[SOLO] For Whom The Bell Tolls When did he become so weak?
The pills numbed the burning in his chest and the constant pain of feeling as if someone had reached into his body and squeezed every organ they could touch. But Itachi had felt drained--weak, so weak, and the pills had become candy to him, a brief, temporary rush to free him from the pain--for days, since the night those creatures attacked. Using his chakra had been foolish. In hindsight he cannot say he would not do it again.
A few weeks. A month. Not so long ago he awakened with the feeling of his last breath still on his lips to a world of darkness. The void of death stolen.
Life imprisonment. An eternity until death. How ironic that it would again come so soon.
This is right, Itachi does not need to remind himself. He spent years doing so. A quick death is too painless. Life too forgiving. He seeks neither absolution nor salvation. This is an execution.
Itachi awakens that morning to suffocation. His chest aches and he tries to take in a deep breath, only it's as if his lung refuse to obey him. He can only manage a small strangled gasp before he coughs and coughs as if the wheezing chokes of breath will never end.
The burn in his chest rushes up his throat like the fires fanned by his clan's name. Then the flood.
He can't breathe.
His hand flies out to the table at his bedside, grasping for the small round plastic container. He feels it, tries to hold onto it, but it slips from his hand and the clatter of it echoes through the room over the sound of his desperation.
Empty.
Itachi rolls from his bed to land harshly onto the floor, clutching at his chest and heaving. He can taste the bloody acid from his stomach and smell the coppery liquid as it also rushes up and out his nose.
The inhalations of air are weak, but what he manages is more than before. His entire body feels like dead weight. His arms flimsy and disconnected from his thoughts, though he pushes himself up to his feet. His equilibrium is lost and he stumbles against the wall.
All the better. Itachi uses it to guide him, less he forget what direction is up. The bathroom. He knows the spare bottle is in the bathroom.
He knocks over the chair by his desk, stumbling with little to orient him. He finally finds purchase against the door frame, but not before another coughing fits hits him and he drops to the ground, his hand going to his mouth. There's warmth. So warm. Spilling over his fingers.
It's so familiar he can almost see the red smeared across his palm. Just like before.
But Sasuke is not here to see it.
Itachi almost chuckles at the irony. So close and yet so far away from his goal... He doesn't have the strength to move. It's so much simpler to remain where he is. This will pass. It has to pass.
How perfect that Sakura is gone. Such a child...
Why did he ever take in such a child?
When did he become...so weak?
When did he come to...
{OOC: Warning. This post contains graphic, disturbing, and possibly upsetting details of someone suffering from a terminal illess near death. Please do not read if those things cause you undue stress. Itachi is not dead yet. Just unconscious.}