Work Text:
The thing that scares him isn’t the pain.
It’s the rumble to silence as he lays amongst the chaos surrounding him. His blood pools in his stomach, churning amongst his stomach acid. The ground vibrates beneath the rise and fall of feet. Pellets of broken rock bump against his arms. The dirt and grime of nature invading his muscles, settling amongst his blood.
In a few hours he will be dead.
His eyes move against his eyelids, their heaviness like lead bars holding his eyelashes to his cheeks. He can feel the blood in them, feel the arteries behind them pulsating. It’s nauseating. The feeling of being locked inside your own body.
Something has punctured a vertebrae in his lower back, he can feel it poking at his insides, feel the roll of blood spilling out of him. The intruder has forbidden him from moving, nailing him to the ground. He feels himself take a breath, his chest rising mechanically. Blood spurts from his lips as he coughs. His body rocks, tries to recoil.
In a few hours he will be dead, left to die alone in a room. A room covered in flowers. Purple ones from the outer walls, from the banks of a river that he once assumed were inaccessible. A river with mud so deep that you’d sink to your knees before you could get to them, boots squelching as you wiggled your legs to free yourself.
His eyes finally open, his gaze graced by a clear sky. For only a moment, he convinces himself he’s somewhere else. Somewhere with peace, with silence. The sun beats down on his skin, filling him with warmth, with love.
In a few hours he will be dead. But now, he lays staring up at the sky from a pasture of silence amongst a bloom of red.