all i can do is stand on the curb and say sorry about the blood in your mouth
There is no room for sense, for awareness outside of himself, outside of the pain, but there are flashes, tinged in red, in black, nonsensical. Like the beating of a heart. Gods, if he could get it to stop; the blurs of motion around him, the roaring in his ears, the pain, the constant, terrible pain, he would. He would trade every scrap of sensation he had left to end this.
Nate's body still moves, automatic, the lurching, jerky motions of a bug, half crushed. Some system, some deep rooted code still fighting to keep him alive, when all he wants, all he needs is to stop, to have his mind cut off by the bliss of blackout or death. The hand, shaking, more unsteady than it has ever been, finally makes contact with the face, neither of them feeling like him, though in an instant he comes to a very important realisation. He's not burning, no matter how it feels, how it invades and writhes in him, how it threatens to spread to his hand.
Important, but not a comforting realisation.
And what has happened is so much worse, kills the hoarse scratch of air screaming out of him, replaces it with a panicked whimper, the very tips of his fingers tracing along the buzzing line, the source of the burning, his face open, like the broken crater of Apopo, though at least that pain would have been over in an instant. Even trembling, out of his mind as he is, Nate cannot bring his hand close to his eye, cannot do anything more than hover his palm above it uselessly, some deep voice in him finally awakening and whispering advice.
Pressure. Water. A wrapping. All things he cannot heed, not as he is, and it drives his other hand out, reaching for something, for someone. For Sunjata. There's no one else to trust, with him in this state, with the person who had done this still, presumably, around.
Nate's body still moves, automatic, the lurching, jerky motions of a bug, half crushed. Some system, some deep rooted code still fighting to keep him alive, when all he wants, all he needs is to stop, to have his mind cut off by the bliss of blackout or death. The hand, shaking, more unsteady than it has ever been, finally makes contact with the face, neither of them feeling like him, though in an instant he comes to a very important realisation. He's not burning, no matter how it feels, how it invades and writhes in him, how it threatens to spread to his hand.
Important, but not a comforting realisation.
And what has happened is so much worse, kills the hoarse scratch of air screaming out of him, replaces it with a panicked whimper, the very tips of his fingers tracing along the buzzing line, the source of the burning, his face open, like the broken crater of Apopo, though at least that pain would have been over in an instant. Even trembling, out of his mind as he is, Nate cannot bring his hand close to his eye, cannot do anything more than hover his palm above it uselessly, some deep voice in him finally awakening and whispering advice.
Pressure. Water. A wrapping. All things he cannot heed, not as he is, and it drives his other hand out, reaching for something, for someone. For Sunjata. There's no one else to trust, with him in this state, with the person who had done this still, presumably, around.
i wish it was mine
NATE
