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Mar. 3rd, 2004 06:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyThis is a little snippet written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maeglinyedi's worst nightmare challenge. There are a couple of mine in here.
He knows there are other people here. He knows, but he can's see them- he can only hear them sometimes. He wonders if he's imaginging them, and then one will be dragged past, limbs trailing and pale, no more noise, no more torment for them, one less reminder that *he's* still alive.
He forgets sometimes that people can see him. He forgets because he lives so far inside his head that it's sometimes days before he remembers what it feels like to speak. Occasionally visitors are led past, looking cold and frightened and miserable but they can look at him and remember that they don't have it worst. And their self-satisfaction flavoured with loathing for him is not something that the Dementors can steal, but it straightens their backs and quickens their steps a little, carrying them past his cell and out of sight, out of reality.
And then, after a while, another body is carried past. And the visitors are never around long enough to become familiar.
He doesn't know why he's still alive. He's not sure that he wants to be. Sometimes he thinks that he'll forget to breathe someday, and no one will ever remember to wonder why.
He dreams that the people they drag past aren't dead. That maybe they've just retreated into their heads, like him. He dreams that they come for him, one day, and he has forgotten how to answer, to respond to them. They take hold of him under the arms, and his limbs won't respond to the screaming inside his head that's desperate for them to move, trying to show a sign of life, but he realises that his mouth won't open. That he can't tell them to stop, can't show them he's alive because he has no breath. He's dead, and this is all there is. But there is the nagging feeling that he could reverse this, that there is still some hope for him if he could just remember how to do it, the knack to living.
They drag him outside. He is dumped on one side, unheeded, and he can hear them dig his grave, but his eyes won't move.
The sky is so blue.
Then they roll him in. And he still feels like he could change this, reverse this if he only concentrated a little harder. Life dances at the edge of his mind, just out of reach. The first shovelfuls of earth patter down, heavy on his chest and legs. He gropes for the thought, the knack, the memory of how to be a person. Dirt piles up around him, enough covering him now that he wouldn't be able to move his lower body, even if he *could*.
Then he has it, the memory, the *life*, and he takes his first breath just before the earth covers his face.
He wakes himself up because his body has forgotten to breathe.
maeglinyedi's worst nightmare challenge. There are a couple of mine in here.He knows there are other people here. He knows, but he can's see them- he can only hear them sometimes. He wonders if he's imaginging them, and then one will be dragged past, limbs trailing and pale, no more noise, no more torment for them, one less reminder that *he's* still alive.
He forgets sometimes that people can see him. He forgets because he lives so far inside his head that it's sometimes days before he remembers what it feels like to speak. Occasionally visitors are led past, looking cold and frightened and miserable but they can look at him and remember that they don't have it worst. And their self-satisfaction flavoured with loathing for him is not something that the Dementors can steal, but it straightens their backs and quickens their steps a little, carrying them past his cell and out of sight, out of reality.
And then, after a while, another body is carried past. And the visitors are never around long enough to become familiar.
He doesn't know why he's still alive. He's not sure that he wants to be. Sometimes he thinks that he'll forget to breathe someday, and no one will ever remember to wonder why.
He dreams that the people they drag past aren't dead. That maybe they've just retreated into their heads, like him. He dreams that they come for him, one day, and he has forgotten how to answer, to respond to them. They take hold of him under the arms, and his limbs won't respond to the screaming inside his head that's desperate for them to move, trying to show a sign of life, but he realises that his mouth won't open. That he can't tell them to stop, can't show them he's alive because he has no breath. He's dead, and this is all there is. But there is the nagging feeling that he could reverse this, that there is still some hope for him if he could just remember how to do it, the knack to living.
They drag him outside. He is dumped on one side, unheeded, and he can hear them dig his grave, but his eyes won't move.
The sky is so blue.
Then they roll him in. And he still feels like he could change this, reverse this if he only concentrated a little harder. Life dances at the edge of his mind, just out of reach. The first shovelfuls of earth patter down, heavy on his chest and legs. He gropes for the thought, the knack, the memory of how to be a person. Dirt piles up around him, enough covering him now that he wouldn't be able to move his lower body, even if he *could*.
Then he has it, the memory, the *life*, and he takes his first breath just before the earth covers his face.
He wakes himself up because his body has forgotten to breathe.
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Date: 2004-03-03 12:51 am (UTC)That's real vivid and I can almost feel it. And it is so intense and actually, re-reading, scares the bejeezus out of me as well. Very well done!
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Date: 2004-03-03 12:52 am (UTC)It scares me too, obviously. I once woke myself up because I wasn't breathing- not a good thing. :D
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Date: 2004-03-03 12:53 am (UTC)I'm bored, you're cool. Hi!
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Date: 2004-03-03 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 12:58 am (UTC)(It helps t hat you seem to love Jhonen as much as I do...)
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Date: 2004-03-03 01:11 am (UTC)*g*
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Date: 2004-03-03 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 01:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-03 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-04 02:41 am (UTC)I'd hate to be buried alive, and struggle with suffocation... It's desperate like drowning, or burning alive... Those would be scary deaths... at least that's what I think ^^
I loved the way you ended it.
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Date: 2004-03-06 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 02:28 am (UTC)one less reminder that *he's* still alive.
Because, yes. I love the pace of the story, because you can really feel him sinking deeper and deeper, and then there's the ironic ending. Thanks for sharing!