broodings

survival of the fittest

This was written for Chuck Wendig's weekly Flash Fiction Challenges, although it's half the minimum length he asked for. The prompt was simply a story based on one of ten different sentences. I used 'The first breath shattered her world, the second shattered her heart'

The first breath shattered her world, the second shattered her heart,
The third crushed her soul, the fourth every wall.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

He sat upright, his bright blue eyes rimmed with red,
His chest rising and falling, like a seesaw,
Up, down, breath in, breath out.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

Every time he breathed in,
She breathed out,
Because if she didn't he would die,
And even though she exhaled carbon dioxide,
He breathed it in,
Because he had adapted to survive,
Survival of the fittest,
Whilst she had stayed the same,
And she was going extinct.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

Because on this world of carbon dioxide and hydrogen,
She was the one with the disadvantage,
As CO2 and H had no use to her,
And they were all that were left on this ragged, exhausted planet,
Breath after breath after breath,
Using the planet's energy up.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

And the first breath shattered her world,
Because she breathed for him,
And when he breathed, he breathed for his life,
Not her,
Not her.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

And the second breath shattered her heart,
For as he breathed, as he lived,
He seemed to be saying,
Ha, now you're the one who's dying.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

And the third crushed her soul,
As he was breathing, waking, living,
Not giving a damn about her state of mind,
How she felt,
How much the lack of oxygen hurt.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

And the fourth crushed every wall she had in her mind,
For with the fourth,
He uttered,
I loved you, I'm sorry I let you down.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

But, because she overanalysed every syllable he said,
Of course she noticed the use of past tense,
As if he had once loved her,
And then, when she awoke him, when she let him fucking live,
That love just stopped,
For she had sacrificed herself for him,
And so, because of that sacrifice,
He thought it didn't matter how she felt,
Only that she sacrificed her life for him,
Only that she killed herself for him.
S h e  c o u l d  n o t  b r e a t h e .

And so,
Because of the lack of oxygen,
The lack of love,
Because she sacrificed herself to him,
She stopped breathing,
Just held her breath until her vision went black and even after that.
S h e  d i d  n o t  b r e a t h e  a n y m o r e .

- r.s.