Chapter Text
It was so vivid. The taste of metal over her tongue, the hum of the busted engine, the sanguine staining her fingertips — it was a laceration that was being reopened, one stitch at a time. The air smelled of smoke and the sky was bleak, a pale iceberg ready to shatter into a thousand pieces and dissolve into the universe forgotten.
Goosebumps scattered on her arms as an icy sheen of perspiration and her lungs were straining with ever single breath as she pulled him out the wreckage. All her muscles were singing with a desperation of rest, to finally let go, yet the man she had been cradling was the only thing that held her back.
"Martha," he would wheeze out, as though his lungs were collapsing. Which, they probably were.
"Stop," she'd try to say. But every time she opened her mouth, all that came was a groan that choked her. Silenced her.
The paleness of his skin was scarily like the canvas he'd shown her, as if he himself became it. Bound his soul to it. The coldness of his skin was becoming more and more evident in a biting sting each time her skin met his.
"Breathe," his voice told her. It was surreal and almost like a siren's song; a song she'd known by heart. "Breathe, Martha."
It didn't sound like him — then she realized it's because it wasn't him.
A splash of cold water (not literally) was all it took to wake her up. A loud gasp tore her out of her sleep, sending her away from a land of smoke and grass to a dimly candlelit room. She'd been pulled out from a lake of ice and water back into reality.
A room with candles and lanterns, the side window open to let a chilled breeze come and pass by. Silence filled the night instead of bloodcurdling screams like it did before.
Then she weeped. She sobbed, she wailed, she cried — thrashing around violently in what felt like a cage. Her muscles screamed the same way they did in her dream and she couldn't handle it, she couldn't cope, she was never able to—
"Breathe," the voice told her once again. It was an angel's melody or the touch of what seemed to be a feather against her tearstained cheeks.
Soothing. "Breathe, Martha."
As if winded by a powerful force, her body's endless twisting and turning came to a halt. Her lungs fought against her chest for air still as loud gasps of air came and left her dried mouth.
The cage didn't feel like a cage anymore. More like a vanguard, protecting her from any nightmares to come. Two bars of weird fleshy silver were wound around her, a hand holding her head to a tough surface that was breathing. Alive.
She shut her eyes and listened.
Thump. Thump. Thump. A heartbeat. Each one lively and deep and joyous, sending a shockwave of mellow dopamine through her system.
Her hand fell upon the surface and felt the beating against the chest, warmth befalling her every nerve and inch of skin.
It smelled like wood and the forest. As though a personification of crystal lakes with shimmering riverbeds of florets had been summoned in her room just for her.
"I'm here, Martha," he spoke with an airy smile. She didn't have to look up through her tear stroked lashes to see when she could hear it. It wasn't a mocking smile, though.
The image of lips curved into a smile brought a wave of comfort to untangle her nerves. A smile that he'd only show for her.
"Don't go," she mumbled. Her voice; a mirror shattered with the shards yet to topple from the frame.
And he, was the frame keeping her in place. "I'm not going anywhere."
Warm. Warm, warm.
"Rest easy," he whispered into her ear. The hot breath tickled her and she shivered, earning a chuckle of a thousand soft willow trees from him.
And suddenly she was falling, falling onto a surface of cotton candy clouds and gates made of soft, melted gold.
"I'm not going anywhere," Naib said. He sounded farther away now as darkness enclosed her, but somehow he was closer. Closer than anyone before.
"So rest."
And for once, she finally let go.