<between the weight of their body, and the firmness of the wall, the compression is so grand that it forces air from his lungs initially. The reset allows him to gulp in air at a more manageable rate, less frantic and erratic. His shaking, too, eases. He’d been briefly worried that it was some form of hypothermia- every time he shakes, he’s rather terrified that he’s freezing to death- some irrational fear of his, only heightened by the surreal quality that everything seems to take on at night. However, with their warmth, he won’t freeze. He couldn’t freeze. The sun had inscribed them with her mark, and they’re the warmest person he’s ever touched. He closes his eyes momentarily, attempting to lift the dazed fear in his mind.>
I’m fine- jus’ a dream ‘s all. You can go back t’ sleep, I didn’t mean t’… Are you okay?
<he feels awful for having stirred their rest. Especially by the means that he did. They’re already injured enough as is, there’s really no need to be provoking them further.>
<only a dream. He thinks dreams are stupid- purposeless and typically an interruption in sleep. He hadn’t had one he remembered, since sometime in his late teens maybe, which may explain his difficulty in soothing himself at first. If you do it more often, you become adjusted and discover methods to release the stress more quickly, right? He doesn’t know. …Maybe not.>
<he’d been walking, he remembers, though he can’t recall the purpose- only wandering in the night, through desecrated terrains, vague charred subjects posed about the landscape. A flicker of movement had caught his eye, and so, he’d gone towards it. The silhouette of pink came into view, prompting him to approach more rapidly, recognition giving way to a sense of familiarity and thereby comfort. A moth to the flame, a coyote to a snare, cattle to the slaughterhouse. He’d called their name various times, but this failed to illicit a reaction. Once close enough, he brushed his fingers along the fur of their coats, only hardly skimming the texture, before they whipped back with a sudden flurry of movement, and pinned him to the floor. He faintly recalls saying something to them- he doesn’t quite know what- before their face peeled back into various flaps, in the shape of a flower, interiors all lined with needle-sharp teeth. The segments grew exponentially more complex, spilling into one another and simultaneously bifurcating, slathered in a viscous red fluid- he’d assumed blood, though the liquid was far more condensed than the matter of his comparison. They offered a brief window for him to stare, before lunging down and swallowing both feet at once, dragging him down their throat bit by bit, not dissimilar to the way a snake may take its prey. It took him until they were down to his hips, before he realized what was happening, and with a cry, he began to flail desperately, a futile gamble at escape. It took only a matter of seconds, for them to consume him entirely, whereupon he curled, silent and cramped in their stomach. He lay there, dampened by the moisture clinging to the inner lining of the cavity, suppressed into a claustrophobic cavern he could not escape.>
<he thinks he must’ve stayed there for weeks, maybe months. It felt like forever. And suddenly, to end his purgatory, a gunshot, singular and precise, surely the only sound he’d heard in all his life. The sound was accompanied only by a sliver of light penetrating his enclosure, which with a frantic determination, he forced himself out of. He fell firmly to the floor, naked and blood-covered, though none was his own, but rather his captor’s. He heard some vague whispering, and perhaps some laughter that hardly fit the situation, though he paid it little mind. Pink fell at his side, writhing furiously, and he attempted vainly to push their innards back in towards the newly-formed incision along their abdomen. At his touch, they were set aflame, and they shrieked something to him, which he failed to understand, though the message was clear enough; this is your fault. He blinked once, and by the time he’d reopened his eyes they were little but a collection of charred flesh, not in the shape, nor statute of what they were before, but folds of skin, black and crumbling. The laughter hit a crest in amplitude, fortissimoed as he searched for the source.>
<it took him only a moment, to locate it. A small group of people, who became more identifiable as they approached- Lasha, Ilya, Arkadij, Nemoy and Bee, gathered around him in a circle, giggling and whispering to one another, like high school girls. He only caught vague snippets of their conversation: “not a man.. hardly capable… just for show… silly boy…. Might as well be…. Performing….” He searched from person to person, analyzing their faces to his best capability, and failing to find any adequate answer to their berating. They each began to bleed, though their chatter failed to yield- Ilya, from their throat, Lasha, their arms, leg, and face, Bee, his hands, Nemoy, his abdomen, and Arkadij his lower back, or perhaps glutes- they couldn’t properly see which. Blood pooled on the floor, a small sea growing around his knees, and their bemused commentary gave way to some repetitive accusation. They turned from him, calls of pain echoing out from their mouths, as they marched away from him in a uniform line. The sun crawled her way up, over the horizon, and one by one, they entered her surface, engulfed in a dazzling glow of white, until each one was gone. He failed to watch beyond the first two’s consumptions, the effulgence it admitted much too grand to perceive. He remembers splaying back onto the dirt, entirely alone, dirty and blood-bathed, hurt by the continued abandonments. Some unidentifiable hand brushed up his stomach and centered on his throat, applying more pressure, until gradually, his vision faded, choking and crying, and he supposes that’s when he awoke.>
