next part of Untitled Jonelias Magic AU, enjoy!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

***

It was getting late. He really ought to have been readying himself for bed right now, or doing something otherwise productive. Yet there he sat, staring at nothing, with his arms looped loosely around his legs and a blanket pulled around his shoulders.

The books and journals he had read on the subject hadn’t been particularly helpful. Prolonged use of restraints, particularly in the developmental age, had been reported to have adverse effects, the long list of which Jon had jotted down in his notebook and underlined those which – he felt – applied to him. But all experts in the field stressed that the response could be varied, and unique to each case, and… well. He wouldn’t know until he tried, would he? It really boiled down to that.

He felt for the clasp on his inner wrist. The bracelet – it seemed to him, now, that it peeled away from his skin like a living thing, that there were fine, linear strands of silvery white that had burrowed their way inside his body, and were reluctant to let go…

It slipped down onto the floor. Jon shut his eyes and held his breath.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened, nothing would happen, if he could just—

His lungs needed the air, but each muscle in his body remained seized with tension. Nothing happened. Nothing was going on, just this—this feeling, he could get through it. He would—he would—

The pain was getting worse, burning in his chest, even as it felt like great pressure was squeezing it from every direction. Could he not breathe without the damn thing? Was it a side-effect of the bracelet, or was he just doing it to himself? None of the literature mentioned suffocation as the possible cause of death…

Jon gasped. The air rushed into his chest, blessedly cool. Strangely enough he felt like he could taste it, static electricity on his tongue, pinprick sensation on his fingertips, ringing in his ears. And his vision went blurry, or—no, he could see well enough, colours and shapes and light and darkness, but they did not add up to anything he might recognize, no patterns, no objects, nothing, just an endless, incomprehensible stream of sensation.

There was—the window, he had left cracked open. The street outside, two men arguing, their voices muffled but somehow perfectly clear, adding to the cacophony in his ears. And the walls, which, which he could see right through them, the kitchen on the opposite side of the wall that wasn’t his kitchen, Mrs Calloway preparing dinner for her husband and children, who were waiting in the dining room, always hungry, always waiting, always wanting… the man in the apartment upstairs whose name Jon didn’t even know, who lost his job a month ago and had been slipping further and further into darkness and apathy with only liquor to ease the way… Mr Patel downstairs, who had received the diagnosis two days ago and was wondering how to break it to his wife… and others, others, so many others, their voices slipping through the cracks, a hundred thousands secrets and tragedies, in this building alone, and even more of them outside these walls, pressing in from every direction, relentless, a tidal wave of human misery that was threatening to swallow him whole…

He barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. He knelt on the floor, heaving, hands holding onto the porcelain, clammy with sweat. He didn’t want to know these things about his neighbours. He didn’t want to know them about anyone. And now his stomach hurt, and his chest hurt, and his mouth tasted vile, and he could smell vomit, but at least—at least he knew where he was. He knew who he was. He knew all those things and more.

The tiny bathroom flooded with light. Jon looked up, uncomprehending. The electric lightbulb above his head flickered, shone brighter, searing white across his vision; and then it shattered, raining down glass, and he was plunged into darkness once more.

For the longest time, Jon could hear nothing but his own laboured breathing. Eventually, he tried to push himself upright. His arms were trembling; his legs felt too weak to carry his own weight. He clung onto the doorframe and waited for his head to stop spinning.

The lights were out in the living room. Hadn’t he left them on? No, he was pretty sure he had. Good lord, his head ached like it might split open at any moment. It was difficult to form coherent thoughts—

Someone was knocking at the door. Jon—Jon looked, and looked, and tried to think, but it was increasingly difficult to…

He opened the door.

“Mr Sims?” asked the man outside – Calloway, his name was Calloway. He had a torch. He was pudgy and balding and worried that his wife had an affair, it’s been so long since they—no, this wasn’t—this wasn’t right. Jon shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts. They weren’t his.

“Mr Calloway,” he said, rubbing his face. “Has something happened?”

“Power is out. The fuse blew out in our apartment. Yours too, I’m assuming. I will have to go to the basement and check on the switchgear…”

The ringing in Jon’s ears persisted. But there was something comforting about the darkness, now that Mr Calloway pointed the torchlight away from them both. Jon didn’t have to look him in the eyes anymore.

“What happened?” Jon asked.

“Probably the kids down on the second floor, mucking about with magic again,” Calloway grumbled. “I shall have to speak to—”

Magic. Oh—oh fuck.

“Excuse me,” Jon said weakly. “I—I really don’t know much about electricity at all. Would you like me to call the company?”

“Call them how?” Calloway said after a pause. “No, it’s no trouble. I will take a look.”

“Thank you,” Jon said. “I—I shall go and. Look for candles in the meantime.”

He shut the door and exhaled, a slow, measured breath. All right. The bracelet was still on the floor by the couch, where he had left it; it reached out to him in some intangible way, its silky strands weaving themselves around his limbs. And—it was worrying, strange, how readily they pulled him back. How they wrapped around him in a cocoon, shielding him from the world. Shielding the world from him.

All in all, this attempt could have gone better.