Chapter 427: Don’t Go.

Chapter 427: Chapter 427: Don’t Go.

With a start Khobi bolts upright in bed to a dark room; drenched in sweat and his chest constricting tight.

The moment he comes to there’s bile rising in his throat and nausea chewing at his stomach, and pressure building in his chest like someone’s reached up under his ribs and crushed his heart with both hands.

Around him, all he sees is darkness --he doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t know this place --and when he opens his mouth to choke in a breath, nothing happens.

​A panicked, helpless sob leaves his lips.

It doesn’t bring air to his lungs, doesn’t stop his head spinning; just fades off into this nightmarish void like he’s the only thing that exists here.

No echo, no response, not another sound. There’s nothing; nothing but four walls of cold stone closing in on him, but it’s so dark in here that he can’t see them coming; can’t tell how long he has until they finally crush him. Minutes, maybe? Days? Years? He can’t tell how long it’s been, doesn’t know how much longer it will take.

Here there’s no light, no life, no one to hear him scream.

​Only spiders, and death.

​He feels like he’s going to be sick, except that he can’t.

He can’t remember how. Can’t remember how to scream, even though he wants to; can’t remember how to breathe even though he needs to.

​He feels dizzy.

​Can’t breathe.

​Khobi’s head starts to spin; grey swarming across his vision as nightmare blurs with reality.

Out of the darkness he can make out shapes now, and the nausea churning his stomach turns to dread because he knows this place; recognises these very stones and those chains, and this darkness.

How could he not; he’s stared at them every waking hour for all these years. Every crack is etched into his mind’s eye, every shadow.

​No, he wants to choke, only that he has no voice and no breath to speak it. Not here.

​He swore he’d never go back.

​Never.

​("Khobi.")

​That sounds like his name. Or at least he thinks it does. Sometimes weeks go by without being called by his name.

If he didn’t remember his uncle’s voice so clearly and all the ways he’d said it, he just might have forgotten it all together.

​"Khobi!"

​It’s louder, this time. Closer. Khobi thinks he knows that voice now; it sounds like bells, lends him strength, and makes him think of summer even though he’s trapped in winter.

It feels like it comes from beyond, wherever that is; feels like wind in the trees, and for some reason it makes the walls around him shift, the way heat sometimes makes the horizon shimmer.

Whoever it is, he wants to answer them, wants to call out that he’s here, but his voice is gone like his tongue’s been cut and when he tries to reach for them in the darkness his body still won’t move.

​When did he get so weak?

​But like how a glimpse of starlight had so often been enough to remind him that there lies light beyond this darkness, that voice offers Khobi a single, perfect moment of clarity, and with a rush he remembers that there’s somewhere he needs to be, somewhere he needs to go, and someone who needs his help.

​Loac, he thinks. It’s all there is, all he can think of. More important than these walls and the darkness they hold.

More important than screaming, more important than breathing. I have to get to Loac.

​"Frost!"

​The urgency with which his given name burns makes Khobi’s ears ring, and ice cold relief instantly washes over him because he knows that voice, and he thought he was never going to hear it again.

​He’s alive.

​And just like that the nightmare shatters and he can breathe again.

With an anguished gasp, air rushes back into Khobi’s lungs, too much all at once that it hurts, hurts, hurts, and he collapses in on himself, gulping in deep, harsh breaths that burn his throat and his lungs and threaten to choke him.

​"Hey, hey, Khobi," it’s Loac; of course it’s Loac’s voice coming out of the darkness; pitched unusually serious and laced with concern and something else that Khobi doesn’t have the presence of mind to linger on in his delirious state.

"Khobi, look at me." Khobi isn’t sure how he manages to, but he looks. Dimly, he can make out his familiar shape outlined by a sliver of moonlight; reaching out towards him in the gloom, blue eyes (so beautiful) reflecting something that Khobi’s never seen there before.

It looks like fear. Not of him, no, Khobi’s knows what that looks like. For him. It’s been a long time, but he knows what that looks like, too. "Frost, what’s wrong?"

​With each complete breath, the claws clenched around his heart loosen their grip.

​Loac’s here.

​He’s alive.

​Thank the gods, he’s alive.

​Khobi doesn’t answer him; still isn’t sure he can. Instead, he just lunges out into the darkness and throws his arms around him.

Tight, so that he can make sure that he’s real, and a strangled, surprised noise leaves Loac’s throat as Khobi collapses in on him.

But he makes no move to throw him off; just stays as he is, letting Khobi trap him against his body until his shoulders are no longer shaking and it no longer feels like he’s going to slip away from him if he lets go.

​So warm.

​"Hey," Loac says again, softer this time, and Khobi flinches and relaxes in the same breath when he realises that the hands he can feel on his spine belong to Loac, reaching back.

He stills, hesitating, but when Khobi gives him a squeeze so he knows it’s fine, Loac’s arms fold around him and hold him close. Reassuring him that he’s there, and isn’t going anywhere.

That’s important. Khobi doesn’t want him going anywhere; doesn’t want him to leave.

​Don’t go.