A silent quake.
In the depths of ache, I withered.
A migraine pulses through my skull, clattering through my bones with a voltaic hammer until it crashes into a raw nerve, stuttering my heart. I hold my breath, my throat heavy as I reel myself in for the vibrations.
“Elaine, please come here,” Swish breathes from under the table. He extends his hand out, his eyes darting from the shattering ceiling to me, full of affection and worry.
I stared at him, my knees buckling, unable to move. My toes curl as I feel the ground burn with fractured fissures, searing my flesh. I barely flinched at the pain, my mouth dry as I tried to speak.
A feverish flare ignites against my skin, singing my head with a reminisce of the old skin that I shed, of the dark thoughts that plagued me when I wasn’t careful to bury my demons in the soil under the trees.
I flopped against the wall, gasping as I tried to find the feeling back in my frail legs. The feeble feeling buzzed through my muscles, slipping away from me as a faint puncture of pins stole my strength.
There were no sirens.
No warnings of this sudden release of a natural disaster.
Swish turns his head to the side, glancing at me, his lips pressed into a thin line. I could feel my thoughts running ragged in my brain, forcing me to submit to the tension but I shoved it hard down my throat, straightening my spine as I found the strength to smile and etched an inch closer to him.
I wheezed.
“I am nothing without him,” A voice stammers. “I will shrivel up and decompose on the same chiseled chains where he left me,”
“Yes,” I floundered, lying through my teeth.
The ground continues to quiver and crack beneath me and I duck as my ceiling fan falls in front of me, covering my head and neck with my arms. Whispers swirl from the space, latching onto the burnt crisps of my anger and pummeling into me.
I can’t stop the noise and I scream as it takes hold. An eccentric thundering shrill shrieks, gentle and rich as it drills through my ears. I fall to my knees, blinking back tears.
“Elaine!” He shouts, the tenderness in his voice gone. It was a command now, one that whipped and lashed at my skin.
“I can’t,” I choke out, my limbs trembling.
When I try to stand the force of the quakes, it causes me to lose my balance and headplant into what’s left of the carpet.
They say happiness is a choice but how can you choose when the fates decide?
The first wave was a guttural shiver, a chip in the grime. It rippled, fluttering between my held breaths as it unnerved my veins, clanging the walls in the apartment together, leaving shards of fists and blood and bruises and dust in its wake.
I’m grateful to be on the ground as the chaos falls on me. Swish somersault onto the floor, blocking my body from the debris, and I am shocked by his heroics. My arms find themselves slipping around his waist and I grip hard, pressing my cheek against him.
I could feel his heart, a steady strong pulse opposite from mine that is erratic and seeping crimson against the fabric of my shirt. He feels so good against me and I forgot for a moment that everything came crashing down when I confronted him, reeled along the shipwreck of his lies, and demanded that he fight for me, that he stop swimming around the edges and take me for what I needed.
“It’s killing me,” I whispered, my throat grazed, the words stagnant. “That’s a sliver of doubt, the split of an aftershock rupturing between us,”
We couldn’t survive it, the ship of disposition, the sneer of my parents, the bruising of my tender heart.
I looked at him hopefully, biting my lip. He stared at me, his lips pressed into a thin line, his eyebrows creased into a furious frown. I sucked in a breath, my heart skidding as the ground beneath me slipped from my grasp.
His cheeks blistered red and I shrank against the floor, pulling my knees to my chest, instantly regretting the words that had tumbled from my mouth.
“What do you mean?” He snapped.
Each inhale was a shard of glass, the lump in my throat was sharply violent, tangled in a snarl. “Forget it,” I said in between gasps. “Just leave me here. You’ll eventually disappear from my life anyway,”
Swish smiled faintly, pressed down the creases on his black pants, and hung his shoulders in defeat. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he says, “You need to just take one step towards me. You can’t breathe in everything all at once and not expect your chest to hurt. Just look at me. Focus on me,”
“I am,” I squeaked.
You’re all I think about.
Swish reaches for me again, somehow getting past the chaos, and his hand slips into mine. Then this monster emerged from the floorboards, its teeth sharp, jagged, and vicious. Its skin was clear, its eyes milky white.
“We need to go,” Swish said, his voice dangerously rising. “Now!” He barks, slipping his shoes on and wrapping my brown leather jacket around my shoulders. “Grab your bag and move,” He says gruffly.
I blink, my skin sticking to my bones, my cells feeling icy cold. I couldn’t move, my limbs feeling cuttingly arctic as I tried to brace the prickling ache that stitched through my shoulders.
Swish nudges me gently and my fingers snap towed my bag squished under the regent as if a broken coffee table. I don’t bother looking for my phone, stumbling on my feet as I head towards the door.
“Wait,” I say hastily, the ground splitting beneath me.
Swish groans, running his hands across his face. “What is it now?”
I swallowed. “What if it’s worse outside?” I just kept spinning as my lungs kept expanding.
The seismic waves heaved as they continued to crack and jolt. I could feel the monster’s claws latching onto my skin, sinking in deep and I yelped from the pain as it continued to cut into me. I was exhausted and my tiredness leaked into my veins, dragging me down to the ground and creasing my furrowed heart.
A gaping screech extracted my jaw, causing a clot and there were no sutures in my reach to repair the damage. You have overstayed your welcome, is what I want to say to the beast but like all my intentions, it gets lost in my throat, buried deep inside me.
The ground tugged with a whimper like the fractures in my ribs, the sky simmering red, as black dust trickled down. Walls strained against the force, a hyperkinetic explosion edging into release. The air cleaved and I found myself gasping again.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t make it. We wouldn’t make it.
I clutched my chest, my eyes darting against the wrinkling tarmac, all wood turned into a puff of ash. The beast pressed against my back, and caressed close, purring its lips to my ear.
“Elaine,” Swish snapped, irritation curling his lips into a vicious snarl. His hardened calloused hands gripped my shoulders and he forced me to look at him, my head snapping and I tried not to whimper as a sharp flash of pain sliced through the side of my neck. His warm eyes searched my face and I almost believed for a second that he cared about me, that his yearning, the begging that trembled in his lips were for me.
But he has only ever looked out for himself.
“Breathe,” he says, just as I watch two chalky, pearl-white eyes, suspending in midair, levitating closer near me as they blink, the simmer of a growl evident in the sharp crooked teeth, they bared, the color of bleached bones. I flinched backing into Swish.
The two bulging pupils stayed there blinking at me. It smiled, flickering like a blistering freeze enveloped in darkness. I could see the stain of blood on its jagged fangs. Its smirk oscillated, pulsating against my veins and it split and I screamed.
The monster was concealed, a ghostly clear mask, its muscled limbs chiseling air. I was still screaming, my lungs tearing and I slipped into a panic and it pounced on me, its milky eyes glittering and burning with famine. Dust and particles swirled around it and I clawed at Swish’s arm to save me but the ground beneath my feet ruptured and I fell into the crack, hitting my head hard against the gravel.
I could feel its invisible weight on my chest, stomping, its grin snapping at my face.
A rip in my ribs, a gnash in the air, my head lacerated by its claws. The pain gave fresh fuel to my screech.
It veiled my twitching daze.
I inhaled a staggered breath, my throat a cluster of perfecting shards.
“Who are you?” I whispered, my body begging for this torment to stop.
It raised its eyes in alarm “You don’t know?” It roared. “I am every negative thought, every poisoned feeling you have ever let infiltrate your skin. I am here because of you,”
THE END.