He’s running but he’s not moving.
He’s screaming but nobody hears him.
He can see it all unfold in front of him, his father smiling, the cameras flashing, a man in the crowd raising his arm...and he can’t do anything to stop it. He can’t even shut his eyes. He’s forced to watch, frozen in place, as fails to save his own father again.
He hears the pop, so loud it almost bursts his eardrums. He sees the splotch of red blooming from his father’s chest. He watches, helpless, as he topples over towards the ground. He tries so hard to just get his legs to move for god’s sake, his dad is dying and he’s not doing anything, but it’s no fucking use.
Slowly, the crowd turns until they’re staring at him. He realizes everyone he loves is there, and they’re all looking at him with disdain. His mother, Kiara, Merida, Nala, Ariel, all of his friends, and they all have pure hatred in their eyes.
He can hear his father on the ground, coughing and sputtering and wheezing for help and he’s fucking pushing himself just to take one step, please just one step but nothing happens besides him getting more and more frustrated until he lets out a desperate roar.
“Please, god, somebody help him, please. He’s dying, can’t you see? He’s dying! Why are you all just standing there, please!”
It’s no use, nobody moves, and suddenly all he can hear is a low, ominous chuckle. He looks up and sees his uncle standing over his father’s body, a deadly grin resting on his lips.
“Uncle Scar, please, just help him.” the words, pained, leave his lips in a desperate gasp.
Scar only continues to laugh.
“Oh Simba, can’t you see? I can’t do anything for him. The only person that could have saved him...was you.”
He falls to his knees, begging and swearing for his body to please just move I’ll do anything, please, but it doesn’t matter. He’s too late. He’s always too late. He raises his head, praying to the Kings for some sort of miracle, but notices only too late that the sky above him is completely dark. The stars, it seems, are dead too.
Simba’s awakened by a pillow thrown at his face and for a moment he forgets where he is. He’s covered and sweat and his hands are shaking, but he tries to ignore it as he looks up at Kovu, who’s currently laying on the couch above him.
“Ow, dude, what the hell? I’m trying to sleep.”
“So was I, but you were fuckin’ yellin’.”
He’s glad that his face is obscured by the dark. “Heh, really? Must’a been dreaming of your ugly face.”
He can see Kovu’s outline roll over and hears him mutter under his breath, voice thick with sleep. “Yeah whatever, man. Just shut up and go back to sleep.”
Simba lowers himself back down to his pillow and sighs. He can still feel his hands shaking and he knows for a fact that he won’t be going back to sleep tonight, but he squeezes his eyes shut anyways and waits for morning to come.
