#think there's a liberal amount of semi-colons here lol

[drowning-in-cacophony]

run risks

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial Prompt 287: I Can't Stand It

[Summary: a man tries to figure a way out of a stuck situation]

He can’t look.

His fingers, never have they before been so tightly laced against his face. His eyes, squeezed so tight he’s got stars exploding, little universes bursting to life and all of that is better than looking upon what’s found the few shafts of light down this damn cave. His swallow, so loud. Her inhale, so hard.

He’s got to think of a way out of this. But it’s hard, with the pressure dripping like acid down his face. Gripping the bones of his face, a pinch to keep his attention focused.

“You’ve lost the mask,” he says. Simply. Manner of fact. Trying to keep the rough panic out of his voice; trying not to think about the fact that he’s going to have to open his eyes to get back out of here, and so has she.

“Unfortunately.” Her voice is strained. Tense, vibrating like a silken thread twanged. An accidental drop, a change in fate so decisive. It feels cruel, almost; isn’t cruel the whole deal with her? Maybe he should have expected to get caught up in her cursing, if he was getting in deep with her.

“Can you find it?” He has to ask, even if the answer’s obvious. She’d have to open her eyes to search by the shafts of light – the thin thing he’d seen off of her cheekbone, the split second before his eyes had collided to darkness and fear had seized his guts worse than a blade. It’d been a pretty cheekbone, and that’s the point. People struggle to look away from beautiful things.  

“Another unfortunate thing,” she replies, a ratchet edge to her tongue. “I’d look at you.”

“That’d be enough.” A statement. A question. He’s not entirely certain of how it all works. He’s certain of enough. It could be compulsion, could be unwitting, but eventually she’d look to him while searching, and that, well. He couldn’t stand that.

“What about you?” she asks. A terribly thin hope: what’s the alternative? They stand here for eternity, statues frozen in indecision? Starve to death with only the darkness behind their eyes for real company, and he’d probably just open his eyes to end the suffering. He nudges a foot around, carefully. Scouting the earth around him, the slippery trickiness of the slopes. It’s not even ground, it’s not safe ground, and he’d known the risks coming in here but he’d just assumed the mask wouldn’t fall off. A juvenile error; he should have made her pack two.

“I don’t feel it near me.” And I don’t want to risk opening my eyes. The unsaid beat under his tongue, a throbbing agony admission. He opens his eyes, he’s going to look at her. He was looking at her, drawn by the sound of the smack, the too-fast turn around of her neck to meet his gaze, automatic or called or whatever. He would look at her, he knows it. It’ll be the curiosity stabbing into his neck. The devil calling him for just a peek, harmless claimed, and then it’ll be it. He grits his teeth until the molars ache, sparks to ignite gases to planets.

The only way out of this is to get her out of the cavern. Get to the surface where she can hide away and he can find her another mask. He’s the one with the torch, the only safe way to leave with. It feels like a puzzle with a simple answer, somehow beyond him, because there’s that chewing on the edge of his mind. The shape of the fragment of her cheekbone.

The shape of his terror, stabbing into his soul. If she looked at him, would that be all he’d feel forever, frozen again? Stuck in a moment: that’s looking like the play either way.

“Can you get the torch from my belt without looking at me?” It’s the only option. It’s the option that has his tongue going slick in his mouth. If she’s facing the entrance, opened eyes should be okay, right?

“You’d have to follow me.” The flaws, she points her fingers into them and carefully yanks them open.

“You can’t follow me.” Then what are they meant to do? The panic’s going sour in his throat. If he stands here too long, it’s going to go septic too, a poison to his blood and resolve. His fingers dig in sharper, clarity and pain. There’s got to be a way out of this. He can’t stand thinking any other option.

“I’m going to follow you.” A decision; at least this feels like something he can hold onto, something to keep his knees from trembling. “You’ll take the torch – I’ll hold it out, you carefully walk blind towards me, it's not far, then pass by me and head up. I’ll follow, but try to keep to the shadows.”

“You’ll trip.” But the flaws seem to be with him, not her and the torch, so he’ll shape it as hope. Her biggest obstacle seems to be just not looking at him – she can do that. She can do that, he has to believe it.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll have to move a hand from your face to unclip the torch.” Trepidation, making its sake in her mouth. His goes dry at the thought, a harsh swallow.

“I’m capable of keeping my eyes closed.” Pressing them together. It’s not hard. He does it every night to fall asleep. He can do it now.

“I don’t want to turn my Look onto you.” Now a confession. Plain, and that makes it worse. It’s not fraught, some spiked trap. It’s just something so modest. A soft utterance. As soft as her Look would be, before it'd still him forever.

If she could look at him, he’d smile something hopefully comforting, the fakeness buried.

“You won’t,” he promises, hopes, his hands beginning to shake. “Now – it’s time to try moving.”