Tʜᴇ Pᴀᴛʜ Tᴏ Hɪɢʜɢᴀᴛᴇs

Sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ's Wʀᴏɴɢ

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 56

Your heels dragged lowly. Your head bowed— eyes unblinking and wide, your chest heavy and full, murky under the weight of your soul.

The hall was too cold. You had to physically stop yourself from shivering.

A part of your mind was screaming. Loud and clear and endless into the walls of soaring divisions that kept your freedom at bay— always in arm's length, yet somehow out of reach.

You were scared, cold, anxious, miserable— you were every horrible thing all at once. You felt like, if you didn't make it back to somewhere far from here, you could collapse on your knees. Begging, crying for something to strike you down.

You were sick of feeling like this.

You wanted to go back.

Back to when you and Reich smashed pumpkins together, back to when the most you had destroyed was a tin man, back to when you made the little society Reich cared so much about.

You wanted to go back to a time passed.

To when happiness was a commodity fervently blooming amongst the thorns of war. When life seemed like a moment— new every time it was shown. Not a loop that ran in circles around your head until it coiled and bit— headaches seemed more common than laughter now. Heartaches never ending in the chamber of your chest. Blood pumping to nowhere, yet somehow everywhere all at once.

You stopped dead in the corridor, turning and almost throwing yourself against the wall— fist first. Hitting it over and over and over again, your knuckles cracking as they smashed against the wall, your breathing fluctuating, your teeth chattering as the pressure forced them down onto your tongue.

You stopped. Palm against the wall, forehead following.

It was quiet now. You heard the screaming stop.

A breath filled your lungs, then stroked your face as it came out again, warming your cold skin.

Your hand ached. You could feel it pulsating, nodding up and down, like it was trying to catch a breath of its own.

You could hear footsteps now. But you made no attempt to move. It didn't matter anyway, you couldn't bring yourself to care, whoever it was would understand. Eventually, everyone in life hits rock bottom— it's only a matter of climbing out now. There was nowhere to go but up, they would understand that if they saw you like this.

"What in la God's namé aré you doeng?" A voice called from the other end of the hallway.

You didn't reply, you didn't have anything to say— there was nothing you could have said anyway, nothing that would make it better. You heard the person's voice drop. "Fleur? Aré you alrigh?"

You didn't want to worry him— you changed your mind on a dime. You didn't want him to see you like this. As quick as you could, you curled your hand in your sleeve, concealing what you had done, and drew your head from the wall, desperately thinking of something un-alarming to say. "Yep. I'm just uh, testing how thick the walls are?"

France smiled at you, his concern vanishing, like it was never there to begin with. "Are zey thik enough?" He asked, shuffling to knock his thumb against the wall, as if he was testing it himself. "By my calculations, yes, yes they are." You replied, putting on a smile that was too wide, your eyes never moving.

France noticed this— how the shine in your pupils was gone. How there was simply nothing behind your gaze— an empty vestigial that bled into its own rot, utterly desolate. "Sai, Britain, Russian Empiyaire and ai wairé goeng to 'ave a drink tonight, you should join in again." He offered, smiling warmly, trying to encourage a genuine smile back. "You waire fun last timé."