Asphyxia Nation

Prologue

[Consider this a trailer of the future story. I don't think I'll post the first official chapter until later, but plans could change.  Heck, I'm probably gonna post this story more often than Off script since that story is just me being angry that all my fav people died. who knows. Let me know how you like it if you do. Its kinda like a Soulmate Au but not really. Ask questions if you don't get it since this can seem super confusing.

Mature Warnings were not flicked on because I didn't think it was that bad. But reader discretion will still be advised.]

Breathing in the air around him was chilling. It shot down his spine in a familiar way, making him want to stay a little longer. Feeling the cold touch his bare skin felt nice. The late fall air always had a smokey taste to it, the way fire does when the wood is just dying down to coals and you can only smell its embers. 

11-year-old Shuichi Saihara reached for the sliding doors to his small porch. It was early in the morning, a thick fog had set across the region at five in the morning on a Sunday. The breeze that caught his tousled hair made him shiver, but he liked it.

He stepped barefooted onto the wooden patio. In his mind, the feeling of frigid chalky smoke soaking the air, was another season faded. The crunched decaying leaves peppered the dying wilting grass under most trees. It's been long since the first frost and his toes were already shifting into a rosy red. 

Once his hand had safely slid the door quietly shut, he stepped off the small deck. Shooting forward to get the blood pumping in his ears. To feel the pulse circulate his heart and push to his fingers until he can no longer feel. He hopes his feet become numb with frozen air, he hopes the small rocks of the uncovered soil dig into his calloused feet.

He hopes he trips and falls on stiff dirt that's hardening for the winter. He hopes the feelings he cherished to course through his body, every fiber of him calls to the air and begs it to breathe in every ounce of being alive. 

He loves the bite the solid wall of glacial nothingness, it gnawed at his face, his fingers, his feet, sinking it's icy teeth through his clothes and hugging his body. The smell of pine haunted the air, mixing in with the temperature that's been dropping lately. There no other feeling that could compare to artic pain that came with searing lungs. 

He broke past the trees into an open dying field. The cold that filled his air, rushing in pash his teeth to swell up in his chest, just to be released in a long satisfied exhale. The cold was real, it was so painstakingly true that not even his betraying thoughts could split it into falsities. He slowed down to a paced walk as he crushed the dead tall grass below his unfeeling feet.

There lay his friend. A lover of reality laying on his back. Face up towards the cloudly milky white sky. No sun peered in to give him the spotlight he'd drink in. His hair was a mess, tangled with dead thistles and broken brown stems of the hanging wildflowers. His red cheeks showed for the cold, his smile showed for his momentary happiness. 

Shuichi sighed, loudly, as to announce his arrival. He watched his friend lift a hand straight to the sky. Twisting his wrist to trace the darker lines that sat in the flat-lined clouds.