||F E A R||

||INTO THE FIRE||

  I remembered the direction they took him and paused for a swift moment. Focus I told myself. Focus and breathe. He doesn't need you when you're fearing beyond the worst. I looked at Blu before she took off. Charge and I followed and bust through the doors of a medium sized building. We stopped in our tracks when the smell hit. Flowers and disinfectant alcohol failing to cover the thick aroma of death, puss and disease.

"Dread" I attempt at his name through a choked sob. "Dread!" I didn't care anymore. None of us did, we just needed to see him. Suddenly, we heard it, we heard him.
     We darted in the direction the unholy sound was released from. My throat was raw from screaming out his name, I barely heard his pained "in here" over my heart booming in my ears when nearly we passed his room. He was declining faster than usual, we all saw it. We assumed it was because he was burning the drug off, that he was willingly sobering up for the first time in a while.
     "Dread?" Charge squeaked our. The monitor attached to him steadily rang out with beeps, informing us he was still here.
     "I'm here Red, don't worry. It's gonna take more than sobering up again to make me kick it." He let out a pained whined and contorted his body. "Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less." His now fully black nails were digging into his grey tinted palms, drawing the tiniest amount of his metallic blood out of the eight crescent shaped indents.
     "Sit up" Charge whispered when she approached his bed. He struggled but did as told and allowed her small frame to (barely) support his stocky form. She rested one hand on his forehead, occasionally tangling her fingers in his slightly knotted raven hair, and the other ever so tenderly caressed his jaw every time he vocalized he was in pain. Blu held his hand, allowing him to squeeze it whenever he needed. He's dying I thought as I stood frozen in the doorway. He's dying and I don't have the guts to look him in the eye while he goes, too cowardice to comfort him. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath before remembering my mental note about his eyes. His molten gold and greying eyes.
     I leaned forward slightly and forced my legs to move. They dragged as if someone had tied concrete blocks to them.
     "Hey there handsome, why so glum?" He managed to joke, using an old accent we've seen in films teaching us about the Second World War a few centuries before, before his lungs threw him into a spastic coughing fit. I tried laughing as he coughed, tried ignoring his pain, but couldn't stop the sinking feeling in stomach. It should be me in that bed, not him. We all watched in silence as he tensed and gasped for breath.
     "Dzai?" He squeaked out in between coughs. "Dzai, what are you doing here? You're so far from home. Your wife needs you home." Dzai... his father...