the dreamworld spins and wheezes and the massive bird with thirteen talons and knives for teeth screeches as it flies down towards him in the grass, hatred leaking like stardust out of its six onyx eyes, the drool sizzling like acid across its mawing jaw, the gap opening wide enough to swallow him down, and the split-second choice he makes to save himself, to jerk awake and away, slam himself into reality like a car crash, is something he only regrets in the mechanics of the thing.
when he opens his eyes into the real world, the darkness closed in around him like a snake, suffocating and slippery, he hears the blood bubbling up from parched lips, the rasping of breath from a collapsing lung, the bones aching and breaking under the weight of the moonlight cascading in through the window. not his body. not him. he waits for the numbness to seep from his limbs before he shifts and sits upright, closing his eyes to remember himself, remember his own skin, his own room, his own years alive on this godforsaken planet. when he opens them again to look down to the floor, the gurgling slows and stops, the mess of it, the horror of it, the haunting shine of eyes and blood, glinting up at him frantically, a lost hope for help fading out as he waits and waits and waits.
waits for the body of the boy with his face to die.
you are going to hell, he thinks to himself, in a moment of psychedelic fear and disgust, there is no place in heaven for your evil god-stuff. and then, then let it be hell. no more false heavens. god hates me and i hate god, we’ll see who hates best.
he takes his time to wrap it up in a sheet, although he knows it does little to mask the blood and guts and clutter of the thing. he likes to think of himself as strong but he knows his own weight, knows dead weight is heaviest of all, knows there’s no way he can get it from his room all the way down the hall, all the way out the door, all the way out into the woods. not alone.
he leaves his room and approaches another’s door, tentatively, hesitantly, cautiously. the hall is pins and needles, careful touches and whispered breaths, all darkness and shadows and secrets habaek can’t utter too loudly. he knocks. it opens. he is all anguish and dried bloody pj pants, all curled necessity and heavy heartbreak. “i need your help,” he confesses into the dimness, into the space separating himself and beom, the strongest person he knows. “i need you to help me move something, and i need you to not ask any questions. please.”
