one breath at a time
“Louis, I know it’s hard, but I need you to focus and tell me exactly what happened, ok?”
Louis is shaking uncontrollably, his hands, his heart, his mind, nothing is stable, nothing is ok. He feels untethered, boundless in time, yet paradoxically his entire life is torturously bound to this very moment. Absolutely nothing he tells his mind serves to calm his racing thoughts, he commands his body to move and his body betrays him, commands lips to speak, but no words form. All Louis can do is blindly stare at the sickeningly heavy blood coating his arms, dripping to his trembling fingers. Tears ceaselessly pour down his cheeks despite how hard he squeezes his eyes shut, trying desperately to calm himself enough to utter a sound. And he can’t breathe, despite all of his failed efforts to catch his wandering breath and gasp a much-needed lungful of oxygen, his diaphragm constricts furtherstill, suffocating him from the inside out.
breathe, breathe, breathe
Louis forces a sharp inhale that hurts as the breath expands his stilted lungs, god it hurts. Like stabbing his chest with a serrated knife, dragging the jagged blade through his heart over and over and over again until there is nothing left.