Cevic

Chapter 35

Everybody's waiting for you to breakdown

Everybody's watching to see the fallout…

It's a showdown, and nobody comes to save you now

But you've got something they don't

Yeah you've got something they don't

You've just gotta keep your eyes open

 

-Eyes Open by Taylor Swift-

 

 

Insanity

 

My fingernails dug deep into my temples as I sat on the floor, legs propped up and my eyes only on the floor. All thoughts and rationales were frozen. My cognitive senses were rendered useless. I was only controlled by the strongest: emotions, swirling, confetti-like emotions that ripped through my heart.

  Agony.

 Guilt.

 Disbelief.

 Agony.

Guilt.

 Disbelief.

Agony. I remembered as clearly as I was seeing the color and shape of my sneakers of how I’d seen him sprawled still and cold on the throne.

 Guilt. The guilt swelled and swelled in my body, squeezing through my windpipe and making it hard for me to breathe.

  Disbelief.

He’d gotten the cure. Why…why did it kill him?

 I sprang to my feet. A raw scream ripped out and through my throbbing throat.

“I killed him.” As if standing was a flip to the switch, tears poured down my face, unleashed in torrents. “I killed my own king, my liege, my master. I killed His Majesty.”

  I heard a couple of voices, belonging to maybe Rezia and Jàs, but they were made a mere part of the background noise, blurred out completely. I couldn’t hear anything except my own wicked damned heartbeats. To breathe and walk the earth while he was dead, getting colder by the minute! To be merely imprisoned! I cursed every breath I took, every minute I agonized.

 “You’re not listening!” A sharp voice cut through my floating train of thoughts.

Rezia’s fingers locked around my wrist, her fingernails digging into my skin and awakening me. “You must not be affected by this.”

  At that, I snapped up. “Not affected by it?” My calm voice bellied my storm of emotions. “Not affected by it?”

 “Yes. Note my language, Eron. I did not say ‘do not be affected’. I say ‘must not be affected’. You are blinded, deafened and senseless. The king’s death is yet to be confirmed.” Her lips quavered, but she raised her chin, setting her teeth. “You must not lose your cool. Jàs here depends on you. I depend on you.” She took me by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “Look at me, Eron. Listen to me.”

  A brutal too-vivid replay of the scene of King Decus collapsing was driving me to the edge. My voice was barely calmed. “Let me by blinded, let me be deafened and ridden of my senses and capability. Let me lose my cool, for nothing matters in this world anymore. If they choose to execute or punish me, I shall be more than eager to receive it obediently. No, I yearn for it now. Without a duly executed punishment or death upon me, every living moment is but pure scorching torture.”