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Pieces of his skin simply hang.
You can only stare at the ribbons of dark red as the acidic taste of vomit lingers in the back of your throat, thick and uninvited, as disgust, disappointment (and you will never admit it, not even to yourself, the rush of elationhidden beneath it all) swell within your stomach. It isn’t the sight of him that bothers you (a marked improvement from the unscathed shell of a man), nor the metallic stench that drenches every breath, and it is not the warmth of his blood as it drips along your face, your neck, your legs, the disgusting sound that you swear you can hear as it hits the stone, mixing with the growing pool of your own.
You had seen it before—seen the destruction left in the wake of gods (the sandstone man’s face comes to you then, marred by sores, his skin hot to the touch, in agony when you had found him beneath the cover of the darkness nestled within that forest, the way his burnt flesh had smelled, rotten against the salt of the sea despite all of your efforts to make his pain disappear—all for the greed of the gods), the savagery of wild beasts (you remember a singular night, what it was—still is—to have watched him, who always was so strong, fall beneath his pain, afraid that he was gone, that you had already lost him—and you breathe sharply against the memory, against the pounding of your head), the carnage wrought by the anger, the vengeance, of men.
It is that you, you are the one to bring him this pain, and the lack of regret gripping hungrily at your heart.
You do not have the time to even question it, his sudden movements shaking you from your destructive thoughts. You can only try desperately to move from him, your tired and broken body wiggling uselessly against the ground instead of actually getting anywhere. A pained shriek, stifled only by a whimpering cry, leaves you as his weight crashes into your side, the shock of the grinding crunch of your bones lost to you within the burst of sheer anguish. You fight to breathe against it, your breaths more like airless gasps as you reach inside of yourself for your magic, your mind vaguely aware of the man’s presence as it begins to spark to life.
No sooner than the hum of its work starts to soothe your ache does he spew more meaningless bullshit, moving again within the dark. The sudden pressure of his body against yours is nearly too much, though it is only as he begins to hurt you again that you cry out. You cannot help the tears that find you, the trembling, rapid breaths, the burning within your lungs; cannot help but flail tiredly against him until you cannot any longer. You become still as he continues, simply accepting his anger, his hatred, though you do not understand it, his voice like shattered glass within your head as he speaks.
Until something within you gives.
Your complacency turns to terror as you feel your rib cage shift and rattle, as your body suddenly makes a terribly hollow sound as you breathe in, the air you’re sucking in feeling like it has nowhere to go.
He moves away from you again, away, away as you struggle to remain upright, struggle to comprehend what has happened.
“Please,” you whimper as you feel him look at you, unable to make out his face in the hazy blur that has become your world. You wonder if he even heard you as he turns, doubt that he even cares as the scramble of his feet against the floor, the breaths he takes so freely, is the last you hear of him.
“Don’t … go, don’t—”
But he is already gone, silence finding all of the places that he had touched, the angry gasps of his breathing; a strange, terrifying emptiness filling in the places he stood. It is only your wheezes that echo off of the walls now, shallow and panicked as your body gulps down air only to feel more deprived than the second before.
"I have... I have a son," it is a stuttered plea into the darkness, into the gray. A quiet sob racks your body, the tightness in your throat making your wheezy, pathetic breaths come harder, faster. You only cling tightly to the thoughts that come unbidden—his laugh, sweet like the sound of water over stone, his smile, his smell like pinedust and earth—all of the little things that you have held so close to you; all of the things that you had promised to show him, the things you have yet to teach him, worry about what he will become.
Cling to the boy that invades your thoughts then, to the heart carved of gold hiding beneath his stupid, boyish ways (of which you have become entirely too fond), the memories of mischief that only the two of you will ever know, those pieces of you, your heart, that were (are, always will be) solely his.
Your heart aches terribly as your mind wanders to the sandstone man, touches on the love that you had buried deep beneath the waves of a beach that should never have meant anything.
You only cling, even as it becomes harder, harder to remember them, their faces, to feel the love you harbor for each of them, to feel anything. Even the pain of your body feels somehow less, your breaths quieter even though it is just as difficult to breathe, the panic that had lived in you moments before nothing to you now as you finally lay your head against stone.
Is this what it feels like to die?
Is it just as simple as letting go?
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like punching in a dream, breathing life into a nightmare
