𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

80. leaky taps and fucked up footnotes.

E I G H T Y
leaky taps and fucked up footnotes.

Gunshots are one of those noises that I don't think I'll ever get used to. Every single time it sends a jolt of terror through my body that fries every nerve and sets off raging alarm bells that scream in every corner of my head.

You'd think with all the gunshots I've heard recently, I'd get a little used to it, but you'd be wrong.

My body jumps as the painfully loud noise sounds through the jungle, no doubt being heard miles away. The birds that happily sat in trees take flight to escape the threat. I wish I could just fly away; my life would be a hell of a lot easier if I could. So many stupid issues would be solved if I could simply pop out some wings and peace out, shouting a 'brb' and flying into the sunset. It'd probably end up similarly to Icarus, plunging to my death after the wax in my shitty wings melts.

Sounds about right.

The sound reverberates in my head, knocking about, hitting all the nooks and crannies of my skull. Scrambling it up like an egg.

There's a long second between the impossibly loud noise the bullet makes as it flies out of the gun, until my body processes what just happened.

There's a beautiful second where I don't feel a thing. Not scared or in pain. My body forgets the big blisters burning the back of my feet, and how my head thumps painfully from dehydration and the humid heat. I forget that I'm in a jungle thousands of miles away from my Mum, and the terrifying fact that there are a bunch of mad men who want nothing more than our heads on sticks. A second where the stress of my dad dying is forgotten. There's a second where I don't hear anything but the ringing in my ears from the bullets flying close to me and the sound of my heart hammering in my head. There's a second where I don't truly see anything, my eyes are open and look, but my brain doesn't do anything with the information they provide. I forget everything. Not even my mind works; it's completely blank, empty of any real thoughts. There isn't even a shred of worry or self-preservation.

There's one, blissful second. One I wish could stretch on forever. I want to live in this second.

But good things come to an end. And the second ends, and a new one begins; this one is the exact opposite. There's nothing beautiful or blissful, I want nothing more than to turn the clock back. Because I'm feeling things again.

The instant that second ends, all the oxygen floating around in my body goes missing. My heart stops beating, and my lungs freeze, trapping the breath inside. Everything stops. The world grinds to an abrupt stop.

It hits me all at once. I go from not feeling anything, having a tiny beautiful moment of peace, a break in the waves that constantly pummel me, to feeling the weight of everything fall back on top of me. That break in the waves was just the water being pulled away, preparing for a tsunami. It feels unbearable. A pain like I didn't even think was possible makes itself known in my stomach. It comes out of nowhere. The lungful of air that was trapped in my lungs leaves in a pained choke. I doubt anyone else can hear it, it's so quiet, so gentle despite the violence which surrounds me.

The pain in my stomach isn't a pain you scream and cry from, it's a pain so deep you go silent.

It starts off isolated, in one tiny portion of my stomach, but as my heart beats erratically, it slowly spreads. Branching out, leaking through my veins like a venom would.

My entire body kicks into overdrive, a far cry from the blissful nothingness I would give anything to go back to. Something is wrong, so very, very wrong.

I still can't hear anything, just the ringing in my ears and my heart beating in my head.

My face drops down to look at where the pain started, and my hands move in tandem toward the issue out of pure reflex. It's a reaction I'm not in control of; my survival instinct needs to find the problem to figure out how to fix it. My eyes and hands meet the fabric of my thin shirt. I can see it, I've found the issue, and when my fingers touch it, I can feel it. Blood. A small hole in the cheap fabric of my shirt. The source from which the pain radiates.