Hunter TOH x Reader Oneshots!

7: Just A Nightmare

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Suggested by: d0oPiNkLe_

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Synopsis

Hunter was dead. The nightmare of the past still clung to you like a ghost, and as you wake, you finally realize that you were safe.

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The air was thick—choking, almost. 

Each breath burned in your chest as you knelt beside Hunter's motionless body. The swamp clung to your skin, cold and damp, making everything heavy and slow. 

Behind you, the lake rippled in the darkness, while the battle raged on, the crack of spells and desperate shouts of your friends echoing in the wind.

Above, twisted trees loomed, their gnarled branches swaying like they too were caught in the madness. The smell of decay hung in the air—mud, rot, and something sickly sweet. 

And all around, the cold pressed in, biting at your skin, your clothes drenched and sticking to your body, the damp earth beneath you swallowing your knees as you pressed harder into Hunter's chest.

"Hunter," you gasped, your voice barely a whisper, swallowed by the sounds of battle. "Hunter, please, don't do this. Not you, not now..."

Your hands shook violently, pressing down against his chest, feeling the unyielding stillness beneath your palms. His skin pale, far too pale, and Flapjack—Titans, Flapjack—was lying there, broken and lifeless beside him. 

The sight twisted something inside of you, snapped whatever fragile thread was keeping you together. It was wrong. All of it was so wrong.

Hunter wasn't supposed to be dead. He wasn't supposed to have jumped. 

He wasn't supposed to have given up like that, dragging Belos into the water with him, as if throwing his life away meant nothing. As if his own survival didn't matter. As if you didn't matter.

You pressed on his chest over and over again. 

One...

Two...

Please breathe...

The pressure in your chest grew unbearable, like a fist squeezing around your heart, tighter and tighter, until you couldn't breathe. 

You could hear the distant cries of your friends, but they were muffled, like you were underwater. You couldn't focus on anything but the crushing weight in your lungs.

Breathe... Please...

The world spun—your vision blurring, colors melting together in a dizzying swirl. The ground beneath you felt like it was tilting, pulling you down into the mud, dragging you under. 

You couldn't breathe—couldn't think. Your pulse pounded in your ears, drowning out everything else. The weight of it all was too much, the grief, the fear, the unbearable helplessness—it was swallowing you whole.

But you had to keep going. You had to keep going.

Your fingers dug into Hunter's cold, soaked shirt as you pressed harder, desperate, frantic. The motion was automatic now, your body moving on instinct even as your mind spiraled out of control.