Chapter Text
You feel the heavy weight dragging down your leg as your eyes open.
The blood still coughing out of your mouth in violent, unwarranted sputters that pain you over and over again. Your fur is drenched, yet you don’t feel that anymore. You think it’s normal. All you can do is stare up. Hoping. You hope the surface is up there, even though you are well aware you’ll never reach that far above the surface of the water that encases you for eternity.
You don’t remember how long it has been.
Your brain feels so fuzzy.
Your stomach feels so starved..
You feel so..
lost.
Your mind blinds you to what you should be afraid of, as it hasn’t experienced the comfort of warmth in so long. Neither the company of people. The weight grows heavier. You feel yourself start to drag down to the bottom again. You don’t want to go back down there.
And yet what choice did you have?
Try to struggle up? Just to inevitably realise your attempts are fruitless, useless, and that you aren’t getting out?
Or just accept it? Let yourself fall down?
Let yourself drown again?
Die again?
Let yourself suffer the same fate for eternity with no one to help you? Well, that’s what you thought was the only thing you could do. No one knew you were down here, after all. No one knew of your damned suffering, the suffering you wished would stop constantly until you couldn’t think straight anymore.
You feel yourself go weightless, limp. So you get forced back to where you ‘should’ be, as you’ve learned to accept. The eyes you’ve kept open for only a little over a few minutes felt heavy once more. You wanted to close them.
You wanted to drift into your long, unbothered slumber again.
And again.
And again.
But you didn’t.
You couldn’t bring yourself to, no matter how exhausted your mind and body had become. No matter how much.. pain you felt even as you didn’t move a single muscle, the blood still staining the water that was always so murky. It just kept you awake. So you stare blankly up above, your mouth slightly agape as your bloody insides get coughed up once more. As the water fills up your lungs.
As you choke.
And choke.
And choke..
Your body is numb. Your heart is beating slowly. It is so quiet to the point you can feel your ears ringing, which overcomes the sounds of your rasping, as you suffocate once more. As you fail to draw in breaths of air. Like always.
And yet you ignore it.
Again.
You died.
Again.
Your eyes open.
You’re still sinking.
You forced your mouth closed.
You feel your hand try to reach up, yet they were too weak to reach far, as your bony limb fell back down, your nails chapped, your gloves destroyed beyond belief. This time, your thoughts manage to drift to something. It’s better than nothing. You think about how long it had been.
It has been longer than a day. You know that.
Maybe a month?
No.
Maybe a year.
Maybe a few years.
You wish you knew..
Not as much as you wish you could get out though. That still plagues your mind day in and day out.
The light is shining through the water, though. That was a plus to the day. It didn’t help you much, but it reminds you that you are still alive.
Even when it isn't always a good thing.
…
..Although something else bothers you. Itching at the back of your mind from how long you’ve ignored it. Dismissed it. You try to remember what it was, as you struggle to get cohesive thoughts. Though it soon occurs to you again.
Family.
Do you have any?
Perhaps you do.
Perhaps you don’t.
Even so, it’s not like you remember their names. Their faces. What they were like. What they did for you and how close you were to them.
All you can vaguely see inside your otherwise blank head is a collage of colours that invade your already narrow sight as your brain thinks of ‘family’. You don’t understand the importance of them. Nor the resemblance of who they belong to. So you don’t acknowledge their existence.
You close your eyes.
The thoughts of family come back to you though. If you do have a family, do they care about you? In lieu, you may have been gone for too long. That could be why they haven’t found you yet. They think you’re dead, don’t they?
Or maybe you don’t have a family. And you’re all alone.
Alone..
Though it doesn't surprise you. You’re stuck down here as it is anyway. You weren’t going to get out, even though you desperately wished you could claw your way to the surface. How you wished you could free yourself from this damned underwater mine that drags you down so heavily each day. Each month. Each year.
The thing that keeps you down here.
The thing you don’t have the strength to break.
You felt you were unable to keep your mouth closed anymore. So you felt yourself start to drown.
Yet again.
Your eyes slowly drift open once more. You try to speak this time. You try to do anything.
Move. Scream. Cry.
But all you can get out is a bubbled and unheard,
“ ..I’m sorry.. ”
Why did you say that? Why?
Who were you sorry to?
These questions couldn’t be pondered.
You drowned.
You died.
It was getting dark.
The light dimmed.
And dimmed.
You couldn’t tell how late it was until you woke up again.
And drowned.
Again.
How many times has this happened today?
You forgot.
Or you just didn’t care to count. It was likely the latter.
You didn’t care.
Yet your soul did.
It was still screaming out.
It was still crying.
It was what was causing the ringing in your ears. The chiming of pain banging against the insides of your head.
This time you decided to listen to what it had to say. You decided to acknowledge yourself. As painful as it may be to do so.
SOMEONE! ANYONE PLEASE-!
It called.
I can’t keep doing this..
..it hurts.. It hurts so much…
..please..
I’m sorry.. [_____].
…
You slightly recall yourself saying sorry earlier today, for no particular reason.
Was this it?
Was this the cause?
But who to?
You can’t quite hear the name right, and your soul doesn’t seem to help with that as you can hear its’ voice. It sounds like the screeches of a record player. It sounds like it hasn't spoken in years.
Which you haven't.
It reflects yourself after all.
A bloody, drenched mess of what was once a heroic hedgehog. Though you don’t quite remember the ‘heroic’ aspect of yourself. It just came to you.
Clearly though, it doesn't stand true.
You are no hero.
You are nothing.
From your loneliness, your self-deprecation, you start to lose the motivation to struggle. To think. To do anything.
Which only serves to remind you that the light you see every morning was a cruel reminder that you'll never see the land above.
Or perhaps it was supposed to be comforting?
You wouldn't know.