5

It no longer moved forward in anything he could recognize as seconds or minutes. It folded in on itself, stretched thin by desperation and the unnatural rhythm of the warmth pulsing in his chest. Each heartbeat felt negotiated granted, then taken back, then granted again like a cruel bargain struck in the dark.

His breaths were shallow ghosts of breaths.

Air scraped into his lungs, barely enough to sting, barely enough to remind him that oxygen still existed somewhere beyond the coffin. The lack of it dulled everything else. Pain softened into a distant ache. Fear blurred at the edges. Even panic grew tired.

The warmth did not tire.

It thrummed steadily now, a foreign cadence that guided his heart when it threatened to stall completely. Every time his pulse slowed too much, the warmth tightened, urging it back into motion. The sensation was intimate in the worst way like fingers wrapped around his heart, squeezing just enough to remind it of its duty.

He hated it.

He needed it.

His thoughts drifted dangerously close to nothingness, then were yanked back by the sudden surge of warmth each time his body faltered. The cycle repeated over and over, a merciless rhythm of near-death and forced return.

Why won’t you let me go?

The question surfaced weakly in his mind, not aimed at anyone he could name.

The warmth responded not with words, but with a faint, aching pressure that spread through his chest, heavy with something that felt disturbingly like grief.

The emotion did not belong to him.

A tremor ran through his body, more emotional than physical. The realization that whatever was keeping him alive could feel that it was not some mindless force, but something aware enough to suffer unnerved him more than the coffin ever had.

Images bled into his thoughts again.

Not memories this time.

Scenes he had never lived.

Rain slicking dark pavement.

A narrow room lit by a single flickering bulb.

Blood on knuckles that weren’t his.

The visions came with emotion attached anger, shame, a bitter, hollow loneliness so deep it hollowed out his chest. The warmth pulsed harder with each image, as if struggling to contain the surge of feeling.

Stop, he thought weakly.

The warmth faltered.

For a terrifying second, his heartbeat stumbled with it.

Cold dread flooded him.

Don’t...

The warmth steadied again, firmer than before, reasserting its hold on his heart. The message was wordless but clear:

You are not in control of this.

Tears welled again, slow and silent. They slid into his hair, into the lining beneath his head, leaving his face cold and damp. He felt small smaller than the coffin, smaller than the earth pressing in on him, smaller than the presence inside his chest.

The air was nearly gone.

Each breath now felt like inhaling through fabric soaked in water thin, unsatisfying, barely sustaining. His lungs trembled with the effort, ribs aching, throat raw from shallow gasps that did nothing to ease the suffocating pressure.

I can’t breathe.

The thought drifted through him, slow and detached, as if it belonged to someone else.

The warmth tightened sharply in response.

His heart kicked violently, chest jerking as his body tried to pull in more air than the coffin could offer. Panic flared again, bright and wild, momentarily cutting through the fog of hypoxia. His fingers clawed at the wood once more, nails scraping uselessly, leaving faint marks no one would ever see.

The coffin creaked faintly.

Above him, the earth remained silent.

No rescue came.

The warmth pulsed faster now, agitated by the renewed panic. The images in his mind grew more chaotic, bleeding together without clear edges. He saw flashes of someone running through empty streets, breath ragged. A door slammed. A name shouted into the night.

None of it made sense.

Yet the emotions slammed into him with brutal clarity fear so sharp it burned, guilt so heavy it bent his thoughts inward, longing so intense it hurt.

He was drowning in someone else’s life.

His chest constricted painfully around the foreign emotions. His own fear tangled with the stranger’s, amplifying everything until the sensation was unbearable.

Make it stop.

The warmth wavered.

So did his heart.

The world tilted.

Darkness surged in from the edges of his awareness, thick and heavy, pulling him under. His thoughts slowed to a crawl, then to scattered fragments. His breath hitched once, twice then stalled completely.

For a long, suspended moment, there was nothing.

No breath.

No heartbeat.

No pain.

Only the crushing quiet of the coffin and the distant, fading echo of the warmth that had been keeping him tethered to life.

Somewhere far above, in the open air, someone cried out suddenly sharp, broken, as if a hand had closed around their heart without warning. Their knees buckled. Breath tore into their lungs in a desperate gasp.

The connection snapped taut once more.

Deep underground, the warmth surged back with violent force.

His heart lurched into motion again, slamming against his ribs. Air ripped into his lungs, burning like fire, dragging him back from the edge of nothingness. His body convulsed with the effort, muscles seizing painfully.

He screamed.

No sound escaped.

But the scream tore through him all the same, shredding what little composure he had left.

He was alive.

Again.

And this time, the realization was worse than the suffocation.

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