✱ [ @devoiided | continued from here ]
It was so easy to forget this part-- until it wasn't.
The last step on a staircase you miscounted in the dark. A lurch, sudden and sickening, as you try to remember if there had ever been a floor there at all.
(Sometimes John wondered if Bob made it hard to remember. If he even knew what he was doing.)
"That supposed to scare me?" he said, finally. His voice was steady enough, but there was a rawness underneath, scraped thin. "You're not the first thing that's tried to get in my head. Good luck in there."
Then he looked, just for a second.
The air thinned-- not like choking, like gravity was pulling him down. A nausea that didn't feel like it started in his stomach, but in the base of his spine, crawling upward.
Like he was at the top of a Ferris wheel, watching a bolt come loose.
The fingers reaching for his gun stilled, confused, like they had forgotten why they wanted move.
