Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 72 (TW)

(Trigger Warning; This chapter contains themes that some might find upsetting.) 

When I come to, I'm on the couch and for a moment, I drift back to those first days where Haryek is strewn over me in the throws of passion. A void of time thrown out of it's steady march, a piece gone missing. 

My eyes lock on the figures over the mantel, the one porcelain vase capturing my eye just as it had that night. My vision blurs as the room swirls in slow pools of consciousness and distorted reality where I'm stuck in purgatory. My body had been unhinged from my reality, it was difficult to separate reality from what was near drunken visions of the past and future. 

A choked sob catches me off guard, pain hitting my chest like the steady gong of a church bell. The clock calls the time of my death, over and over, yet I remain by some tether that refuses to release. My time here was not done, despite my body attempting to leave. 

My life, tied to his. 

Voices drift in and out of my consciousness as the thrum of the concert goes on just behind the walls. 

As he'd always said, life would go on without him, yet it felt like mine was being shredded from my very soul. Falling off the couch, I land on my stomach, nearly knocking myself back into oblivion as the dull thump of my body resounds in my skull. Groaning, I roll myself up into a ball, trying to tether myself. 

"Nic." The voice is so distant. "Nic."

"Randy." I beg, nearly breathless. A strike shouldn't have done this to me, I'd been knocked out before, but this was a whole new experience. Was this what it was like to be disassembled? Did it feel like this for him, too?

It hits me like an electric shock. My hands clutch the man's shirt as he says my name again, pulling me into a sitting position as my head swirls. A light flashes in front of my eyes and I jerk my head away, fighting through the wave of emotions. 

"Why did you hit him so hard?"

"He was going mad. We're lucky he's even still here with Randy gone."

This man wasn't Randy, despite the familiar feel of him, the scent was all wrong.

Instinctively my hand clutches my stomach, what if... no, for sure if there were any chance, this would have crushed it. 

"Damn it, Tonic." I nearly whimper, blinking away the haze. "I thought-"Stopping myself, I inhale sharply with a strangled sob. My emotions, my wolf, my soul, all threatening to drive me insane as I struggle to hold on.

"Sorry, Nic. We can't find him." He doesn't dare hold me, knowing my wolf wouldn't allow it. I focus on the scream building in my chest, holding it back as I sit, pressing my back against the couch and collasping my hands in my lap with a vacant stare towards the empty fireplace. Those little figurines, gathering dust, taunting me.

Sorry. 

Everyone was sorry. 

"Where's Randy? Cas?" My voice sounds foreign, my eyes reddened and hazey, my body trembling. "Something. There must be something we can do, anything, Tonic please. I can't-"

The fact that I still existed, my mind twinges and I flinch as I struggle to my feet, scrambling to stand and stumbling drunkenly as the room swirls in this half existence. "Darrius." It comes out before I can stop myself, he could be holding me here just as he had for Verando.

"Nic you're out of your mind, you need to get it together before you go charging off again." Tonic's voice sounds too much like Verando's, I shove him away from me. His hand captures my wrist and I snarl at him, gripping his shirt, yanking him down to my height.