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Soil clings to the edges of his fingernails, forming dark, blurred outlines. The blood has finally dried brown, and in some places, most places, he can’t distinguish the two.
It doesn’t hurt like it should. He’s aware of that, in the way one might be aware of the contents of a dream, fading rapidly. It should hurt. It used to hurt. Why doesn’t it? Why doesn’t it hurt?
All of him feels stiff, and yet soft; his skin, where it is not obscured by blood and dirt, is pink, smooth. New.
But he’s not.
He remembers — being. Being someone. It’s there, in the back of his mind, like a bedtime story he hasn’t heard in years. He can just barely recall the general shape of his life, like… like…
He’s stopped running. He’s standing in the street, no, under a bridge. This place is important. Was important. It’s just a place now. His feet won’t move. He stares at the sewer grate, the graffiti on the wall of the tunnel, and thinks, that wasn’t there before.
But before is —
Gone.
He starts walking. His body wants to remember this place; it tells him where to turn, when to stop, what to look at. He stares into dark shop windows, at flickering street lights, at murals of faces he thinks he knew once.
It’s too much. It means nothing to him, but he knows it should, and the resulting ache is —
This is painful, he realizes. This hurts.
He runs. His body carries him through unfamiliar streets, through back alleyways and over buildings and around corners he used to wait at, before. The moon is nowhere in sight; the dark, empty sky seems to push down on him, threatening to pin him to the asphalt.
He runs until he is somewhere new, somewhere his body does not recognize. The sun is coming out, and he thinks with a shock that he should go before he is seen. For whatever reason, he is sure that he cannot afford to be seen.
He sits in the small space between two buildings, a foot or less where their walls do not touch. Light spills through the gap, widening as it comes out the other side. There are marks on the stones made by the years of bleaching unevenly in the sun. They say this is a sign of multiple worlds, light bending where it shouldn’t, but he thinks it was always going to fall that way.
As the light spills over him, the walls seem to press closer, breathing in and out. There’s a rhythm to it, picking up now; he presses one palm against the smooth, flat surface to feel its heartbeat. There’s nothing there.
“Breathe, Midoriya,” someone says, voice low, familiar. He’s been breathing. That’s — that’s the problem, isn’t it? He hears the walls breathe, too, loud and slow for him. He follows, tries to follow, and the space gets a little larger, a little less dark.
It was dark in there, too, and cramped. He didn’t need to breathe for so long. Maybe he’s forgotten how. Is he doing this right? His lungs ache. His throat burns. Hot tears spring from his eyes. He’s not doing this right. He’s not.
“It’s okay. It’s — hey, take it slow. It’s okay.”
There’s someone here, he realizes far too late. He’s been seen, he’s been named — he doesn’t recognize it. He should go. He should get up, leap toward the sky, disappear among the rooftops.
His body doesn’t move. It wants to listen — but not to him.
“Are you with me, Midoriya?”
No, he thinks, a heat creeping up his neck. His eyes sting, suddenly, like they did when the sky first broke, when soil poured in from above to drown him.
No, he thinks, fingernails digging into the skin of his arms. It doesn’t hurt, not in the way this hurts, this not knowing, this not feeling. No, he thinks, a red line running down his wrist, blossoming on the white fabric of his dress shirt, and then disappearing into the dark of his suit.
No, he tries to say, but his mouth has forgotten how to form words. All that slips out are little half-aborted cries, gutteral, visceral. His teeth click together, scratching, grinding, drawing blood from his cheeks and tongue. It tastes like before.
None of this is how it’s supposed to be. He’s not how he’s supposed to be. It’s already tearing him in two; who he was and who he is are at war, and neither can win because he has already lost.
“Take me back,” he says. The words come out on their own, punctuated by a sudden wail, his hands pressing against the sides of his head. It’s too loud here, too bright. The light falls in thin, evenly spaced lines on his skin, warping around scars he cannot remember earning. Is this his body? Is this his skin? Is this his blood, his mouth?
A hand brushes against his shoulder and he jerks away, wedging himself further into the crevice. The walls cannot find air, they squeeze and press and crush in their search and only succeed in flattening him into nothing.
He feels like nothing. He was nothing. He wants to return to nothing. He wants not to want; not to feel; not to be.
“Take me back,” he repeats, the only words his mouth can form. “Take me back, take me back, take me back.”
“I will,” says the voice, soft, soothing, not understanding what it is he asks. “I’ll take you home, Midoriya. I promise.”
He opens his mouth and lets out one long, anguished cry.