waking up without really waking up. eyes that wont focus. muscles barely responding to input you don't remember sending.
you take a deep breath, and return to some kind of reality. you have no heartbeat.
someone else is here. words at the periphery of concept. you... agree on something.
your heart tries to beat. you shove it back down, stifle it, refuse to feel. the first deliberate choice you've made since waking(?), and it's to distance yourself further.
they... leave, but not really. still there, still hovering at the surface of awareness. a word away, probably.
you become aware of your mouth as you keep it firmly motionless. you sink yourself back into the murk.
time passes, probably. you conjure up temporary feelings every time a real one comes too close.
anger. derision. cruelty.
you watch them play out on your fingers, an intricate little dance to dodge the possibility of hurting.
no matter how you dance though, time still passes.
there's laughter at the edge of your awareness.
laughter? in a place like this?
something flits by the boundary of the little cell you've built, something pale pink hue and faintly aglow and radiating warmth, more warmth than you think you've ever felt and you build another wall and another wall and another and you lock yourself out in the cold.
whatever it was, it's gone now.
time still passes. you wish it would stop doing that.
its cold. and you're tired. perhaps it would be better to lay down for a bit.
in the darkness, you dream.
this time it is red-hued and smooth and soft and all of the things you cannot have and cannot be, and despite your best efforts to crush it, a little scrap of warmth wriggles free and burrows into your prison.
the walls you built begin to blur together with the background. nothing has changed.
and yet, it feels a little different. you risk a look-
oh.
how scary. how lovely. how wonderful.
the little scrap that escaped is in your palms now, and you carry it carefully outside with you.
was there prison walls here a moment ago? you can't remember.
the murk follows, eating at your memories as fast as they can form, casting doubts and webs and curses of hollowness at everything it can reach, and it is almost successful
but you have that little scrap of red and pink still cradled in your paws, and it is burning so so hot that the murk is obliterated whenever it tries to come close, and perhaps your paws are smouldering too but god you just want to be warm again-
some selfish sense of purpose begins to form itself around that foundation. on an impulse, you begin to walk faster towards whatever it is you're still chasing and you cradle the little scrap of red pink hope to your chest and
your heart
starts
to beat
again.
you have a long way to go. you don't really know where it is you're going. you're just following the laughter into the distance.
hope holds your hand as you walk, and you ask yourself to trust that warm pink glow.