No Farther
It was that morning the hunters got close, their tin breath sliding over the ground, that's what did it. Something in my dreaming picked up the red of their eye sweeps. I woke up running. There was part of me that thought, you can't run forever. My lungs and blood struggled. I saw myself dragged back to my cell. I couldn't face it again. I thought, I'll never stop. My body found a way. The second day I stopped seeing. After a few days there was nothing left. That was the cost of it. I knew I was safe running. Once I thought, it will never be enough, I'll be stuck like this forever. But it was better. Sometimes there'd be a flicker of that morning and I'd know it. I stopped counting days. I stopped everything, just until I was safe. I let go.
The next thing, something was wrong. Things had changed, and I had to do something. I felt blank, couldn't make anything work, couldn't even think. Something was wrong. It came sickening slow. I thought maybe I was dying. Then my eyes came back. I couldn't tell what I was doing. I had my eyes, and they showed me the worst thing.
Part of it was the running. The way my eyes snapped back like that, it felt like I was soaked in seeing. It didn't wait for me to understand. Whatever it was hooked the parts of me that could know, ripping them loose and dragging them to the surface. I saw night skies, then the way they drowned the light when they closed my cell door, and then blindness, and all of that was leading towards this. Ahead of me, filling my view in every direction, was the opposite of light.
My legs buckled, the first feeling from them. I pitched forward. Nothing worked, not my arms, not my neck, couldn't protect myself falling. My eyes wouldn't stop. I saw what happened before the pain hit.
* * *
My legs are broken. One foot is half torn off. My left arm is dead. Daggers when I breathe. I cough blood. It's running down the back of my neck, too. I'm sure my head is split. I keep passing out. When I'm awake I shake and it won't stop.
The thing is still there, everywhere. I could reach a branch and poked it. It feels like water, maybe thinner. Swallowed it right up. Came out too cold to touch. Now I don't know what. Sometimes I hear the hunters signalling each other from very far away.
The next thing, something was wrong. Things had changed, and I had to do something. I felt blank, couldn't make anything work, couldn't even think. Something was wrong. It came sickening slow. I thought maybe I was dying. Then my eyes came back. I couldn't tell what I was doing. I had my eyes, and they showed me the worst thing.
Part of it was the running. The way my eyes snapped back like that, it felt like I was soaked in seeing. It didn't wait for me to understand. Whatever it was hooked the parts of me that could know, ripping them loose and dragging them to the surface. I saw night skies, then the way they drowned the light when they closed my cell door, and then blindness, and all of that was leading towards this. Ahead of me, filling my view in every direction, was the opposite of light.
My legs buckled, the first feeling from them. I pitched forward. Nothing worked, not my arms, not my neck, couldn't protect myself falling. My eyes wouldn't stop. I saw what happened before the pain hit.
* * *
My legs are broken. One foot is half torn off. My left arm is dead. Daggers when I breathe. I cough blood. It's running down the back of my neck, too. I'm sure my head is split. I keep passing out. When I'm awake I shake and it won't stop.
The thing is still there, everywhere. I could reach a branch and poked it. It feels like water, maybe thinner. Swallowed it right up. Came out too cold to touch. Now I don't know what. Sometimes I hear the hunters signalling each other from very far away.