His body was weightless, but at the sa ti unbearably heavy. A strange contradiction he couldn’t na, nor could he shake off hit him.
He floated. Or maybe he sank. It was impossible to tell in this place. This thick nothingness that pressed against him attacked him from all sides.
His chest burned, slow at first, then sharp, then unbearably raw the next second. Like fire licking him from within. He tried to inhale, but the air never ca. He tried to open his eyes, but darkness clung to him, velvety, suffocating, and endless.
And then... her voice. He heard her voice. She was speaking to him. Talking. Wait, she was alive!
Celeste! She’s alive.
Her voice was soft, familiar, and carried that exact tilt of warmth that once made him forget himself, and every darkness. He heard it like a whisper threading through the void.
At first, he thought it was mory. But then, mory didn’t feel this real. mory didn’t cut this deep.
"Dominic," she called again, closer this ti. The syllables stretched. She let it roll off her tongue so delicate, and breaking apart like glass in water.
He turned his head. Perhaps, he thought he did. He couldn’t feel the motion, but he felt the yearning. He felt the desperate need to find her, and to see her standing there.
For a fleeting mont, light broke through. A sharp, golden flare cutting through the dark, and in it, her silhouette appeared.
She stood bare feet on marble floors. Her laugh bounced off the walls. That look in her eyes, were teasing, and untouchable, ant only for him. She lifted her hand as though reaching for him—
—but fire swallowed her whole.
The image shattered into sparks, curling smoke twisting where she’d stood. He wanted to scream, but no sound ca. His throat was locked.
Every attempt at calling her na drowned out by the roar and sharp sound of his tal collapsing. His mind replayed the shriek of tires, and the thunderclap of an explosion.
His mind replayed the accident repeatedly.
It crashed into him again, not just as mory but as sensation. The wheel jerked under his grip. The blinding light of oncoming flas filled his vision, and the heat blood against his side like a monstrous kiss.
The second car, the one behind him, that bursted into a bright fla, as his n im it reduced to nothing but ash replayed in his gaze. He wanted to reach them. He wanted to give them stern orders, to leave. He wanted to save them, but he couldn’t. The heat devoured everything.
And then he was falling again. He wasn’t falling from anything, but he felt himself falling. He couldn’t stop it.
Down, down, and down, he fell further into himself.
"Dominic."
Her voice snapped him back to himself. Her hand ghosted along his jaw, as her scent drifted just beyond reach.
He swore he could feel her lips brushing his ear, and whispering sothing he couldn’t hold onto into them. He clawed for it, desperately, but every ti he tried to catch the words, they slipped like smoke through clenched fists.
He saw her standing in a doorway when she appeared again. There was sunlight at her back, and hair tumbled wild and free.
She smiled. The curve of it was so achingly familiar that he felt his chest fracture with it. He reached for her, heart thundering, and ready to pull her close—
—but the doorway stretched, stretching into a tunnel of darkness. Her figure retreated, swallowed by shadows no matter how fast he moved toward her.
His lungs scread. His legs refused to respond. It was as if the whole world conspired to hold him still while she slipped further away.
Dominic tried to fight it. He tried to push back with every ounce of will left in him. But the darkness pressed harder. The voice grew louder, lacing through Celeste’s until he couldn’t tell where she ended and it began.
Was she calling to him? Was she warning him? Or was this her last goodbye? What the fuck was going on?
He forced his body to move, or what was left of it. His arms felt like heavy iron anchors, but he dragged them forward.
His chest felt caged, but he willed it open. Sowhere in the distance, he thought he saw her again. She was running barefoot through grass this ti, with her laughter spilling out of her like wild music. His heart surged. That was her. That was real.
He pushed harder.
"Dominic." her voice wavered, breaking into the silence.
The blast echoed again. It was louder this ti, anf more violent. The sound sounded like it lived in his bones.
He saw the car tearing sideways. The glass shattered into diamonds, and tal folding like paper. He saw the n in the car behind him engulfed in a bloom of red fla. Their faces dissolved before he could even recognize them. He tried to turn back for them, but his body kept hurtling forward, flung by invisible force.
The mory was stronger than the last. The mory seed to be mocking him.
The impact reverberated through him again and again. Each crash pulled him deeper into unconsciousness, and further from her. Each crash pushed him further from even air, and eventually, further from everything.
Yet, her face stayed.
It clung to him through the dark. Her smile, her tears, and the ghost of her fingertips brushing his jaw.
She was both salvation and tornt at the mont. She was both his reason to claw out of this hell and the anchor holding him there. He wanted to scream her na, even if the void swallowed it whole.
He needed to hold her. He needed to feel her. What was going on? She kept on going further and further away, with her smile never leaving her face.
He wanted to wake up.
He wanted to breathe.
However, the darkness only tightened its grip.
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