Can You Breathe?
She could not see. It was suffocating, the dark that surrounded her. It held no temperature, and was both weightless and the heaviest thing she ever had to carry. It was indescribable, and pressed on her from all sides.
There was a crunch as teeth met bone and did not stop. The wet sound of a mouth devouring muscle and bone, licking up blood on a reddened maw. He chewed, and ate, and grunted like a beast with carnal instinct. Human ate human.
They ran, gasping for breath through an unforgiving wood. Nature would not care, it never did. The pursuit was marked by the glint of a knife in the moonlight, occasionally blocked by trees. They continued to run for their life, not knowing if they would make it.
She tried to move, but found her body paralyzed. She tried to breathe, but found no air to take. She tried to escape, to leave but found only a numb acceptance. She tried to struggle but her mind was dull. It was all around her. It was nothing, and everything. She tried to feel something, but all she got was the feeling of fog settling over her mind, it seeped into her skin and bones and made her numb.
He threw what he could not consume away, without care where it went, and tore the next piece to devour. His hands were covered in red, his body in filth. His hair was matted with viscera and knots. His eyes were wild, and hungry, and he devoured without remorse.
They stumbled, breath hitching as they wondered if it would be their fatal mistake. They continued to run. Their legs burned, their stomach heaved. They were tired, but did not want to die. The wood did not watch, it simply grew and existed. They felt branches scratch their face as they ran. They only had one direction. They knew if they turned they might fall.
She tried to scream, but her voice was gone. She tried to cry, but she wasn't sure if she had eyes. She tried to flail, to struggle, to live, but wondered if the body she felt even existed. She wanted to close her eyes and rest, but she didn't know if she had the ability to. Her energy was stagnant, neither being used or not being used. It just stilled, as if everything had stopped.
They wondered if the wood went on forever. They could see no end or path, and as their body grew tired they grew clumsy. Each mistake felt fatal. They knew they could not run forever but still, they tried. Their feet slowed without their control and each step behind them seemed to come closer. The knife's pace didn't slow. The pursuer never tired.
She felt numb, she felt nothing. She was lost and found. It was her reality. The dark was her existence.
He finished the piece, and searched for more. Digging through guts and torn skin, before he finally leaned down and tore savagely with his teeth. He cared not for any single bit, only to eat. Like a starved animal he devoured, the taste of human was all he knew. The crunch and squish of bone and viscera filled the air.
They could not run any longer, and slowed. They accepted death, and the pursuit ended. A knife came up, preparing to come down and end their life. A stab from the back seemed oddly appropriate. Still, the wood did not care.
Suddenly, all at once, she feels life flood in. The numbness is destroyed, replaced with the sudden feeling of choking. She struggles, able to move and opens her eyes to see nothing but dark. It is crushing. She chokes, suffocating on the dark.
He finishes his meal, and still feels hungry. He will never be satiated. Never be full. His hunger is infinite, and it leaves a gaping hole in his stomach. He growls, screams. He bites his fingers, through the bone without thought. Pain is nothing. He devours, his own flesh and bone.
They feel their life end, shattering across like a constellation. There is no pain. Only the ceasing of breath. They fall to the floor. The wood does not care. The blood will feed it. The knife stays where it is. The world keeps spinning. The pursuer walks away. They lay in their murder, and the wood does not speak, or care, or listen.
Can you breathe? Does the breath in your lungs give you life? Do you live? Do you feel? How does the world work? Questions are answered by reality, and not by fate. The world is strung together by veins and blood. It is nothing but an incomplete body, falling apart and moaning in the mess that it is.
Does the air come in and out? Does your heartbeat? Are you empty, or full? If you exist, does that mean you matter? The universe things you are nothing. You are a speck of dust that will never be remembered. But you are a vein, and an arm, and a body and a counscious. You exist, and your place in the world will not change that. Nature does not care if you are inferior, or superior. Miracle or mistake, it will always take you.
The world keeps spinning, and you do to. Does it matter in the end? We are all going to our deaths. But if that's the case, what stops us from living? What limitations are there? What can we break, and what is immovable? Do those change as well? Is anything ever the same? If you're breathing, is it heavy? Or is it natural?
If we are changing and constant, and the universe is not perfect but a collection of flaws and contradictions are we any different? What makes small and insignificant? What makes us dust? How are we not infinite, too? How are we not universes, and galaxies, and billions of things? What makes us inferior?
Can you breathe? How many times have you taken a breath? How many more breaths will you take? Do you ever think that maybe it is impossible to mean anything or nothing? That perhaps existance, like nature, in unquestionable and uncaring? Why does it define us? Does it define us?
Can you breathe? Does your breath change? What makes it do that? How do our bodies work? Should we work to keep them healthy, or does it matter in the end? We are all each other. We are all existence and reality. How will you define yours? How will I define mine?
Can you breathe?
