Click, Click, Click.

Tendrils slithered down his stuffed throat. Bloating into wriggling maggots that sat in his lungs. Greedily stealing space in the various sacs and tubes where only air should belong.

He pushed with all the strength he could force from his numb muscles. Probing dying nerves to life to send signals only half followed.

It was enough, his ribs rose as his diaphragm and other muscles flexed in inharmonious rhythm to empty his drowned lungs and take another breath of the greasy air and whatever scant oxygen it could provide his dying body.

Between his halting shallow breath, he squeezed his still heart. From muscle group to muscle group and chamber to chamber. As Carefully as he could in his frantic marathon – he couldn’t afford any more failed beats.

This was the sum of his being. Breath beat, breath beat.

It was the best he could do, and it was failing him.

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He could feel the slow drop in his blood’s oxygen. The darkness where nerves should ceaselessly flare. See the slow fray of his envenomed muscles as they broke down even as he desperately clung to his halting rhythm.

He was dying.

He could feel it as pieces of him slowly died, as stars were lost from his body’s galaxy. The tapestry his eyes had just opened to frayed and withered despite his best effort.

Yet he clung to his heart’s jittering beat, bereft hope and past fear he clung to his temple that had become his prison.

Breath beat. Breath beat.

In the quiet moments of preparation before action, a distant part of his mind not dedicated to his survival he wondered.

How was his family? Was Summer safe, would she be angry or sad when he died?

His eyes snapped open, and he took a deep glutenous breath of the clean cool air. He counted the beats of his racing heart.

One, two. One, two.

A veritable orchestra.

He held tight to the softly glowing woman in his arms. Her breath on his neck was as warm as her namesake. His grip eased from a close squeeze to a calmed hold.

The world had ended. The thought struck him with undeniable certainty. his mind flashed with laughter swirling mist, and the impenetrable darkness his groggy mind had seen outside – and there were things that would finish the job.

He looked down at the black locks of his saviour – her head buried in his chest. Yet they were here, together.

He let her light comfort him as he pushed aside his worries about tomorrow and focused on a coming day.

One, two. One Two.