Work Text:
It was hard to breathe.
The only warning he had gotten that the ceiling was going to cave in was a faint tremor that escalated to heavy shaking.
It didn’t matter. The floor bucked underneath him and knocked him down before he could even think to run to a doorway. The iron taste of blood filled his mouth as the sharp pain of accidentally biting his tongue registered in his scrambled brain.
His breath was knocked out of him in the next instant, and he nearly choked on his own blood as a heavy, heavy weight slammed onto his back.
Distantly, he registered a spot near the middle of his back that felt like he had been punched, and the area underneath him there felt really… wet.
His first breath had him coughing as his body tried to expel the blood that went down the wrong pipe, but it was difficult with how little his chest could move.
He shifted his arms and did a pathetic attempt at pushing himself up. His body barely moved, and if anything, the weight got heavier.
The loud wailing overhead didn’t stop his attempts to call out for help. Even his voice sounded weak in his own ears; the raspy wheeze didn’t really carry far.
One hand still had something wrapped around it, and when he tried to pull himself out from under the rubble, the glint of silver and red caught his eye.
He didn’t think on it much, because he was immediately distracted by an agonizing burn in his abdomen.
He couldn’t move.
He was going to die. The realization came with no small amount of tears that no one would ever see, and he didn’t feel a need to bother hiding them now.
No one was going to save his brother. He had tried so damn hard, and they banned him from ever speaking to him again.
At least he had managed to at least tell him that he gave a damn. That was more than what their parents had ever done.
But he thought he had more time.
He always thought he would have more time.
It was hard to see with the lenses on his glasses cracked, but even he thought things were getting way blurrier than they should have been.
I’m sorry.