Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 23: Eruption

Chapter Twenty-Three: Eruption

He was cold.

Everything within his body was still. His heart had fallen silent, yet he was still trapped within himself, and although he wasn't breathing, he could still feel. And what he felt was a heavy, cold sensation settling deep within his breast and slowly spreading outward. 

It crept through him, freezing him from the inside.

He couldn't move his arms or legs, couldn't speak, couldn't even breathe. 

Darkness stretched on beyond his closed eyelids.

This sensation was familiar.

Death.

Only this time, there was no gentle voice waiting for him.

His consciousness began to melt away into the darkness, but just before he completely faded, his heart thumped and a surge of foreign warmth entered his body, thawing the ice taking root deep within him. There was an unexpected flash behind his eyes, similar to a lightning strike.

The heat from it spread throughout his limbs, making his lungs quiver and itch violently.

His muscles jerked involuntarily.

Then the warmth faded, and the ice once again began to expand from his chest, but before it could even come close to overtaking him, another flash thumped against his heart, and a ringing sensation filled his mind, making his lungs start burning.

"Breathe!" a distant voice screeched. "Phil, BREATHE!"

Another flash made his silent heart thump once again. 

"Xaphile!" someone else shrieked in a muffled tone. "Xaphile, can you hear me?! OI! STOP IT! THIS ISN'T FUNNY!"

Yet another flash made his heart pulse... and then it kept going, faintly, an unsteady, palpitating throb that he could feel aching with every contraction.

"Is he gonna make it? The trees... they're dying!"

He knew that voice... he knew it like the back of his hand, although he didn't understand why it was so shrill... 

Gus.

His consciousness roused, as if he were surfacing from deep under water, but even as he convulsed, struggling to get air into his still lungs, he began to hear again. Began to realize that he wasn't breathing, that he couldn't feel, that something was wrong, and panic took him.

"BREATHE!" Amelia wailed, just as another flash lit up us eyes. "XAPHY, BREATHE!"

Xaphy.

The nickname shredded through him like a knife and roused an extreme coughing fit. Choking violently, he started hacking uncontrollably and spat something warm and congealed out of his lungs. He kept coughing, choking on the muck that came flying out of his mouth.

Then he took multiple ragged breaths.

The only thing he could control was his own breathing.

And even that was hard to do with the crud blocking his airway and blocking his throat.

Every single one of his limbs felt like lead, tingling and prickling unpleasantly, and his head was hurting so bad he was certain he'd been hit by something. He felt very sick and lightheaded, and he suddenly wished he could pass out to get away from it.