Sky Mesa "Fire on the Mountain," Run, Boys, Run

Someone was speaking. A voice—familiar. His rounded ear twitched, and slowly, with a heavy ache, his opal eyes dragged themselves open. Everything was wrong. The light was blinding, sharp, as if the sun itself had decided to swallow him alive. Had it always been this bright? And Gods, his body burned. Machiavelli's vision blurred, the figures before him swaying like shadows in water, shifting from three to one and back again, all silhouetted against the bleeding sky of the setting sun.

But then—those eyes.

No.

He knew those eyes. He could never forget them. Panic surged like wildfire, searing through his veins, but his body—his traitorous body—remained still, heavy and unresponsive, as though pinned. He willed his limbs to move, to pull away, but they refused, locked in place like a corpse.

He wanted to scream—to tear his throat open with the sheer force of it—but his mouth would not obey. Nothing obeyed.

No, no, no, no, no—

The word repeated in his mind, spiraling into a desperate chant as everything slipped, the light fading, the figures blurring again. The world dimmed, his heart racing as he was dragged, unwilling, back into darkness.