Work Text:
You want to say that you’ve accepted your new reality, of the ever-present fog and the silence that sits in the air. Of the abandoned buildings and the falling ash dusting the world in light gray. (Of the invisible chain wrapped around your ankle, keeping you trapped here in this lifeless town, pulling you away from the exit).
Of course you want to say you even got use to the sirens, the way the world is swallowed by rust and darkness every so often (how you curl underneath the sheets, the thin fabric barely keeping you warm as you try to ignore the wails and groans on the other side of the barricaded door).
But you aren’t. Aren’t use to any of this, still stumbling for your footing.
Especially with It.
You don’t know what you did to have the silent thing haunt your footsteps, lurking around building corners, shadows stretching to cover the creature from your nervous sight. Its’ heavy presence grips your spine, your nerves constantly on edge (a predator stalking its’ prey). You never see the creature, the gleam of its’ great bloody knife catching the corner of your eye before it vanishes as soon as you turn your head, only ashy footprints left behind.
And when the sirens scream, hiding and locked away, despite your laughable barricades, you hold your breath and wait for thick fingers to brush down your spine, touching every knob and bump down to the small of your back. The only evidence of its’ presence once the world fades back into gray are those heavy footprints and the still lingering smell of blood and rust.
(And you want to say that you’re not use to these quiet moments. You’re not waiting for those damnable fingers on your spine. Your ears don’t strain for the grind of its’ knife over the wailing of the sirens. You still hold the sheets tightly around you, not loosening them with each time the world shifts.
But you can’t lie to yourself forever.)