Hushed Willows Blood Bank

ssaaaaaammmmeeeeeeeee

The more sobs Njord croaked, the less breath he caught. Each inhale grew shorter and shorter until he was gasping. Though the seafarer and his family were safe, for the moment, the feeling of real danger sent his body into overreaction. His chest contracted. The world grew narrow. He felt true, raw panic.

Death was near. They knew him. And his sons.

Njord’s squeezed his eyes shut, expression contorted in pain. His ears rolled back and pressed against his skull. Despite this, he was eerily quiet… except for the rapid wheezing that hissed from his constricted throat.

Da?

Someone was warm against him. Njord felt his arm move by itself. It reflexively wrapped around Stingray and pulled him close. Perhaps too tight. All the while Njord’s lungs fought for an iota of oxygen. Tears pinpricked from behind shuttered lids. Jaw agape like a goldfish. He held onto Stingray for dear life – as if he was drowning and Stingray was the only buoy that kept him afloat.

For a moment it felt like it would go on forever. There was no death, just the anticipation of it. A long, drawn-out, exposition.

Njord fought to hold onto any shred of reality to ground himself. Any rule of the real world to make the imagined danger go away: Stingray’s fur was soft. The snow was cold. The ground was hard. Sobo was dead.

At last, he hiccuped and took a draught of air. And then another. Until his ribcage moved with great heaves. The storm had passed. Or maybe, he was just in the eye of it.

It was many long moments before Njord felt like he was back on planet Earth. Still, he held Stingray close. As close as he could. The father felt vulnerable and out of sorts – hardly the role of protector or family leader he was supposed to be. It felt like an atomic bomb had detonated in his heart... and now the aftershocks wracked him while the fallout ate away at all the goodness that was left.

"Stingray," he managed to say, "Ah love ye so much."

He had to know. He had to tell him. If not, Njord would regret it for the rest of his life.