Work Text:
It’s cold in the train car. The cold is unlike any other that Ghostbur has experienced. He himself is cold, pleasantly so, enough that his body provides a pleasant contrast to the sun’s own rays, especially during the relentless heat of the summer months. This cold isn’t like that. This one is hard, sharp and rigid, stabbing itself into the palms and heels of those who touch it. It doesn’t go away like Ghostbur’s cold either, and it most definitely doesn’t provide any sort of contrast. This cold hurts. It stabs through the flesh like nails, unwavering and miserable.
Ghostbur is tired. He’s lost track of time in the subway station, and the clocks only repeat one hour, which provides no help. At first he tried keeping track - it's not like there’s anything better to do - but even that lost its appeal after hour one-hundred. As the clock repeats for the umpteenth time, 00:59, Ghostbur hopes it will be different. It is not. He hopes for that every hour. It never does.
Ghostbur’s given up trying to get comfortable. He realized, at some point, shifting only allows the cold to freeze him further through. He’s regretted resting his palms flat on the concrete floor for some time now, but it had been far too long to change his position. Part of Ghostbur wonders if there’s any ability left in him to move. It’s too cold to feel most of his body anyway.
He doesn’t have hypothermia, God forbids that mercy upon him. Sharp and angry cold, buried in the palms of his hands and forcing itself up into his forearms. It’s not cold enough to stop sensing it, but it’s enough to hurt. Ghostbur doesn’t understand what he did to deserve this, but like most of the things he doesn’t understand, it’s unchangeable. The deed had been done, the seeds sown, and the train long gone from the station.
He remembers everything in clarity, perhaps due to some miserable mockery by that which he did not understand. Insurmountable heat; cruel, angry cold. He wishes for anything but this, to be crushed or burned or whipped or stabbed, but there is nothing that can grant that wish. He wonders if he could tear the plastic from the hard seats that line the walls, slam his hands hard enough on the glass to feel something. There are cracks that look unintentional in it, after all.
The time is 00:28. Ghostbur closes his eyes. He tries to take a deep, slow breath, but his lungs don’t work.
…
That isn’t true. Ghostbur only wishes they weren’t working. The breath hurts. It is agonizing, and as soon as Ghostbur’s diaphragm moves to inhale he regrets the sensation. Angry, icy air enters into his lungs through his nose, threatening to stab wounds into his windpipe all the way down. If only it were that simple, he notes, to take a breath and freeze yourself to death. Ghostbur holds it, only for a moment, as if he were psyching himself up. The exhale is worse, and for a moment he wonders if he’ll next cough up his heart in a block of ice.
Ghostbur opens his eyes, repressing the hiss that threatens to leave his throat as the frozen air hits them, too. The time remains 00:28.