// loveless [#WATTYS2017]

chapter iii - shatter.

((Alexander Bayer))

When I realize it, William Bayer has pushed me underwater.

It's cold and dark all around, and I watch the light on top of me slowly dimming as gravity pulls me down, further and further, numbing my veins with death's excruciating slowness. I try moving my limbs, breaking free from the forces of nature that drag me to the dark. Nothing helps. My throbbing heart hammers against my ribs, and somewhere in my lungs, a dull ache has kept all rational thoughts away from me. Or just about every thought except from that of survival.

I can't breath. I can't think at all.

My lungs hurt.

"Help!" I want to yell. "Help me!" Even though there is no one but myself.

My lungs are empty. My arms and legs are limp. They can't move, won't move. The light above me keeps blackening, and water is all that is around me.

Dying, I suppose, is not an option now. A fuzzy darkness starts clouding my vision.

So heavy. The thought crosses my mind.

My body is too heavy.

Do I have any regrets? No. I can die here if I want to. Maybe it will help me escape the anchors tied to my legs and the packages people keep adding to my back. Dying. A simple word that means much more than it is long. It is a resolve, the abrupt ending to a long nightmare, an instant quit button for everyone.

So I inhale with my desires of becoming a dead man. Water flows into my nostrils, down my throat and my lungs. It stings, but I don't fight back. I let my eyelids close and darkness engulf my entire being.

There is a voice.

"Everything will be alright."

And that's when my eyes shoot open, my heart still beating fast against my chest and my palms gripping tightly into the bedsheets. Daylight flooded in my room through the thin white curtains, and I wince as my eyes come into contact with it. My mouth involuntarily opens, letting out quick, short breaths while I stay frozen in my bed, staring straight at the ceiling.

The fact that I'm aware of these events means that the previous ones were all a dream.

A dream in which I nearly escaped the binds with this world.

Something is attacking my chest from the inside. It's not necessarily painful, but is uncomfortable nonetheless. I sit up, starting to become more conscious of my surroundings. One of my hands form a fist, and I press it to the bed, not wanting to lift it, knowing what will happen if I lose control.

My heart starts calming down, enough for me to come to notice the constant gritting of my teeth and the shivering of my shoulders. My nails dig into the skin of my palm, but the stinging pain isn't nearly enough to numb the inexplicable flame inside of me. Just what are these feelings? I have been asking myself the same questions for years now, and am still unable to find the answer. They are horrible. Destructive. They cause me to throw my fist to the wall and smash the most superfluous house decors on the floor, only to watch those replacements of something I can't really name break into hundreds and hundreds of small pieces.

I want to scream so bad.

So I do. I jump out of the bed, grabbing the nearest object. My throat burns because I have been forcing too many screams out of it, screams that barely resolve anything. My hand raises. I bring it down as my grasp on the object is released. The wooden music box hits the wall in front of me, letting out small clanks from its now-dislocated screws. I don't think it even works now, because it has let out some of its final sounds when its edge chipped off a part of the wall.