Sal sleeps like a corpse, his mind mercifully black...at least for much of the night. Gizmo ends up sprawling out at his feet, and maybe it's the lack of weight settling him down against the extra bed that rouses his repressed subconscious. It's just before sunrise that he jolts awake, sweating and shaking and gasping for breath. He never usually sleeps with his prosthetics on, and the pressure is suffocating.
Maybe it's just that he's so used to nightmares, but he doesn't scream. Just sits there disoriented and frantic, struggling to undo the bottom strap of his prosthetic so he can shift it up toward his forehead, giving himself a bit more air.
"Where--"
No, he remembers. And his nightmare wasn't just a nightmare. Not this one. Gizmo stirs sleepily, meowing comfortingly as he stretches his front paws toward Sal and yawns, but Sal only has a second to orient himself before a new wave of sickness crashes into him with the weight of his new reality. As the echoed words of his father's pride bounce between his ears. As he remembers how it feels to plunge a knife through skin. As he remembers each dying face of every friend and neighbor and family and loved one--
He barely manages to remember the little van restroom, clambering out of bed and into it just in time to heave into the toilet. Empty. Bile and emptiness. That's all he has left inside. But the shock is gone and now there's only painful clarity.
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Date: 2023-08-20 03:48 am (UTC)Maybe it's just that he's so used to nightmares, but he doesn't scream. Just sits there disoriented and frantic, struggling to undo the bottom strap of his prosthetic so he can shift it up toward his forehead, giving himself a bit more air.
"Where--"
No, he remembers. And his nightmare wasn't just a nightmare. Not this one. Gizmo stirs sleepily, meowing comfortingly as he stretches his front paws toward Sal and yawns, but Sal only has a second to orient himself before a new wave of sickness crashes into him with the weight of his new reality. As the echoed words of his father's pride bounce between his ears. As he remembers how it feels to plunge a knife through skin. As he remembers each dying face of every friend and neighbor and family and loved one--
He barely manages to remember the little van restroom, clambering out of bed and into it just in time to heave into the toilet. Empty. Bile and emptiness. That's all he has left inside. But the shock is gone and now there's only painful clarity.