Chapter Text
Something most people don’t know: Getting shot isn’t actually all that painful. Not at first.
Maybe you’ve seen too many movies, but you’d always assumed it would hurt like a bitch. Instead, it’s barely more than a bee sting – though there’s enough force behind it to knock you straight on your face. You hardly even hear the gunshot.
That’s it? you think to yourself, cheek against the sun-warmed earth. That really wasn’t too bad.
For a few moments, the shock of what just happened overpowers every other sensation, filling your head with white noise. Once the humming begins to fade, you realize she’s still there – a silent presence betrayed only by the sound of her breathing, deafening amidst the quiet of the ruins.
She stands there for a moment – watching you, presumably, for any sign of life – and you wonder if she’s considering putting a bullet in your head as well for good measure. The ground is hard and slightly sandy, hot enough from the morning sun to burn your skin. You take the pain and hold it close to you, focus on this pain and only this pain. The longer you lie here, and the longer she stares at you, the more the hole in your chest starts to burn.
Eventually she walks away, heels clicking like some rapidly-fading metronome. Her steps are precise, measured, and you wonder what that says about her mental state. Did you really mean so little to her that shooting you dead in some hidden corner of a foreign country hasn’t affected her in the slightest? Or is she reeling, in shock, horrified at what she’s done? Has she put on a familiar mask and tucked her emotions away somewhere deep inside her?
She aimed for your heart. Isn’t that romantic?
Something warm and wet touches your hand and you flinch violently. The motion jostles something in your chest, reminding your body that it’s been horribly compromised. The pain, fully fledged now, burns and claws at you – a thing with teeth and fervor.
You open your mouth to scream but all that comes out is a sad little whimper. Your breaths are ragged, wheezing their way in and out of your raw, mangled chest. At some point you open your eyes and realize the warm, wet thing is your blood. It’s surprisingly sticky, a river of honey pouring out of your body.
A voice nudges at the back of your mind. It takes you a while to realize it’s your own thoughts. It takes a while longer to understand what it’s saying. Phone. Phone. Over and over, like some whispery old record.
Do you have a phone? Where is it? Will your limbs even work if you try to move them?
Your eyes have slipped shut again and for a moment you just float somewhere outside of yourself. How sad, you think, that it was all for nothing. Your life and your work and your place in the world. You’re going to die here, boiling under the sun, and nobody is going to find you until it’s too late. Will anybody even wonder where you are? Will anybody care?
You wonder if this is how Hugo felt when you left him bleeding into the hotel carpet. You wonder if this is karma, coming to collect its debt. Well, you think, it could be worse. Karma could be crueler. At least you’re not getting axed to death. That would surely be more painful than this.
By the time your vision starts to go a little spotty around the edges, you remember the phone is in your front pocket. It’s another several minutes before you manage to coordinate the movements necessary to get it out, inching it up towards your face with your good hand.
The screen is cracked from when you fell, touchscreen glass no match for the weight of a body. The sun catches on the spiderweb splinters and turns them into diamonds of light. Your eyes burn from looking right at them.
Time begins to unravel after that, everything going fluid and wobbly. Your ears are ringing something awful and all you can see behind your eyelids is television static. Phone, you think again, but you have no idea what that means.
In the vacancy of your mind, you see a tidal wave, dark and foreboding. Is this my life? you think, in some place outside of thought. You always assumed this moment would be more like a slideshow or a series of faces.
Help me, you think, as the wave comes closer. You don’t know who you’re trying to talk to. All you know is you don’t want to be here when the water crashes down.
You want to close your eyes. Your eyes are closed. You can’t close your eyes.
The water, when it hits, is warm as blood.