CAREER TWINK GETS PAPER CUT!!! *EMOTIONAL* *NOT CLICKBAIT*
Jun 26, 2020 0:44:58 GMT -5
Post by calla on Jun 26, 2020 0:44:58 GMT -5
E M M E T T
I thought dying would be a painful thing.
I grew up with public displays of it, and I grew up with consequences, brutality masked as glory and cruelness masked as mercy. I was taught that death was this gleaming hulking thing, proud and determined and a little like my mother.
But
the bird swoops again and I only react when the front of my cloak soaks through.
I don't know how long I stand there before I look down at it, confused by the feeling, a little foggy all of a sudden, and
oh
oh.
I can't really breathe, I realize dimly, some far away thought clicking into place, like a half-hearted effort to explain the burn in my throat and the heaviness in my lungs.
I think I take a step towards Perdita, or maybe it's Niko, or maybe it's neither because I'm suddenly stumbling, tripping over air and moving backwards and spinning with the earth. The whole world twists with the motion and the skyline shifts, moving up and away and above me until I can feel the splash of ice-water against my back.
Five seconds seem to stretch into five hours and I can feel the juxtaposition of falling and floating at the same time; can feel every place where the water stains my skin.
It feels like a shock to the system and I gasp for a breath that never comes.
I thought that dying would be a painful thing but there's a stillness to the way I can't lift my arms. There's a suffocating sense of calm that falls over me.
I think I'm panicking, but I can't really feel it. There's a disconnect there instead - something I can't really explain.
All I can see is the sky.
But there are stars in my vision, great big supernovae, and everything is so red when the water rushes back over me. It covers my eyes and my mouth and my throat and I can feel it settle somewhere in my ribcage, the sting of the saltwater weighing me down. It seeps in through where the bird clawed through and it flows through me until I don’t know where the sea stops and I begin.
I know this feeling.
You couldn't do it, it says, they were all right about you.
And I think that hurts worse than dying.
And
I hate that that's my last thought.
Because here, drowning in a swath of my own blood, all I can think of is my family. All I can see is my mother standing over me and my siblings waiting behind her saying I told you so.
They never cared - not really. Everything they said before I left was an act, some kind of wishful thinking on my part, and now they'll sit back and tell themselves that it was the best. Poor little Emmett, at least we gave him a nice lie to hold on to.
Because I was never a lion, not even a little bit, and now they don't have to keep pretending.
Silk and Harper can go back to training now, and Emerson can finally have a room to herself. Tatton and Aurora can skip class guilt free and Cathy can bury her nose in another book without being distracted anymore.
Mom and Dad can keep pretending I don't exist a little easier now.
Niko and Perdita won't have to question their decision of letting me live.
And Ky -
he can find someone better.
He will.
I can't hear the waves here, I think I'm below them, or above them maybe. I can't tell. But I cough and splutter once, a sudden tide in my throat that tries to clear my lungs when I remember the sound of the water and the feeling of a heartbeat under my palm. It feels like a last ditch effort.
It feels a little like a futility.
But maybe fate is just funny like that. It took the one thing I had, the one night I had tucked close to my chest, and then warped it into this. Everything narrows down, and I can feel my chest moving, body trying to reject suffocation, but I don't feel it feel it. It's like it isn't my body anymore - I'm just trapped here waiting.
Watching.
I hope Opal and Ky and Ridley don't see this.
It leads into fifty threads of thought that I can't hold onto. Every idea slips through my fingers and there's a ringing in my ears that just gets louder and louder. Everything is heavy and light and sinking all together in one tangled mess and when it drags me down too, I let it.
I couldn't do it - they were right. I wasn't worth it.
So when the edge of the sky start to get hazy I let it. When there's a stuttering in my pulse and my breathing slows down I let it.
I let it.
A bell rings and a door opens.
Somewhere a newborn takes their first breath and an elder takes their last.
Somewhere a mother sighs and a father turns away.
The world keeps going.
The water ripples and then goes still.
I grew up with public displays of it, and I grew up with consequences, brutality masked as glory and cruelness masked as mercy. I was taught that death was this gleaming hulking thing, proud and determined and a little like my mother.
But
the bird swoops again and I only react when the front of my cloak soaks through.
I don't know how long I stand there before I look down at it, confused by the feeling, a little foggy all of a sudden, and
oh
oh.
I can't really breathe, I realize dimly, some far away thought clicking into place, like a half-hearted effort to explain the burn in my throat and the heaviness in my lungs.
I think I take a step towards Perdita, or maybe it's Niko, or maybe it's neither because I'm suddenly stumbling, tripping over air and moving backwards and spinning with the earth. The whole world twists with the motion and the skyline shifts, moving up and away and above me until I can feel the splash of ice-water against my back.
Five seconds seem to stretch into five hours and I can feel the juxtaposition of falling and floating at the same time; can feel every place where the water stains my skin.
It feels like a shock to the system and I gasp for a breath that never comes.
I thought that dying would be a painful thing but there's a stillness to the way I can't lift my arms. There's a suffocating sense of calm that falls over me.
I think I'm panicking, but I can't really feel it. There's a disconnect there instead - something I can't really explain.
All I can see is the sky.
But there are stars in my vision, great big supernovae, and everything is so red when the water rushes back over me. It covers my eyes and my mouth and my throat and I can feel it settle somewhere in my ribcage, the sting of the saltwater weighing me down. It seeps in through where the bird clawed through and it flows through me until I don’t know where the sea stops and I begin.
I know this feeling.
You couldn't do it, it says, they were all right about you.
And I think that hurts worse than dying.
And
I hate that that's my last thought.
Because here, drowning in a swath of my own blood, all I can think of is my family. All I can see is my mother standing over me and my siblings waiting behind her saying I told you so.
They never cared - not really. Everything they said before I left was an act, some kind of wishful thinking on my part, and now they'll sit back and tell themselves that it was the best. Poor little Emmett, at least we gave him a nice lie to hold on to.
Because I was never a lion, not even a little bit, and now they don't have to keep pretending.
Silk and Harper can go back to training now, and Emerson can finally have a room to herself. Tatton and Aurora can skip class guilt free and Cathy can bury her nose in another book without being distracted anymore.
Mom and Dad can keep pretending I don't exist a little easier now.
Niko and Perdita won't have to question their decision of letting me live.
And Ky -
he can find someone better.
He will.
I can't hear the waves here, I think I'm below them, or above them maybe. I can't tell. But I cough and splutter once, a sudden tide in my throat that tries to clear my lungs when I remember the sound of the water and the feeling of a heartbeat under my palm. It feels like a last ditch effort.
It feels a little like a futility.
But maybe fate is just funny like that. It took the one thing I had, the one night I had tucked close to my chest, and then warped it into this. Everything narrows down, and I can feel my chest moving, body trying to reject suffocation, but I don't feel it feel it. It's like it isn't my body anymore - I'm just trapped here waiting.
Watching.
I hope Opal and Ky and Ridley don't see this.
It leads into fifty threads of thought that I can't hold onto. Every idea slips through my fingers and there's a ringing in my ears that just gets louder and louder. Everything is heavy and light and sinking all together in one tangled mess and when it drags me down too, I let it.
I couldn't do it - they were right. I wasn't worth it.
So when the edge of the sky start to get hazy I let it. When there's a stuttering in my pulse and my breathing slows down I let it.
I let it.
- — -
A bell rings and a door opens.
Somewhere a newborn takes their first breath and an elder takes their last.
Somewhere a mother sighs and a father turns away.
The world keeps going.
The water ripples and then goes still.
