Conundrum

Chapter 15

      His lungs flexed uselessly, the icy pinch he had become so used to replaced by a building pressure and dizziness that came with the lack of oxygen. The muscle was shriveling in his chest, unable to combat the thick liquid oozing down his throat.

      He gagged, further increasing the rising pressure, and involuntarily jerked his arms against the cuffs wrapped around his wrists. He felt whatever ooze she'd forced into him slip further down his throat, and he gagged again.

      There was nothing he could do against the force in his throat; he was left only with the small, jerky thrashes his broken body could handle. He was burning from the inside out, slowly flaking away until only desperation and blood remained.

      The wood of the chair scraped and agitated his skin, adding splinters to the morbid painting of ripped skin, crusting brown blood, and purple bruises. He barely noticed the new additions, his mind too clouded with the familiar acid of panic.

      He tried to swallow the liquid down, but it only coated his throat with the ooze. It glued his throat closed and stuck his tongue to his teeth, silencing him completely. And it seemed that the silence of the room spoke louder and bolder than he ever could. It was a deep-seated, powerful voice that poked and prodded until it was heard; he was a flower petal, drifting along with a breeze, and forgotten not a moment after he was seen.

      There seemed to be a lot of silence in his life now, but most of the time, he was too far gone to know it was there, watching him. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike and create a fear so deep, he felt like he'd never escape it.

      Now the silence's spear pierced his heart. Through all the other pain, there was a way to not feel, to not think, to not hope. He could breathe and breathe and scream until the pain became a dull throb in his skin, but now that it was an essence within his body, there was nothing he could do to quench it.

      It withered everything he'd come to know, and all he could do was watch it happen. There was a roaring buzz in his ears. He couldn't figure out if it his body betraying him once again or the aftereffect of her voice.

      It grew louder and louder until even through the blackness he was allowed to see, a truer, darker version creeped around the edges of his vision and tunneled in. Even the shackles restricting his movement couldn't stop the near unnatural arch of his back as he struggled to get away.

      He swallowed and gagged and swallowed again, desperately trying to stop the withering disease that spread from his lungs and into the heaviness of his limbs. And then there were fingers at the base of his jaw.

      He tried to jerk away, to get away from anything that could possibly hurt him further, but the hands held fast. He wanted to care that he couldn't do anything. He really did, but the liquid was still suffocating him, and the heaviness of his body continued to rise.

      The fingers drifted to the corner of his jaw and the curve of his throat and squeezed. And without the conscious movement, he swallowed. The fingers followed the movement of his throat and with a delicate pressure unfamiliar to him, helped squeeze the liquid down his throat.

      There was a moment in that process that his throat squeezed so harshly he believed he would die on the spot. But it was brief, and that moment was soon followed with the euphoria of air filling his lungs.

      The fear-inducing silence was then combated by his deep sobs of breath. It didn't win, and he hoped it never would.

      The roaring in his ears softened with each breath he took, easing away much like a tide. With the gradual fall of the fearful noise came the awareness of his hair plastered against his skull in sweat and the harsh burn in his throat. But as quickly that awareness came, it faded.