i can’t sleep next to a body | ezra; day 5
Jul 18, 2020 4:05:35 GMT -5
Post by goat on Jul 18, 2020 4:05:35 GMT -5
ezra valencia
Niko stumbles back, his feet slipping out from under him. There’s a sick crack as his head slams against the ground. Ezra draws his weapon back, eyes wide, and his brain is screaming at him to run before the other boy can get up, but it’s over, he knows it’s over. There’s spongey gore starting to leak from the boy’s head. Ezra clamps a hand over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut.
In his head, he counts to ten.
He vomits on seven, keeling over, before sliding to the ground and sobbing. He buries his head in his knees and lets the tears fall, salt streaming down his face and pooling under his chin. Niko had been kind to him, so kind, even though he didn’t have to be, but Ezra killed him. He had to. He had to kill him. He didn’t want to die, not again. He had to kill him.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says, out loud, to Cyro and Niko’s bodies, and it doesn’t matter, because they can’t hear him, and saying sorry doesn’t take back the fact that they’re dead, and Ezra killed them, because he was a coward who didn’t want to die again too.
He doesn’t know how long passes. The only noise besides his uneven gasps for air is a small crack in the ceiling, dripping dirty water down, as if the arena is crying for them too. He knows he can’t stay down here forever, he has to leave. If he gets stuck down here because he waited too long, there was no point in resorting to killing. He takes a deep breath, then another, and tries to keep his breathing steady as his tears start to dry.
As he struggles to his feet, legs shaking like a baby deer’s, he notices a photograph sliding out of Niko’s pocket. He reaches down and grabs it before it can get soaked in blood and whatever else is dripping down the cavern floor. He takes a few steps and places it amongst all the other photographs. Niko was a person, and now he’s just another memory, scattered here amongst all the other memories.
He looks from the mess of photographs to the light now streaming in from the crack between the wall and the entrance to the catacombs. It’s wide enough that he can shove his hand through it and push the door open. The artificial sunlight is blinding, almost too much, and he shields his eyes with a bloody hand.
It’s time to join the land of the living again. He can’t fuck it up this time, or else this all would have been for nothing.
In his head, he counts to ten.
He vomits on seven, keeling over, before sliding to the ground and sobbing. He buries his head in his knees and lets the tears fall, salt streaming down his face and pooling under his chin. Niko had been kind to him, so kind, even though he didn’t have to be, but Ezra killed him. He had to. He had to kill him. He didn’t want to die, not again. He had to kill him.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says, out loud, to Cyro and Niko’s bodies, and it doesn’t matter, because they can’t hear him, and saying sorry doesn’t take back the fact that they’re dead, and Ezra killed them, because he was a coward who didn’t want to die again too.
He doesn’t know how long passes. The only noise besides his uneven gasps for air is a small crack in the ceiling, dripping dirty water down, as if the arena is crying for them too. He knows he can’t stay down here forever, he has to leave. If he gets stuck down here because he waited too long, there was no point in resorting to killing. He takes a deep breath, then another, and tries to keep his breathing steady as his tears start to dry.
As he struggles to his feet, legs shaking like a baby deer’s, he notices a photograph sliding out of Niko’s pocket. He reaches down and grabs it before it can get soaked in blood and whatever else is dripping down the cavern floor. He takes a few steps and places it amongst all the other photographs. Niko was a person, and now he’s just another memory, scattered here amongst all the other memories.
He looks from the mess of photographs to the light now streaming in from the crack between the wall and the entrance to the catacombs. It’s wide enough that he can shove his hand through it and push the door open. The artificial sunlight is blinding, almost too much, and he shields his eyes with a bloody hand.
It’s time to join the land of the living again. He can’t fuck it up this time, or else this all would have been for nothing.
