Shattered Legacies: Book 1, Holo Change

💠Chapter 6: Sink...or Swim?💠

Panicked breathing filled the darkened room like smoke filling a burning house. And just like the fire born pollution, it was suffocating. His heart battering his ribs so hard he thought they might break, sending a shooting pain through his body he hoped nobody could hear. An irrational thought as they were much more likely to hear the books being dropped and tossed from the shelf by his franic searching. Thumbing the walls, hitting the floor, the bed that sat broken. Mattress torn open letting the springs show poking out with the bedding, much like the pillow he'd attempted to murder during his frenzy.

Eyes search, moving in crazed way as he backed away from the now empty bookshelf. "Nonononono..!" Sweat dripping from his face, and hands taking a firm grip of his now disheveled maroon hair damp at the scalp he was practically clawing. The pain from his grip keeping him just sane enough to remember to keep his voice down. "Where is it..?" Speaking to himself harshly through the gasps of air. "Where is it..?!" Bitten harshly, as if his teeth were the hands of a man clinging to a ledge for his life. The very same ledge Noah now found himself staring down from. Edge crumbling.

The results of his efforts, the broken room around him, coming into clear view despite the cloak of night as he looked around."It has to be here!' He swung his head from left to right. Catching glimpses of the books, some now torn from where he threw them. The desk, drawers open with contents spilled. A sight that brought with it a thought striking him as horrifying. Soul crushing. One that out of self defense, he rejected immediately. "It has to..!" His voice awash in exhausted rage from his searching, the kind of frustration that burns through you over and over. Taking hold tighter with every breath. Decorated with delusion, as if insanity was the sprinkles atop a birthday cake. Hs legs and arms shook, violent vibrations from his bones. "It just.." The air feeling thick and festering, worsening his body's convulsions from heaving. As if his lungs were rejecting the oxygen. His nails dug in, scraping his scalp and twisting the hair tighter between his fingers. "It has to!" The weapon rack bushed and swords lying on the floor, the rug turned over at a corner, the nightstand on its side. He shuddered. Each pound from his chest a scream, a cry for him to cease his actions.

However, while his body was ready to give up, his mind would not let him rest. It ran like a runaway train. Speeding down the rails so fast sparks were starting small blazes. The beams that held up the roof of his sanity starting to crack and crumble. Ate away by the intanse flames consuming everything around him. Denying all logic.

He wouldn't believe it.. He couldn't believe it! It had to be here! The old man said it would be here! It had to be in here...Somewhere. Anywhere............

As his emotions fought between panic and anger, his lungs waging war against the very sustenance they needed, another feeling began to creep in. Desperation. A hopeless amethyst ooze dripping from the walls, slowly covered the grays he once recognize. The gray slabs he once sought shelter in. Adding to it the slimy layer thick and burning, fily as smog. It ran down and over the floor turning it into a sea of hopeless sludge. A swirling vortex fluttered up, devouring him without a moment to spare. Ripping away at his flesh, it pinned him down wrapping around his limbs. Leaving prints in his skin, squeezing until he felt faint. Vision blurring, chest radiating a deep overwhelming throb that pushed him. Clawing away at the heated prison that put in in their twisted little game, his hands ripped the fabric layer away. Tossing it off somewhere and letting a relief riddled sensation overtake his body. Like he'd just been given a moment with his head above water.

And with it his lungs began to loosen. Expanding a bit to replace the violent action with deeper harder bouts. The static slowing, thoughts still swirling. These gray walls. He hated them. The cold lifeless way they acted. Husks. Those husks. It was painful in every sense of the word. An ache from deep within. The only thing that kept him from toppling over and waiting to die. That one, tiny, almost invisible twinkle of hope. The thing his arms reached out for. Desperately trying to grab. His eyes were dry yet starting to water. Following the trail of his mindless destruction, scanning the room in a full circle. His mind now allowing slower, more rational thinking now that the shock had somewhat subsided.