EDIT: I'm done, just working on formatting now.
EDIT2: eyy
Alright so two things. First, I really wanted to tell a story where formatting was more important than just your typical paragraph indents and whatever. Second, this attempt came out in about an hour (not counting the seven or so hours spent on discarded attempts), and... it kinda shows, haha. It's not as long, gorey, graphic, creepy, or otherwise ♥♥♥♥ up as I could make it but y'know, I kinda don't mind it this way.
EDIT3: Also the lack of title isn't a stylistic choice or anything (but if you wanna read meaning into it, go ahead), I'm just bad at them. :p
EDIT4realthisisthelastone: Tweak to the ending, kinda surprised this didn't occur to me at all.
Spoiler: show
He jerks awake. Everything is white. It hurts. What...?
Beep
Dimly, he registers the sound of the alarm clock. It still hurts. His eyes drift shut. Maybe just five more minutes.
Beep
But the alarm is persistent. Visions of a glass-fronted building come to mind. Work. Yes. He has to work. It hurts a lot, though. He reaches to turn off the alarm clock.
Beep
Nothing happens. He reaches to turn off the alarm clock.
But nothing happens.
Beep
A thought reaches him, hazy and unclear, as if travelling through a thick fog. Something is not right, he thinks. Something is very wrong. His eyes snap open-
Beep
-and blinding morning sunlight blasts everything white again. Through the glare, he can vaguely make out the bed he is in. It's smaller than it should be. He becomes anxious for reasons he can't quite grasp. The fog-
Beep
-is making it difficult to think. A chair sits under the window to his right, and a door is set into the wall on his left. This room is also smaller than it should be, he thinks. Where am I? And then he realizes. With sudden clarity-
Beep
-he sees the tubes snaking out of his body, the machinery hissing and beeping and whirring behind him-
Beep
-feels the pain more acutely than ever as blood pounds in his head.
Beep
Hospital, he thinks.
Beep
Oh god.
Beep
I'm dying.
Beep
The door smashes open.
Beep.
A woman shouts-
Beep
-but her words die in the vacuum-
Beep
-inflating to fill the room as-
Beep
-his beautiful daughter screams-
Beep
-just a second too late.
Beep
As his wife, serenely sleeping-
Beep
-is crushed into the windshield.
Beep
As the world explodes into light and pain.
Beep
As he watches them bleed out between hulking monsters of twisted metal.
Beep
As something that might have been glass twinkles on the dark pavement, like stars in a sky fading to black.
Beep
He jerks awake. Everything is white. It doesn't hurt anymore. What...?
Beep
Dimly, he registers his companion's voice. It isn't really much of a voice, he thinks, but upon hearing it something awakes in his mind. A sense of security? Safety? Somehow, he associates the beeping voice with a reality truer than the infinite plain of white fog stretching in every direction. Somehow, as long as it keeps speaking to him, everything is under control.
Beep
He thinks of his wife. Curly, untameable brown hair, playful blue eyes. The freckle just beneath her left eye, the one she had always hated so much, but he had always thought adorable. Her sarcastic remarks whenever he had forgot to pick up groceries on the way home from work.
Beep
The quiet evenings, where no words needed to be said, and the arguments, where too many words had been said. A flash of guilt hits him as he remembers the last one- it had been stupid, too, about the clothes he always left in the dryer. It would've been so easy to just apologize for.
Beep
But she'd always been there, ever since that July evening eight years ago, when they had been married under the fireflies. Not anymore.
Beep
He thinks of his daughter, inquisitive eyes so much like her mothers', always getting into mischief, and always pretending she hadn't been. He chuckles in spite of himself. She was a handful, certainly, but a good kid at heart, and he wouldn't trade the trouble for the world.
Beep
Memories bring tears to his eyes- of walking the dog to the park on Sunday mornings, of her indignant expression whenever he intentionally lost at videogames. Of how she had been so determined to learn how to read before starting school. Her eagerness toward everything was the only thing that kept him going, sometimes. She would've had a bright future ahead of her.
Beep
He thinks of other things, too. Of work, where he rifled through unending stacks of paperwork and pretended to be interested in productivity meetings. Well, that, at least, he wouldn't really miss; but he did lament all the nights the boss had made him stay late, missing dinner, missing his family.
Beep
Of their dog, a great chocolate lab staying with the neighbors, expecting a family that would never come back. The neighbors had never really been pet people, but maybe they'd make an exception this time. Of the house, and lawn, and car, on which he had spent so many hours carefully maintaining, only for them to fall into disrepair now.
Beep
Of the homeless man at the corner of the neighborhood, who he had always resolutely driven past. Maybe I should have given some cash, he thinks, understanding now how quickly life could change in such a short time.
Beep
Finally, he thinks of himself. All of his accomplishments and dreams and regrets swirl around his mind in a meaningless blur. Pain wracks through his body as he gives in to hopelessness and fear.
B-Beep
The voice seems to falter, but he no longer cares. There is no security or safety in this place, only uncertainty and despair. He cries.
Beep
What good does any grand accomplishment do if there is nobody to share it with?
Beep
As if in response, the endless white seems to brighten. With it, a sense of caring. Of belonging.
Beep
Just as the beeping voice seems to whisper of an unseen reality, something in the impenetrable white fog also seems to be whispering.
Beep
It's a familiar whisper. It tells of fireflies and blue eyes, bedtime stories and a young girl's laughter. He wants to join it.
Beep
As the beeping voice fades away, the other gets stronger. He tries to call to it, but he's so tired.
Beep
He slumps into the fog.
The familiar voices are all around.
It would be so easy...
to just
let
go
Beep
He jerks awake. Everything is dark. It hurts. The machines snaking into and around his body are indifferent.
Beep
Beep
Beep
Why me?
