Shattered

Chapter 19

"You stupid-"

Black shadows danced across his vision, swarming him, swallowing him, drowning him in them, pulling him down further and further into the darkness, into the quiet, into the silence.

He felt the shadows moving, he didn't know why the shadows were moving or even how, but they twisted and curled around him as they moved, wrappings themselves tightly around his neck, his skull, digging, burning, branding into his side.

"How much do you weigh? Good god-"

The world tilted on its axis, the shadows the only thing he could hold onto as time, space, the world, everything was pulled from underneath his feet; he didn't know what was happening, he didn't know what to do, he didn't know anything, besides that fact that he can't let go of the shadows.

The shadows are his way back, if he lets those slip from his grasp, if he doesn't hold onto them with every fiber of his being, he's not going to be able to escape from this.

He doesn't know what this even is, but he knows that he needs to hold on until something happens.

Either he gets strong enough to not need the shadows anymore on his own, or something else, someone else from a place away from the shadows and darkness brings him out instead.

"You couldn't have passed out on the couch or something? Not...cool-"

Hold on.

Just a little bit longer.

Just a little bit longer.

He can do this, he just needs to not slip, he just needs to hold on for another second.

One more.

Hold on for one more second.

"This is going to suck, Lloyd."

One more second.

One more second.

One more second.

"Sorry about this."

Ice.

Ice cold chills clawing down his body, dousing him in an inescapable, devastating blow, sending shockwave after shockwave after shockwave through his body. Immobilizing him, stunning him, driving a jolt into his bones, his blood, his veins, his cells, waking every part of his body up.

The shadows were pulled from his grip by the ice, freezing onto his skin, and pulling him up and up and up and up and up

and Lloyd shot up.

Gasping and coughing and glancing around but all he could see were bright lights and the water running down his face, into his eyes, blinding him from seeing anything besides the lights...and red hair.

Lloyd blinked at the red hair, running wet and cold and numb hands over his face, through his hair, rubbing his eyes to get the water out of it so the blurriness would go away and he would be able to see again.

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry, you were burning up, I didn't know what else to do." Red hair moved closer to him, grabbing underneath his shoulders, ignoring the steady stream of water coming down on him and pulling him out of the shower.

He stumbled, grabbed onto red's arms, tripped a few steps back and rested against the wall beside the shower, still coughing, still gasping, still confused and disoriented, and now he was shivering, the cold seeping into him to replace the shadows and

he didn't know what was going on anymore.

"What...what the fuck." He gasped, setting his face into his hands for a second, a moment, before running it up and back through his hair, holding the soaked strands away from his face.