Pixelated (NaNo 2017)

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

Grayson awoke to smoke. It was so thick he couldn't see, and he was coughing the second he breathed it in. It permeated the room—which appeared to only be large enough to fit the bed he'd been strapped to.

The smoke was blue, and swirled as Grayson fought to hold his breath. He waited, halting his breathing until his face was red and fire burned in his lungs from the lack of oxygen. When he finally did give in, he found very little relief.

He sputtered, then sucked in a huge breath, only to breathe in the strange blue smoke. There was a moment's silence, then a booming cough. Grayson tried holding his breath once more, but he evidently didn't get enough oxygen in the smoke-clouded room, for it was only a few more seconds until he opened his mouth again and took another gaping breath of smoke.

At this point, the air had thinned ever-so-slightly—just enough to reveal the grey walls around the edges of the room. Grayson took another large breath in, sucking some of the blue smoke out of the air, but now he was coughing so hard his whole torso writhed as he did so.

With one more whooping cough and a large breath in that contorted Grayson's smooth skin, and had him fighting against the ties that held him to the bed, the smoke was nearly gone.

Grayson breathed faster and faster, and as he did so, the rest of the smoke was sucked up into his lungs, disappearing and leaving a clear air.

His eyes traveled to his hands, then his feet, and his eyes widened. He looked like he was going to make a move to try to unshackle himself, his torso leaning up, on the edge of a fight against the ties, but as he did so, his eyes rolled, his head swung back as if his neck muscles disappeared, and his body sunk into the bed.

There were a few moments of silence, and then the noise of Grayson's faulty, frailed breathing filled the air as he slipped into unconsciousness.

++++

The next time Grayson awoke, thinking was like wading through a swamp. His thoughts were jumbled and incoherent; fragmented, and when he opened his eyes, everything looked hazy and his vision swam.

He clenched his fists, a deep ache rifling through his abdomen, as if someone was stabbing it repeatedly. Vaguely, he was aware of a pressure in his ankle, and when he looked down to see, all he could make out was a blurry object near his leg. He clenched his teeth, the pain in his stomach doubling in force. He felt like he'd been clobbered over the fresh injuries. Grayson threw his head back, every inch of him burning and breaking. This was nothing like what he'd felt the first time he'd been transported. It was more whole.

Grayson didn't know it, but his body was coated in sweat, his shirt stuck to his torso because of how much of it there was. If one had walked into the room, they would have believed buckets of water had been dumped on him. He was screaming, the sound echoing of the walls and bouncing; as trapped as he was in the agony that enveloped him, but he didn't even know he was screaming.

It was just his body begging the universe to stop whatever terrible pain he was in.

++++

darkness

illuminated by nothing but a hurricane sweeping through, bringing with it bolts of lighting.

fibers

bending and breaking, snapping like twigs

            and fraying; burning out. then changing, like the days when summer bled into fall, things were shifting, graying or illuminating, growing frigid then warm.