An Unreasonable Amount of Pilots: A KiriBaku Story

Chapter 12

<  CW - self harm, panic attack, depression, anxiety, all that shit >

My breaths come in ragged gasps and I frantically fling myself up into a sitting position in bed, tears streaming down my face.

It happened again. I had another dream like the one I had of mom's body lying in a bathtub, her pale wrists slit like Eijiro said Hikari's were, but when I looked closer this time it was... me instead. The bath water was a deep red with my blood, and my blond hair was matted and damp from the rusty water spilling off of the side of the tub. My eyes were open and glazed white, the color of spoiled milk, and when I looked down at myself standing in the doorway I saw nothing there but empty space and floorboards.

My hands are shaking and my throat feels tight, so tight I can't breathe as I find myself stumbling into the bathroom before I have time to think about what I'm doing, not wanting to think about what I'm doing, and looking around for Eiji's razors before I remember he hid them.

I release a muffled sob and slump to the cold tile ground, a choked, "Fuck!" tumbling out of my mouth at how badly I need the pain to pull me out of this. And at how badly I know I shouldn't.

I should've woken Eijiro up earlier, but my mind had been too consumed in the dream and I'm too shaky to stand up and go get him now. I drag my fingernails hard across the skin of my arms, but it feels like they're too short to give me any relief. My eyes are closed so tight I see flashes of white. "F-fuck" I sob, pressing my fingers to my temples to try and stop the onslaught of emotions crashing through me, filling up my body and bursting out like too much water poured into a fractured glass.

I start to scream into the encompassing silence, the raw sound tearing at my throat as I choke on my tears, and distantly hear a muffled bang come from the hallway. The feeling of arms wrapping around me registers faintly as I rock back and forth on the floor, breath coming in quick, sharp pants. My reality feels fractured, like pieces missing from a broken mirror, and I find myself dissociating. My body feels numb.

"KATSUKI!" The sound seems like I'm hearing it through water, diluted and faint. "KAT!" It seems to be focusing more now, and I feel like it's pulling me up. "KATS, KATS CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" I struggle to open my eyes, lashes thick with the weight of my tears, to see Eijiro's distressed face in front of mine. "WHAT'S WRONG KAT?!" His arms are on either side of my face; my throat feels ragged and I realize that I've been screaming for the past five minutes. My screams turn to sobs as I feel something warm running down my arms, and realize my fingernails, despite being short, have managed to tear into my skin and make bloody scratches that are seeping blood down my biceps and onto the white tile floor.

I weakly reach for Eijiro, who immediately pulls me against him so I can sob into his shirt. He's warm, I notice distantly. I can feel his breathing get slower as his adrenaline fades.

"Kats, shhh, Kats it's gonna be ok I promise, It's gonna be fine Kats, listen to me everything's going to be ok." He murmurs against my hair repeatedly; I can feel the sway as he rocks me back and forth a little. Sobs are still ripping out of my throat alongside hiccups and strangled breaths as I try to calm down, crushing myself against Eijiro.

"E-Eiji" I whisper, and I feel him shift a little to grab a towel. He presses it against my arms, some of the blood already having dripped onto his shirt, and soothes me by continuing to whisper words of comfort and encouragement into my ear as he discreetly tries to clean up my arms. I focus on my breath and try to real back in the raw panic that was coursing through me only a minute ago, the fractured shards of my dream that were flashing behind my eyes growing less intense as I start to block them out.