Work Text:
I felt it breathing, under me. The ground swelled with each inhale, slow and powerful – like I was afloat, a boat carried by the waves. I couldn't move, but I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to. Not when I felt so warm and safe, not when the gentle press of my cheek against the ground was so comfortable. The gentle rise and fall felt like the rocking of a cradle.
I was so tired.
But it wouldn't let me sleep.
The sun was too bright. Its light pierced through my eyelids like needles.
Just this once. Just this once, why couldn't I-
My eyes opened to pure white. I clapped a hand over my eyes, but the searing white persisted, burning through my fingers, inescapable even with my eyelids squeezed shut. An aborted scream caught at the back of my throat, leaving my mouth hung open in a silent scream.
It hurt. God, it hurt.
The ground shuddered.
It felt wrong.
This world felt wrong.
When I paid attention, I could feel something pulsing below me.
Organic.
The air felt thick with an overpowering odour. Sweet and cloying, but sour - like rotting fruit.
I could almost taste it.
Choke on it.
Drown in it.
My hands pressed into the surface; it gave way too easily. It was soft to the touch, and radiated a gentle warmth.
Alive.
I tasted bile at the back of my throat. My hands trembled, still frozen in place, still softly digging into the-
Ground? Surface?
But I couldn't bring myself to remove them. Couldn't even move, too paralysed by fear and wrongness and nausea and disbelief and horror and-
Skin?