𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐜'𝐬 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐤 | dazai osamu

v. losing it all in the face of being alive.

"No! No no no no no NO!"

Your eyes weakly fluttered open. 

Was that your blood, sweat, or tears blurring your vision?

It was so warm—too warm—your breath burned in your throat, head lolling to the kind chest swathed in cold fabrics.

You had been sleeping. What was it that woke you up?

Was it the sun-red puddle of blood that cushioned your head?

Was it the agonised wailings above you?

Was it your own grief?

Then, what was it that you were grieving over?

You had to admit—your chest hurt; but was that because of the bullet, the over-exertion, or because of heartache? You want to say something, anything, to remove yourself from the impending hysteria in which silence reduces you to nothing but chokes and wails—but alas, only blood heeds to your hellish pleads.

"Wake up! WAKE UP, DAMN IT!" Ah, there was your hysteria—within the chaos that is the man before you, you clung onto his coat so something vaguely human existed in the entrapping tendrils of your bruised fingers. You could feel the heat emanate from his chest—like a moth to the light, you fall deeper into the soft flesh there. A heavy sigh whistles through your bloodied mouth.

It had been a dispute over territory at first before the fight had quickly unravelled into something out of your control—though you had revelled in the riot, the chaos, the bloodshed, a simple turn of the head allowed the silver bullet to plunge into your chest; and like a medieval werewolf, you were sent crumbling to the ground, jaw soaked with red, the amber streams of sunlight undulating over your curled figure.

You think you fell asleep in that brief moment when your mind had blanked out from the trauma—though, called back, blood rushed through your spasming arteries: Loyalty to the one who braves your darkness and calls your name out—patiently waiting for you to come back into his arms with your tar-black sins flooding his mouth from the rushed, frantic kisses.

You do come back. But in the form of a bloodied, limp sack of flesh. Dragging yourself across the planes of your depravity just to come home to his embrace.

You're dying. You're finally dying. What was once heaven, the Eden-red apple on the rustling tree, the fruit that you could never touch as it hopelessly hung, was heaven; what does man do when they hold heaven in their hands? When they sink their teeth into outer space, the holy flesh? Swallowing it down; does it kill you from the inside—the stone to Cronus; "Der Wolf und die sieben jungen Geißlein"?

Death is so warm.

"You can't die," His eyes smart with tears. Even the prospect of another loss makes him breathless, invisible hands crushing his diaphragm: Moulding it, fondling it, caressing it, before inevitably clawing it, as if loss was something intimate to his poor, battered soul. (It was, but it was not out of desire, but more so from unfortunate circumstances.) "You can't."

An amused chuckle. This darkens the crimson staining your neck. "I am."

"I—To follow these guys into death and without me...You're so dumb!" His eyes narrow. Something in his gaze loosens, stretches against the thin veil of maroon, threatening to spill over the lonely eye, the watery jelly that would melt in the burning flame of his anguish. Even this, burning this sight into the faithful darkness of his eyelids would not preserve the corpse—it passes through the pupil and still holds nothing, and in due time, the memory will transform into a piercing stab of monstrous pain, like a knife to a string. He knows—he is familiar with it, for the death of his friend had spoiled the violence that had once kept his flesh ripe; a metamorphosis that resulted in the death of the fruit fly, and now, the death of the hand that had once held him tenderly in the darkest of nights.