Live, Love, Lose - 29. Chapter 29

George was on a beach, a huge and empty beach that seemed to be endless, except for the sea. The sky was cloudy, but it wasn’t raining. He looked around for someone, anyone whom he could recognize. He was feeling completely lost. He had no idea how to get out of there. It was as if he were trapped. There wasn’t even one boat on the sea. He walked aimlessly, in the hope of finding something or someone that could help him. But it seemed to be completely pointless.

There was no way out.

His breath started becoming shallow and ragged. He spun around, looking helplessly at his surroundings. Breathing became more and more difficult with each second that passed.

He walked aimlessly again, the panic in him keeping him going. As he was still roaming, he heard some faint sound in the distance. Of course, he was intrigued by it, so he kept walking until he got close enough to see what was the source of it. For some reason he ignored, his heart was beating faster and faster. Maybe because he was walking too rapidly. The sound became more and more distinct as he came closer. He stopped short when he could finally associate the sound with an image.

It was a human body lying on the sand. And it was calling for help.

The voice was still too faint to be heard clearly, so he had to get closer, much closer. When he finally was near the body, his mouth fell agape out of shock. A shiver ran down his spine, a shiver of horror. He felt his legs were suddenly becoming like jelly. And next thing he knew, his whole body was quivering, and wouldn’t stop.

He couldn’t be mistaken. The sight before him was clear.

“No, no, no…” his voice cracked as he trailed off this simple, yet ineffective word.

He fell to his knees abruptly as his legs couldn’t stand his own weight any longer.

“N-Nathan…” He couldn’t even recognize the sound of his own voice as he finished pronouncing his name.

The other male struggled to turn his head to look at him. An indescribable pain rushed in his chest and made his heart ache more than it had ever ached before as they locked eyes. His piercing blue eyes that looked always so bright and lively were now looking lifeless. And if it weren’t for his arms holding him back, he would have completely collapsed on Nathan. But they were shaking violently, he could feel it. He hoped they would be strong enough not to let him fall.

“G-g-g-g-george…” his stuttering was followed by wheezing. “Y…you…” The ache in his chest was becoming more and more intense as he witnessed how he struggled to say a single word. “…found…me…” his breathing between each word was awfully loud, accompanied by some kind of wincing. It seemed to be so hard for him to breathe that it was hurting him. George’s heart shattered into a million pieces at the thought.

He could feel his own throat constricting, and a lump formed in it, making him unable to say anything back. He couldn’t stare into his dull blue eyes anymore. It was too hard. Instead, he looked at the rest of his body. He noticed the huge bloodstain on his clothes. The pain was becoming much worse now. He saw how the blood was flowing, flowing out of him through his clothes, draining all the life out of him. He had to stop it. He didn’t think twice about it, and put his hands on the wound in a flash and pressed on it in spite of his arms that were still trembling.

“Hold on…!” He cried desperately. He could feel his eyes were starting to become wet.

He dared look into his eyes again, only to be more broken.

“I-I’m…s-s-s…s-sorry…”

Don’t speak… he wanted to tell him. You’re wasting the little energy that’s left in you. But the words wouldn’t come out.

His throat was tightening as if he was going to be strangled if it tightened too much.

“…I…I…b-broke…m-my…p-promise…”

Could the pain be any worse? Apparently, it could.

He started shaking his head frantically. He pressed on the wound harder, but he could feel his hands were totally soaked. Quite an unpleasant feeling, but he couldn’t have cared less about it at that moment.

He looked away again from his dull blue eyes. He just stared blankly into space, at the endless beach of white sand, whiter than any kind of sand he had ever seen, which he found a bit strange.

He flinched as fingertips brushed ever so slightly against his soaked hand.

“S-stop…i-it’s…t-too…la…”

He started coughing before he could even properly finish, causing George to look at him in panic. But it wasn’t just some casual coughing. He was coughing blood. George could feel himself freeze. The pressure of his hands slowly decreased. Yet, he didn’t remove them from him.

The blood kept flowing again and again. His hands were sinking in a pool of dark red blood. He couldn’t stop it. He didn’t have anything with him to stop it. His hands wouldn’t be enough, he realised. And another shiver ran down his spine. He looked back at his face, and much to his horror, he had become much paler within only a few seconds. A violent pang in his chest shook him. He started shaking his head frantically once again.

“No, no, no…don’t die, don’t. Don’t. You can’t die…” he thought he was going to suffocate even if he stopped speaking. “I…I need you…you can’t leave me…”

He stared straight into his eyes as he spoke. But they weren’t blue anymore. They had turned into a faded grey, a grey that looked ugly before he could witness that shift.

“Y-you…w-won’t…b-be…a…” he coughed again, but this time it was more like a coughing fit. The blood kept coming out and wouldn’t cease, making the sides of his face all bloody.

“No, no, no, no, no…” His no’s were hasty, desperate, his voice completely broken, like his heart.

He leaned down to kiss his lips one last time, but he could only taste blood. So much blood…too much blood. So much so he could have drunk it.

He leaned back swiftly, his whole body shaking more violently than before. He could feel his eyes becoming wetter and wetter.

His lover tried to speak, but there was only a throaty sound that came out of his bloody mouth. It was like an animalistic groan, except that there was nothing ferocious in it; like a sound of agony…

There was so much blood in his mouth that it was preventing him from saying anything else.

“I…” the sound was somewhat stifled by the blood, but he could still comprehend what he meant. “l-love…”

He finished with the same kind of sound, and his lips went still. His eyes fluttered close. George expected the pain in his body to hurt him much more, but it didn’t happen. No. His body went numb. It was as if he couldn’t feel anything any longer.

He looked like he was sleeping like this. But there was something truly eerie in it.

Yet, with all this blood it wasn’t hard to say that he had just died.

The truth as it was; plain, and cold.

He licked his lips that were so dry, just like the rest of his mouth, with a hesitant and shaky tongue. It wasn’t long before he could feel something wet rolling down one cheek, then down the other. It became wetter and wetter as the seconds passed.

He finally removed his hands from his stomach and used them to wipe his face that was soaking with fresh tears. He rubbed it, as he realised wiping it wouldn’t be enough. But the salted liquid just wouldn’t stop streaming down his cheeks. It was burning his eyes so hard. He rubbed them harshly, but it just seemed to be making his pain even worse.

He groaned in frustration. He hated that burning and stinging sensation.

He ended up removing them from his face because he didn’t want to keep doing that forever. But he froze again as his vision wasn’t blurred any longer.

He could only see red everywhere. A red redder than any he had ever seen. He looked in the distance as he could feel his heart pound in his chest, and his own blood rushing into his temples. The sand wasn’t white anymore. Everything was red. He turned his head slightly. The sea had vanished. The water had been drowned by blood. He felt like he was going to suffocate again. Or maybe it had never really stopped. He just hadn’t paid any attention to it.

He looked away and his eyes fell upon his body. He started shaking again. He was being drowned in blood, swallowed by it, it seemed. He wanted to stop it, but his own body wouldn’t allow him to do anything. He wanted to say something, but neither would his lips part. They were so dry that it seemed that they were glued.

His body was becoming unbearably hot.

He was feeling as though his heart was going to burst. He put his left hand on his chest. But as he pressed against it, he could feel something wet. He removed it to look at both his hands. This time his arms started trembling uncontrollably. They were covered in red, that same red that was everywhere. They were the same hands with which he had just wiped his face and rubbed his eyes, he realised.

His own blood was blended with his tears. No. Not his own blood; only his own tears.

His…

His hands were shaking so much that he couldn’t even see them clearly anymore. He looked away, but everything was blurred by red.

He was gone. Forever. He couldn’t breathe any longer. Did that mean he was going to die too? And join him?

No. No. No.

At that stage, his brain wasn’t functioning normally anymore.

He had let him die.

No. No. No. No. No.

No.

He finally found his voice back and screamed at the top of his lungs.

What…

Everything had just disappeared. The beach, the sea, the blood. He was completely lost. Everything was now just a blur. He took a close look at his surroundings, and then he realised…this had been all just a bad dream…?

His breathing was shaky and uneven. And his body was all in sweat. He licked his chapped lips, again with a hesitant tongue. He felt the sheets shift. He turned his head and managed to make out Karl’s shape sitting up.

Oh, right, he had forgotten he was back.

He kept thinking it would have been better had he stayed at Paul’s. The situation wasn’t optimal for either of them.

He let out a loud sigh before he glanced down at his lap.

He thought again about the nightmare he had just had. It had seemed all so real…

He could feel himself shivering again. And his heart was thumping against his ribcage. Now the bloody images wouldn’t leave his head…

It was real torture.

“Go…just go away…leave me alone…” he whispered weakly, trying to shout but he was too vulnerable to do so.

Even if he kept his eyes open, they kept on flashing upon his mind, like an awful movie. The worst movie he had ever seen.

“Go away…” he just sounded like a small and fragile, wounded and scared animal, and he absolutely hated it. He brought his legs to his chest and hugged them tightly before he buried his head in his knees.

He really didn’t need to have that dream. He was already damaged enough.

All at once, he could feel the sheets shift again, and something move. No, someone, not something. Inanimate objects couldn’t move on their own.

Oh right. Again, he had momentarily forgotten about his presence.

He shifted his position and patted the space next to him, which was empty. He had just stood up, but why?

“What are you doing?” He asked, not even bothering to spare him a single glance.

“Leaving.”

Leaving…wait, don’t tell me…

He thought his words were meant for him.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Great, now he was going to think he was mad…

But did he care at all about his opinion after all? Absolutely not.

What now? Was he going to try to run away again?

He didn’t hear his footsteps, so that meant he remains still. He was probably staring at him, and he didn’t like it at all when he was staring straight into his eyes with that unreadable look on his face. It was kind of creepy. So either he gave him a spontaneous answer, or he sodded off.

He sighed in slight annoyance.

“Just stay, you idiot.”

He flinched as the images came back abruptly, without warning. They left him alone momentarily while he was focusing on this bloke only to hit him with full force just to have the pleasure to torture him even more.

“Jeg forstår, at du hellere vil være alene. Jeg vil ikke tvinge min tilstedeværelse til dig.”

I understand that you’d rather be alone. I don’t want to force my presence on you.

What? What was he jabbering about?

Why did he have to talk to him in his mother tongue when he knew he couldn’t understand a single word of it?

This was really annoying.

“You know, I didn’t learn Danish while you were not here.”

No answer, no reaction, nothing. It was really frustrating; even if he spoke Danish, at least he spoke, so this was better than nothing. No, in fact, he wasn’t sure what was worse between him speaking Danish and his staring at him with that blank look on his face.

Why was he making such a big deal of it? Seriously, he shouldn’t be giving the bloke so much of his time and attention.

“Just come back into bed,” he ordered as he stood up swiftly and groped around before he inadvertently touched his face none too gently. He grabbed his wrist in the same way and pulled him back towards the bed. “Just lay into bed and don’t move!”

He pushed him on the bed, and he made a thump as he fell on it, unable to prevent his own fall.

“Do you think I’m pleased to have to share this room with you?! No, I’m not! But I’m still forcing myself because I don’t want to become a tramp, okay?! It’s already complicated enough as it is, so don’t make it worse!”

He sat himself down on it, and wanted to lay back in it, but…

“Move on your side of the bed! And just try to go back to sleep.”

He forced him to budge until he was sure he was pressed against the wall. He was careful himself not to fall off the bed because he really didn’t need it at that moment. And especially, he didn’t need to squash his glasses.

He was afraid to close his eyes now, but would keep them open be better? He wasn’t so sure of it.

He had taken sleeping pills for all the sleepless nights he had had until that night. All the pain wouldn’t leave him some rest. It didn’t need rest. It was always there, rooted in him like weeds. Even when you tried to remove it, it always grew back twice as much and in no time. But only when he thought he could have at least the tiniest bit of sleep, it even attacked his subconscious.

He couldn’t keep on going like this; otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to cope for much longer, he knew it.

He sighed out of despair and helplessness.

He just wished he could fall asleep and never wake up ever again, so he couldn’t feel all the pain anymore.

Hey!
Yeah, I know, George is gonna get lynched again for that, but... everyone makes mistakes,okay!
Take care ❤️