Casualdejekyll

Jackson wiped his nose with his gloved hand and got back to work. Picking up 25ml of the water and dropping it into the tiny beaker. He grabbed the deionised water and cleaned up the end of the pH reader.

Jackson wiped his nose again. He placed the glass rod of the pH reader into the vial along with a thermometer. He tapped the desk and sniffled while he waited. 6.5, that was alright. He wrote that number down on his paper and moved on.

Jackson wiped his nose again. He moved over to the sink and dumped out the sample, swished some DI water around, and then filled it up with 25ml of the next water sample with a pipette.

Jackson wiped his nose again.

Fuck that stung.

He paused while holding the beaker and looked at his hand. Did he have some pH calibrator on his gloves? Didn't look like it... he sniffed his gloves to check and grimaced at the pain.

What on earth...?

He set down the beaker and took one glove off to wipe at his nose again. He sucked in a breath as the skin came in contact. A searing pain ran through his nose, and he blinked a few times from the pain, then realised he was blinking a lot in general. His eyes started to ache from behind his skull.

Jackson leaned against the counter and rubbed at his eyes slowly while breathing through his mouth. Disturbed tears smeared around his face from the movements of his hands, and he let out a small noise of discomfort as he realised breathing felt wrong. His chest heaved quicker, picking up pace.

When he let go of his eyes, they stung like all hell, and he leaned forward to the bench. Jackson squeezed his eyes shut. He took his gloved hand and reached for his throat. His heartbeat was in his ears, and another beeping noise was fading in and out of his ears, and he couldn't tell if it was his tinnitus or some alarm of a sort...

He whimpered in pain as he sucked in a breath and swivelled around quickly to see if he could see any flashing lights through his tear drenched sight.

There.

A red light flashed urgently above a gas cannister, and Jackson froze. His feet felt like they couldn't move, but he had to get out of the lab. His fingers squeezed on the bench with white knuckles until he tore his gaze from the light.

Formaldehyde.

The formaldehyde gas cannister was leaking.

He tried to swivel his feet to the door, but nothing worked. He pounded his hands on his thighs, cursing at himself to fucking move. Then, the rest of his body followed. He reached out a gloved hand to the door and swung it open with the little strength he had, trying desperately to gasp in some air. He fell against the wall outside the lab and made silent pleas to the air around him.

It burns.
It burns.
It burns.
It burns.

He tried to gasp in some air, but when the cold air hit his throat, he screamed. No sound came out.

Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his vision looked blurry. He couldn't see down the hall, and his fingers looked like some alienated objects. With shaky fingers, he threw off his safety glasses and dropped them on the floor next to him.

Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.

Jackson clutched at his chest, trying desperately to breathe. Just breathe. In and out. Breathe. But it wasn't working. His head leaned back, and he looked to the roof, tears glazing over his vision and sending the colours into swirls.