Broken Wings ➳Gally{2}

Hold On

I should be dead right?
Like that's a given?

Who's shucking bringing me back to life?

Everything felt distant and weightless, as though I floated somewhere between memory and nothingness. There was no pain—just a heavy, aching emptiness where my body should have been. I waited for whatever came next: darkness, silence...even an end.

Maybe some freedom.

But I felt it tugging back, I felt the warmth.
And then, it all rushed so quick.
The pain.

White-hot and all-consuming, as though fire itself had been buried in my stomach. The world slammed back into focus in a rush of blurred shapes and harsh smells: blood, sweat, and the bitter sting of herbs.

The rawest scream ripping from my lungs from utter pain. The sound that just escaped me didn't even register it came from me until I realise it.

"It hurts! Stop!"

My hands fisting through the air before falling to the rough straw bed beneath my body as my vision clouds with shapes.

"Stop! Stop!"
What are they doing!
Why does it hurt so much!

The hazy visions fades as I watch the knife swiftly moved.
Knife! Oh my god!
There's a knife in me!
A knife!

"Holy shuck!"
A knife?!
Someone take it out then!

"Ohmygod s-stop!"
I felt the pain from my throat as the screeches left my lungs shaking my head violently to get the pain to end!

"Hey! Hey-look at me, it's okay, you're safe!"

His voice cut through the haze, shaking and desperate. I turned my head, vision swimming, and saw him there.

He grasps ahold of my hand as he crouched over me sweat dripping down his forehead.
His other hands wavers over me afraid he's going to hurt me more.

And I snap my head back to the unknown people sticking tools in me like their life's had no other meaning.

"Gally! Gally stop! It hurts!"
My throat hurts from screaming.
Just stop! Please let me go back to no pain!

"Breathe bird, please baby, just breathe."
He pleads with his voice cracking as he grasps my hand further.

The pain crashed over me again, sharper this time as something pressed against the wound — hands trying to stop the bleeding, or stitch it closed.

I continue to sob from the torture but more from the overwhelming confusion.
I thought I was dying!
I want to go back to the dark, where no pain was able to reach me.

But his voice wouldn't let me go. Rough and panicked, yet somehow steady beneath it all. "Stay with me. Please, just hold on. You're gonna be okay."

What are they doing!
Tell them to stop!

"Please! Please stop! Let me bleed it hurts-"

"Hey! Hey I've got you-bird just hold on."

I couldn't see where I was, or what they were doing to me, but I felt him.

Felt the tremor in his grip, the raw fear in his voice and the stubborn, unbreakable hope, as if he was willing me to live by sheer force.

But it's Gally, I was easily convinced by anything he had me in.

Somewhere in that blur of agony and panic, my screaming softened to sobs, my fingers curling weakly around his.

"Gally it hurts."
My weak cries just cause more tears emoting from his sockets as he strokes my hair sweat beading from his forehead.

"I know, I know bird just hold on okay."
He nods along trying to keep my distracted as he grasps my face to only let my eyes view his.

I'll hold on for him.
And even though the pain still burned through every breath, the feel of his hand anchoring mine kept me tethered to the world I thought I'd already left behind.

But I knew that death wasn't the freedom I craved, and it wasn't this world either.
It was just him.

If he said I was okay, then I put all my hope in him then that's what I'd do.

But the pain was too much. Each breath felt sharper than the last, like my lungs were tearing apart from the inside.

Through the haze, I heard his voice, raw and shaking: "You're okay, stay with me-please." His hand gripped mine so tightly it hurt, but even that pain felt distant now, like it belonged to someone else.

"Hey! H-hey she's slipping! What's happening?" he shouted, his voice cracking with fear.

The people leaning over me didn't answer him. Rough voices spoke words I couldn't understand, hands moving faster, pressing harder.

"Tell me what's wrong!" he yelled again, louder, ragged with desperation. "Do something!"

I wanted to look at him, to see his face clearly one last time, but my eyelids were too heavy. My chest felt hollow, like something inside me was breaking apart and drifting away.

"Someone get him out."
The operating voice speaks back and it's like someone acts instantly when I realise how farther away he was

His voice grew fainter, tangled with the pounding in my ears. "Don't you dare leave me! Don't you dare bird!"

I'm not. I'm not going to leave.
I don't want to leave you, I swear.