Echoes|| König x Reader x Ghost

28: Through Heaven to the Void

The cold hair hits my teary face hard; it knocks the air right out of my lungs. My composure! My price composure was gone with the howling wind. The winds clawed at my face and hair tangling it into a Gordian knot of pain and discomfort. I rip my gloves off the fabric crawling on my skin leaving slimy lingering touches.

My hands grip the thick bark digging my nails into its subtle flesh. Small shrapnel dug into the bed of my nail bed as I claw frantically up the tree. my foot slips and I slide down. Thin splinters entered my nail bed but that didn't matter. I have to get away!

I have to get away! Have to!

I climb to the highest rank a few hundred feet off the ground, I let out a heavy sigh and stand at the top of the world looking down at the blackness beneath it was nothing but a void. It's going to eat me!

I continue to climb to the light in the sky! I got to the very top the branches swayed and creaked under my weight. I let out the biggest gasps and took in a breath of unending freedom. The cold air stung my lungs, and I knew I was alive!

I let out a shaky cry and brought my hands together forming a silent prayer to the brightest star out there! Do not doom me! I am not Icarus! I did not fly too close to the sun! I raise my hair trying to catch the last strands of light, it only licked the tip of my fingers and slipped away, abandoning me to the void of this greedy forest. I fell down onto a bigger branch and sat there.

I let out a shaky sob. I looked down at my fingers in the remaining light I saw disasters. My fingers were ruined... Everything is ruined... My life is ruined. I ruined my life! Please God spare me this fate! Please anyone here me I don't want to fail!

I cannot fail! The world is counting on me... me!

Tears roll down my face carving a path through my skin, this fear this indescribable fear! This dread, hung in my chest making a puppet out of me. I felt control slip through my numb fingers. The cold winds nip at the tips and the pain only grew with the cold.

I cry out loudly letting the winds carry away my wails into the night. My cries sounded like the jeers of the wild hunt tearing through the forest and fields. My hands shake my mind sunk into a bottomless pit of darkness. I look down... where those my hands?

What's going on? Who am I? Where am I? My cries grow louder and louder. What is this? Please Help!

Somebody helps!

I can hear someone breathing loudly it's labored and panic... Is this reality? Am I awake? No, I'm losing it! The hands fall down and onto a handle. I pull at it and look down. The hand... is that my hand? It doesn't look like my hand... What is that?

A knife.

I look down a little more. A leg... It's not my leg... My leg is bigger than that. Below me was the mass of darkness. I jerk— I... falling.

Where am I...

Get a grip.

The hand tightens on the knife and slams it into the thigh. The pain blooms like a flower. It's like I could see the neuropathway to the brain.

My finger twitched to life, and I let out a scream. Not from pain but the pressure in my chest. My sobs only grew louder and louder until I was screaming the pain away. I can't tell what hurt more... My leg or my heart.

This crippling dread ate me up from the inside out. Like a claw, it ripped my soul to shreds.

I can't fail...

I'm not a failure...

Am I?

I.... Charlie said I'm not a failure!

I...

I...

I.

Am I a failure?

The world is counting on me! Me! I have... I have to do something! Dayton! Why... This is supposed to be an easy mission! No one is supposed to die! Please! I can save you— I can save them! All of them!

Why now? Why!

Why was I let go?

I grip my head my mind swirling into the void of the forest. My breath labored become ragged and disordered into the madness of my mind. I let out a shrill laughter before my throat began to collapse and spasm.

I can't fail not yet!

I broke down in a wail my fingers go numb! my arms and my legs. The pain fades into an itching numbness that bites at my limbs. The knife slips from my hand and falls all the way down.

I bring my hands together, they're cold like rocks and clunk together like ones too. In the haze of the night, the moon was bright and shone a spotlight on me. Pointing me out for the world to see and judge.

My fingernails look horrendous. I begin to pick at it trying to straighten it out. I needed them to be straightened out! This is a mess! Everything is a mess!

I'm dirty!

My nails are dirty!

God someone stop this!

I cry harder and harder. My body convulsed and as my breath tumbled around in my mouth and teased me. I could not breathe— My lungs were filling with carbon dioxide, and I could not purge it from them. It hung like a death fog, low and poisonous.

Dayton forgives me! I won't fail this time! Please! please! One more chance one more chance! I should have used my gun! did something anything!

I'm a freak a strange circus freak! Who laughs? Only a person as deranged as the Joker! I'm a weird freak of nature! An autistic weirdo!

"Hey!" I flinch and turn to see Charlie looking at me face inches away. "Geez you look like shit!" He grumbles scratching his head and climbing a bit more.

"Cha-Cha-Charlie?" I gasp out with some trouble my rapid breathing making me stutter my words.

"Yeah, that's me," He sighs his tone annoyed and a little pissed off, "Move let me sit." I shuffle away. As I lift my left thigh the pain flares up shooting fire through my veins. I shuffle over and enough for Charlie to sit down.

He let out a long sigh before wrapping an arm around me, "It will be ok."