Guilty Conscience ~ Abbacchio/Fem Reader

Chapter 18: Breathe

WARNING:
This chapter of Guilty Conscience contains major depictions of serious injury.

It was a strange feeling. Thinking hundreds of crushing thoughts in a single moment without having heard any of them. Not a peep. Not when she tried to clear her mind of the wandering ideas that pooled in her head. Nor when she desperately searched herself for even a whisper of a thought. Nothing. Y/N could not hear anything or anyone. Save for it.

I'm Still Standing, it called itself. The figure that stood mere inches behind her. Whispering into the very depths of her mind, it could not be heard by anyone around her, except for Y/N herself. With numb fingers and paling skin, Y/N stared into the cracked glass sitting in fragments just behind Fabio's lifeless body. He sat in a heap of crooked limbs, all pointed in different directions, all twisted in ways they should not be. Just beyond the man that lived seconds ago, lay a pane in pieces propped up against a dirty bar stool. Someone must've knocked it down during the commotion. Y/N started into the chipped glass, not looking at herself, but at the eyes that lingered just above her left shoulder.

Breathe, it told her again.

But Y/N did not listen. She held her breath and stared at it as the patrons of Fasso continued to push past one another, scrambling out of the bar.

She stared. And stared. And stared at the hard-skinned figure that loomed over her. With the eyes of a human and the figure of a mature woman, Y/N questioned if this thing behind her might be of her own race. But the reflective, metal-like material that it wore as skin, gleaming like eroded copper, made Y/N think again. Its sharp-cut eyes traced the length of her body as she remained planted and unmoving.

Breathe, it told her again. Breathe, Y/N.

After many long seconds of silence, Y/N finally squeaked out, "Why?"

Its laugh was low and haunting, trailing goose bumps up her arms and back. If you don't breathe, it mused into her mind, then you can't move.

"Move?" She repeated, cocking her head to get a better look at the thing in the pane's reflection.

And then Y/N heard it: a rush of footsteps pounded on Fasso's creaking floorboards, not heading away, but toward her.

Twisting to face the source of the sound, Y/N was met by a stout man with thinning hair and a broken bottle in his grasp. He charged her with vengeance in his eye and power in his stride, moving quickly across the bar's open floor. With practiced hands and a flurry of instincts running through her mind, Y/N stared at the burly beast as he charged her and reached to her hip - for her holster. But when she was met with the curve of her bare waist and nothing more, panic seeped over her skin once again.

Why are you frightened, Y/N? You've dealt with thugs like this many times before. This man should be no problem for you. She felt the words tickle her neck as it whispered in her ear.

As the man grew closer and closer, Y/N felt her chest pound at an uneven beat. She tried to ignore the figure that scrutinized her panic and witnessed what would soon be her steady downfall, but for every second she concentrated on getting rid of that silky voice that haunted her thoughts, she would have less of a chance at living; I need to focus, Y/N thought to herself. Focus. Focus. Focus on the man, not on the thing.

Within moments, the man was before her, driving the broken glass toward her shaking shoulder. His arms were thick with muscle and quickly stretched in her direction. Move, the thing told her as time seemed to halt. Move now or die. . .