Emberwood [m]Reach for light.

Inhale.
Exhale.
Breathe.
Was what she told him, and breathe he did. His chest expanded with the pressure building in his lungs, and with tainted, blurred eyes still, he felt the churning rub of suffocating. It stayed, lingered in his chest, until it released in slowly from his mouth. Yet it worked, that when he went to breathe again, it was not so intense. Who was she, to know something? Who was she to be right? Then it was wrong, and she would not be right. His breath built its pace again, and with blurred pupils, trees of blending colors and the sky fading to the leaves, what grew clear was her.

What she would not see was pain on his features, his mind. What she would not see was sprawled weakness.
He refused.
Simply because he believed he would be better to die, deserve to, should he allow it.
Natural selection.
It would not be him.

His nose snorted roughly. “Thanks.”

But in all that, his unsteady, swaying legs betrayed him. Pain came in nauseating waves that rendered him near unable to walk.

Yet he flagged his tail, he spoke loud- clear, intense. He expected it back. “Name’s Bonnie. Don’t forget it.”