torokatober 2024 day 27/31 - horror
He can only watch the vid screen as Sandrock explodes. He’s too far away. He’s helpless. It’s hopeless.
A scream starts to build in his throat, but it never escapes, and a once-familiar sense of detachment comes over him, like it’s a bucket of water that’s been thrown onto him. He feels it start in his head, then lets it trickle down. Lets it flood his nervous system, to keep him from panicking. Like he’s been taught. Like he’s been trained.
Breathe slow. Steady. Is it time to fight or run? Think. Run. It’s time to run. To the colonies. To Cathy.
Quatre is like the others now. Gone. A memory.
He repeats it, over and over again. Focuses on the controls, on escaping to space. Ignores the comm message that he’s positive is from Heero. Ignores the tears he feels building behind his eyes. Leans into the detachment, reminds himself that if he doesn’t feel it, it can’t hurt.
But there’s a void in his chest, one that grows even as he tries to flee from it.
It grows, and swallows the hope he’d held for a life after the war.
(on ao3)