His vision's hazy, streaked with smoke. He thinks he hears something crack. Maybe floorboards. Maybe his ribs. What a fun little guessing game that is.
He hits the second floor and the wood is eggshell-thin and it cracks under his body like glass. Like hitting water. Hitting water and sinking and straining to breach the surface but it's holding you down and silver bubbles stream from parted lips and you scream on and on as it holds you, watching arms twitch and spasm and cleave uselessly through water.
Wait, what?
No. No, not water. Just wood. Or ash, more specifically. Soon-to-be ash.
He's looking at the ceiling, watching soot waft lazily from the roughly Tim-sized hole he doesn't remember punching through the story above him. Maybe he should be aching. That seems like something that should be happening.
Is anyone alive in there?
Good question.
Tim tries to roll over, and that's when his senses to decide to tune back in. He sucks in a sharp, pained breath and immediately chokes on a mouthful of hot ash. Whatever the hell crude delusion of drowning came from, it's bitterly apt - he's suffocating under the layers of heat and the steady consolidation of cinders raining from the crumbling ceiling, the whole of his back and ribs practically vibrating from their recent abuse.
"Help," he tries to croak, pathetically, but the word dies before it can form into so much as a rasp in the back of his throat. Help, help. He always needs help. Can't ever stand on his own. Go his own way, and what happens? People die. Not friends, you have to have friends before you can doom them, but people, probably people a hell of a lot more important than him.
Just lie here. Lie here, die. It's not hard. He already feels half-asleep, woozy from the smoke and the dull, rattling ache in his skull. It could be as simple as closing his eyes and just letting the flames do the work.
Not even strong enough for that, is he. It hurts to breathe, it sends agony knifing down his throat and in his lungs and especially in his ribs, but he tries again and hisses out a low, panicked yelp of, "help."
tw: flashbacking, drowning, physical trauma, suicide ideation, intense self-loathing
He hits the second floor and the wood is eggshell-thin and it cracks under his body like glass. Like hitting water. Hitting water and sinking and straining to breach the surface but it's holding you down and silver bubbles stream from parted lips and you scream on and on as it holds you, watching arms twitch and spasm and cleave uselessly through water.
Wait, what?
No. No, not water. Just wood. Or ash, more specifically. Soon-to-be ash.
He's looking at the ceiling, watching soot waft lazily from the roughly Tim-sized hole he doesn't remember punching through the story above him. Maybe he should be aching. That seems like something that should be happening.
Is anyone alive in there?
Good question.
Tim tries to roll over, and that's when his senses to decide to tune back in. He sucks in a sharp, pained breath and immediately chokes on a mouthful of hot ash. Whatever the hell crude delusion of drowning came from, it's bitterly apt - he's suffocating under the layers of heat and the steady consolidation of cinders raining from the crumbling ceiling, the whole of his back and ribs practically vibrating from their recent abuse.
"Help," he tries to croak, pathetically, but the word dies before it can form into so much as a rasp in the back of his throat. Help, help. He always needs help. Can't ever stand on his own. Go his own way, and what happens? People die. Not friends, you have to have friends before you can doom them, but people, probably people a hell of a lot more important than him.
Just lie here. Lie here, die. It's not hard. He already feels half-asleep, woozy from the smoke and the dull, rattling ache in his skull. It could be as simple as closing his eyes and just letting the flames do the work.
Not even strong enough for that, is he. It hurts to breathe, it sends agony knifing down his throat and in his lungs and especially in his ribs, but he tries again and hisses out a low, panicked yelp of, "help."