fog.
The most unnerving instance was waking up, and feeling like he was drowning. He would wake and could not breathe, would know that his lungs were never going to get enough air despite their constant pounding. The other symptoms woke him in a hazy, slurred sense of awareness, like a dream, but these were different. The difficulty in breathing led to all encompassing panic that only seemed to get worse. It was hard to step away from the feeling, to tell himself that he could breath normally, that he was not drowning, when he felt like he was gasping and nothing was going in or out of him.
He'd wake wide eyed and terrified in those instances, and after, wouldn't remember anything other than mind numbing terror. If any of the guards had shown concern, he didn't remember it. Once the panic would finally ebb away, he'd be left feeling even more exhausted. Sleep came more easily then, only for him to be woken shortly after by any number of the symptoms he was facing.
He almost remembers people (guards?) trying to feed him, shoving spoon full's of things at him, but whatever hunger he'd had before was long gone. Now food made him feel worse, the thought of it was horrible.
He does remember the doctor, but he has no idea when the doctor came. He remembers waking and seeing the looming figure standing over him. In something he can only describe as a hallucination, it was Trillram looking down on him, with holes in his chest and his gut. Slaine remembers screaming, or trying to scream, but the garbled mess that came out of his mouth didn't sound anything like a scream. It was like gargling, like screaming underwater, and hacking at the same time. Then it was only the doctor, looking down on him reproachfully. But the shortness of breath would not go away, and panic from the vision became panic because he could not breathe. The feeling of drowning was more than he could take, like there were things in his throat cutting off whatever air he could get.
The doctor tried to talk with him. Slaine saw his mouth move, and could hear the sounds, but he couldn't recognize them as anything. They were just sound, like he was drowning and someone safe on land was trying to have a pleasant conversation with him. Couldn't he see? Couldn't any of them see? He was drowning, he couldn't breathe. The self-loathing part of him should have been happy, but it remained silent. All he could feel was all encompassing fear. He was dying. He was going to die. He should have already died. Why couldn't he breathe? Why was there water gargling in his lungs. His heart was going to burst. He didn't want to die. Not like this. He didn't want to die like this.
He saw the syringe in the doctor's hand, and he panicked. They were going to kill him; that was the humane way of doing it, lethal injection. They'd finally decided it was time, and it horrified him. No, not now, please not now. He didn't realize he'd gotten up and pushed the doctor over until his feet were pounding against the cold floor as fast as they could take him. He got to the door, that big metal barrier, and beat against it, begging for help, from the Princess, from Harklight, from Lemrina, from Saazbaum, from his father. Over and over he pleaded for the Princess to breathe air into his lungs.
Only the guards came, and when they tried to hold him down he fought with more strength than he thought he still had. They were going to kill him, hold him down and stick that needle in him, and he should have been thankful, should have been happy, but he wasn't.
They did wrestle him to the ground, screaming and kicking and arching his back and scrambling to try and get away. The doctor loomed over him with that needle in hand. It went into his flailing arm, and the mantra of 'no, no, please, no' that escaped him mingled with the apologies, the soft sobs for the Princess to forgive him.
The world started to fade, the colors bleeding together like in the visions that Tharsis had granted him. He saw himself dead on a medical table, a knife delicately cutting him open, and he saw Kaizuka through the glass, watching. Kaizuka was looking down at him, with that one dead eye and that patch where the bullet had punched through his skull, splattering him all over the floor of the landing castle. Then the world really did fade, and there was simply nothing.