Epilogue: I am Atlas
luhan-centric | pg-13 | abstract angst
an epilogue of sorts to I am Atlas (you'll have to read that one to understand this), written for exothermc :>
inspired by this.
I am Atlas, I carry the weight of the skies upon my shoulders.
Everything collapsed.
It hadn't been with a scream but with a whimper, a whimper that came out like a whisper and a whisper that sounded more like a dizzy thought, swallowed up by your mind so quick that you weren't sure you even thought it at all.
He looked down and he saw shaking hands, hands that shouldn't have been his because he couldn't feel them - but in following the path of joints and skin there they were, each leading up to a shoulder and a neck and a head that were all very much his. Across from him there was Baekhyun, looking bright and animated like always, lips mouthing around words that Luhan could almost hear - almost, but somewhere along the way the sounds of his voice and his laugh were getting lost, falling apart letter by letter and leaving nothing but an unwelcome buzz in Luhan's ears. Baekhyun's eyes, narrowed into crescents with his smile, would flitter to Luhan's right and left - painfully close, but gaze never quite on him.
"Baek-" he tried to say, only to flinch when his voice came out as a quiet wheezing, a noise so gently distorted it couldn't possibly have been derived from a name. He could feel tears stinging the corners of his eyes, but with a trembling breath he tried again.
"Baek-- Baekhyun," the name was cruelly disfigured by his voice, "Please..." the plea, however, was fittingly ugly.
Baekhyun did not so much as spare him a glance.
"Please... Look at me."
Sentences turned to ash upon his tongue, and Baekhyun would not look.
"Baekhyun..."
The sounds were inhuman, nothing beyond monstrous noise.
"Baekh-- please."
Misshapen syllables.
"Please!"
Dissonance.
"Look at me!" he screamed it this time, throat raw like he'd been screaming for hours, only nothing more than a foul whisper could be heard, 'I'm here... I'm right here.'
But Baekhyun looked.
There was a sudden turn of his chin, shifting to face straight ahead, and his gaze fell right in Luhan's direction - only he didn't see him, he only saw through him.
And Luhan was staring into his eyes, staring right into them, and he saw nothing. There was no reflection. There was no him.
All at once his shaking hands were no longer nerveless, his arms were there, his body belonged, was his - but his flesh was crawling, like tiny insects were burrowing into his skin and climbing up through his veins like ladders, swimming through the river of his blood which had gone cold. The longer Baekhyun looked in his direction - looked through him - the further the insects got, digging into muscle and nibbling at his bone marrow, until Baekhyun looked away, reinitiating a soundless conversation, like a cartoon on mute, as though Luhan's scream had only been a whistle of the wind.
Then the insects turned to fire in his veins.
In a frenzy he got up, stumbling out of the building they were in - Baekhyun's apartment, a cafe, a shop, he wasn't sure anymore - and out onto the streets and the world was a dizzying chaos, an unnerving quiet. Cars rushed past as blurs of metallic shine, but there was no screech of tires or impatient honking. He looked around and saw wisps of people passing him, and their mouths would move and their feet with hit the pavement, but there were no voices, there were no footsteps. Birds flew high overhead, but there were no birdsongs. The wind blew, rustling treetops and patches of weeds, but there was no sound - there was only the buzzing in his ears, growing sharper, getting louder in the endless quiet.
And mirrors. Everywhere there were inescapable mirrors.
He glanced around and saw reflections of the buildings behind him in parked cars, in store windows, in puddles along the curbside, but none of them showed him a person looking back - none of them showed him himself. And he could hear the pulsing of a heart he didn't have like thunder in his ears, and he could feel the heat of blood he didn't have like a molten fire in his veins and he was Atlas, the weight of every constellation crushing him, and he was Atlas, the weight of heaven splintering his spine, and he was Atlas, the weight of the sky cracking his knees.
He was Atlas -- or perhaps he had been.
I was Atlas, I carried the weight of the skies upon my shoulders.
an epilogue of sorts to I am Atlas (you'll have to read that one to understand this), written for exothermc :>
inspired by this.
I am Atlas, I carry the weight of the skies upon my shoulders.
Everything collapsed.
It hadn't been with a scream but with a whimper, a whimper that came out like a whisper and a whisper that sounded more like a dizzy thought, swallowed up by your mind so quick that you weren't sure you even thought it at all.
He looked down and he saw shaking hands, hands that shouldn't have been his because he couldn't feel them - but in following the path of joints and skin there they were, each leading up to a shoulder and a neck and a head that were all very much his. Across from him there was Baekhyun, looking bright and animated like always, lips mouthing around words that Luhan could almost hear - almost, but somewhere along the way the sounds of his voice and his laugh were getting lost, falling apart letter by letter and leaving nothing but an unwelcome buzz in Luhan's ears. Baekhyun's eyes, narrowed into crescents with his smile, would flitter to Luhan's right and left - painfully close, but gaze never quite on him.
"Baek-" he tried to say, only to flinch when his voice came out as a quiet wheezing, a noise so gently distorted it couldn't possibly have been derived from a name. He could feel tears stinging the corners of his eyes, but with a trembling breath he tried again.
"Baek-- Baekhyun," the name was cruelly disfigured by his voice, "Please..." the plea, however, was fittingly ugly.
Baekhyun did not so much as spare him a glance.
"Please... Look at me."
Sentences turned to ash upon his tongue, and Baekhyun would not look.
"Baekhyun..."
The sounds were inhuman, nothing beyond monstrous noise.
"Baekh-- please."
Misshapen syllables.
"Please!"
Dissonance.
"Look at me!" he screamed it this time, throat raw like he'd been screaming for hours, only nothing more than a foul whisper could be heard, 'I'm here... I'm right here.'
But Baekhyun looked.
There was a sudden turn of his chin, shifting to face straight ahead, and his gaze fell right in Luhan's direction - only he didn't see him, he only saw through him.
And Luhan was staring into his eyes, staring right into them, and he saw nothing. There was no reflection. There was no him.
All at once his shaking hands were no longer nerveless, his arms were there, his body belonged, was his - but his flesh was crawling, like tiny insects were burrowing into his skin and climbing up through his veins like ladders, swimming through the river of his blood which had gone cold. The longer Baekhyun looked in his direction - looked through him - the further the insects got, digging into muscle and nibbling at his bone marrow, until Baekhyun looked away, reinitiating a soundless conversation, like a cartoon on mute, as though Luhan's scream had only been a whistle of the wind.
Then the insects turned to fire in his veins.
In a frenzy he got up, stumbling out of the building they were in - Baekhyun's apartment, a cafe, a shop, he wasn't sure anymore - and out onto the streets and the world was a dizzying chaos, an unnerving quiet. Cars rushed past as blurs of metallic shine, but there was no screech of tires or impatient honking. He looked around and saw wisps of people passing him, and their mouths would move and their feet with hit the pavement, but there were no voices, there were no footsteps. Birds flew high overhead, but there were no birdsongs. The wind blew, rustling treetops and patches of weeds, but there was no sound - there was only the buzzing in his ears, growing sharper, getting louder in the endless quiet.
And mirrors. Everywhere there were inescapable mirrors.
He glanced around and saw reflections of the buildings behind him in parked cars, in store windows, in puddles along the curbside, but none of them showed him a person looking back - none of them showed him himself. And he could hear the pulsing of a heart he didn't have like thunder in his ears, and he could feel the heat of blood he didn't have like a molten fire in his veins and he was Atlas, the weight of every constellation crushing him, and he was Atlas, the weight of heaven splintering his spine, and he was Atlas, the weight of the sky cracking his knees.
He was Atlas -- or perhaps he had been.
I was Atlas, I carried the weight of the skies upon my shoulders.