Chapter Text
I sleep with my hands pressed to my neck.
Two fingers on each side, feeling the same steady pulse.
It’s a precaution, just in case I never wake up.
I need my hands to be the first to know that I’ve died.
- Ellie (@doreensladle on tumblr)
—
Riz considers, for the hundredth time, that he might be going insane.
He’s curled up on his side, staring wide at his dark bedroom wall. He’s thinking that if he just concentrates hard enough, he’ll be able to make the screaming in his head quiet down. It’s hard to have a coherent thought at all. The room seems to be fading at the corners and moving back and forth, despite his still rigid position.
Riz considers, for the hundredth time, that he might be dying.
Surely this is what Death must feel like. It certainly doesn’t feel like life. Riz rolls over to lay on his back, but his muscles immediately tense up again, his bones rubbing together in a way that lights his already charred brain on fire. He pretends to not notice the feeling. What is pain, if not another condition one must live with?
The news of his dad’s death reached them 5 days ago. Riz struggled to parse the days apart. It felt as though he'd had a hundred nights like this one, but also like the first night had never ended. He was stuck in this life forever. What a terrible, terrible fate.
He rolls over to his other side, curling up and shoving his palms into his eyes. The room feels like it’s rotating on an invisible axis, never slowing. Could he die this way? It seems as though the whiplash of connecting and disconnecting with reality could be enough to cause a heart to short-circuit and stop beating. A lot of people wish for Death. Riz is terrified of it.
Riz sits up in bed, ruffling his hair and shaking his head, trying to loosen up the tension in his neck. Bringing his hands down, he rubs deep pressure into the tissue of his shoulders, aching for relaxation. His hands come to rest on either side of his neck, and he feels his pulse, faintly. Riz brings two fingers to rest at the points where he can feel the beat the strongest. It’s quick, and it’s hard to feel, but it’s there. He’s alive. He’s obsessed with the pulse. If he wants to be sure he’s still alive, he can’t move his hands.
Realizing that the room feels much more stable than it did before, Riz takes the chance to lie back down, still with fingers pressed to either side of his neck. He closes his eyes, breathing deeply.
Death has always terrified Riz. It’s the uncertainty, really. What does it feel like? How long does it last? What comes after? Nothing? Something? Every possibility fuels his anxiety more. The only certainty Death offers is how it affects those left alive. It moves unexpectedly and ruthlessly, leaving an empty space behind. If Death could be so cruel to the living, how might it treat its victims? This is the fear Riz sits with now, praying that his father might be spared from any cruelties.
A tear falls down his face, followed by another. Riz lays, silently crying, with his fingers pressed to his neck. This way, at least, he can be sure he is still alive. Despite the persisting pain in his joints, sleep finds Riz through the steady heartbeat pulsing against his finger pads.