Character Study: Shy, "Alone"

Stop. 

Wait.

The words echoed in Shy’s mind. Rattled against her skull bones and made the tossing at night worse.

Where are you going?

She didn’t know. She didn’t know, but she needed to get there. Her legs moved, struggled against sheets. Her arms swung and she rolled, squirmed, fought, anything as long as it was movement.

You’ll never make it alone.

Eyes snapped open.

She could see perfectly. Moonlight streamed in from the window, but it was more than just that. It was the dialation of her pupils, her sensitivity to her surroundings, the vibration in the air that told her what was there, what she saw. It was Aim’s room. Small, singular, above the city.

She shouldn’t be here.

Shy slowly sat up, pushed the wool blankets aside that made her skin itch until it turned red. Bare feet touched the thresh mat, let it crinkle as her weight settled upon it and she stood.

Where are you going?

In circles. She was going in circles. Around and around and her feet might have bled had it not been for the endurance of her skin. Sand packed itself into her lungs, weighted her breath, clinched her throat and no matter how many times she coughed, she could not get it out.

Nails scraped at the red. Where Aim felt nothing Shy felt everything. Aim might have bled but Shy could not no matter how hard she tried.

The contradiction made her laugh.

A hollow, open laugh. Airy. One that tilted her head back, grated against the sand in her chest until it began to upturn. Rise, and with it a trembling heat and volume and full body convulsions until the laughter errupted from her small frame like a volcano that had been quiet for too long.

The sand tore her throat until the sound had become high-pitched knives that sliced the air and rended it with the force of her anger.

Her body became unhinged and whiplashed outward. Claws drove into crates, thrashed until they burst against walls like firecrackers with desert supplies instead of arcing sparks. The mattress fell prey next, air became feathers which became pricks in her throat when she devoured them as sacrifice to her screams.

Glass shattered, glistening, reflective, angular, beautiful.

Shy froze.

The glass bled. A translucent red line that slipped along its edge. The window cried and Shy could only reach out with her own hands that cried as well. “I’m sorry.” she whispered, taking the bleeding shards into her hand. The sticky warmth pooled there. Pooled in her lap when she’d settled on the ground to cradle the glass that hurt so much she could feel it. “I’m sorry.” Feathers settled. “I’m sorry.”

You’ll never make it alone.

Fingers clenched and the glass clung tighter.

“I’m so sorry.”