Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

35: get ready to get rekt (this is the final part)

He isn't awake.

He isn't asleep, either.

He isn't sure if he's breathing; he isn't sure if he's living.

He's just sure of the shades of autumn around him.

Of the fuzzy nature of the world: out of focus, not quite real - and he suspected that it wasn't, but he couldn't find the means to care, or even respond to such a thing.

He found himself seeming to fall apart and drift, as if his body was compromised entirely of gas as opposed to solid matter, as he found nothing inherently composed or real about himself anymore: simply shifting and changing with every movement- not a step, not walking, just moving.

Moving through the world that slowly faded into something recognisable: a certain street, a certain street that Frank owed everything to, and yet nothing. The very street he'd grown up upon, and the very street everything had fallen apart upon.

And then his vision blurred: faded, and he wasn't there anymore.

A front garden. His front garden. Once his. No one's now.

An empty house, that once they'd all lived together in, and then just him and his father, and then just his father. And then none of them at all.

The house appeared empty, and the door began to creak upon in invitation of sorts to Frank, who found himself with little choice as to whether he wanted to go inside or not.

The door closed behind him, and the first thing Frank really took note of was just how dark it was: a never ending, omnipresent kind of hopeless darkness, that seemed to dictate the room, and indeed the whole world: claiming everything it fell upon, and ridding the room of safety and comfort, and everything once known.

Because darkness was foreign, and darkness was impenetrable, and darkness was not something he trusted, but something that he didn't' have much choice in trusting or not at all.

And then, the alternative.

And perhaps the alternative was worse.

Because the bright light was too bright indeed, with no obvious source and intent upon illuminating the entire room, and bringing light upon what should have remained in the shadows, and the scene before him did indeed appear as if a drawing of some sorts, devoid of shadows, uncanny, not quite real, but making a damn good shot at appearing so.

And then suddenly, he was elsewhere.

White room: white walls, voices he didn't recognise, and a different feeling to his existence, as if he was wearing someone else's skin, perhaps, not that such a thing could be possible, not that possibility held much worth anymore.

Not that anything held much worth anymore in this odd kind of not real state, because the thing was, Frank wasn't really conscious of anything at all, because this was perhaps closer to a dream than anything else: a concoction, his own head's doing, but before him a scene he didn't recognise and couldn't place.

White walls, and shouting, yelling, and daffodils: a certain kind of spring scene, and then nothing at all: darkness, the same darkness, and then breathing.

Not his own. He couldn't breathe anymore; he found himself oddly aware and unquestioning of such a fact.

It was someone else breathing.

Perhaps that was simply a far more pressing matter.

"You're back."

The voice was more pressing, still.