CHAPTER ONE ,
breathe

⠀Waking up to a world of cleanliness wasn't a familiarity he had felt in almost two years. Since he was in the early years of his twenties and fire tore through his home ― home was no longer a word he tasted.

⠀Everything was bitter and poison, leaving a pain above his brow.

⠀Isiah mustered enough strength to twitch small muscles that ran up his arm, moving sporadically under the scratchy white sheet. Lower jaw tucked under the fabric, turning his aching neck somewhere towards the darker parts of the room.

⠀The second thing he noticed was a sharp pain at the top of his hand, playing like the strings of an instrument every time he moved his fingers.

⠀He didn't feel the dirt caking his skin, the sun beating on his shoulders. Isiah felt the crooked bedding that the hospital had provided. Sleepy eyes staring into absolutely nothing, with weak eyelids flipping up and down at each passing thought he could bring to himself. Anything to get the cogs working again.

⠀Anything to get moving again. And Isiah had been trying so hard to wake up, from whatever bright dream his mind saw that he had only just realised they were open the entire time.

⠀Staring at the pale ceiling above where he lay, mouth agape and eyelashes flickering.

⠀He used every ounce of effort inside himself to lift his lift arm in front of his view.

⠀A needle stuck into it, connecting to a tube that leads to an IV. His gaze curiously followed each plane of the room to try and woo some sense of footing, but he failed.

⠀He didn't know what he was doing in a spectacularly clean room, in that moment in time. With a large gown fashioned over his body, and multiple pangs singing up his body. Each joint and muscle felt bruised, the sheer gravity around him pressing into every single one.

⠀The sound of a clock was a sound he had once only heard in his dreams, one he yearned for.

⠀And with each tick, the cogs in his own self-seemed to beat faster. Each time it echoed, across the flat plain walls, he breathed in.

⠀He remembered that it used to be so hard to breathe. It was a weakening sense, that made him feel childlike. He was being thrown into a time of being five, with dirt reaching his knees and fingers clutching the grass as he could not breathe.

⠀Another sound came to his years, a foreign click that was followed by soft patters.

⠀"Isiah?" A soft sweet voice filled the air, along with his hoarse breath entering his body at way too fast a pace. He urged his eyes to try and find who was talking, but his body would not let him.

⠀"Isiah?"

⠀His hands clutched the sheets, as his ribs felt like they would concave. Exhale was not an option as he inhaled repeatedly. The light only getting brighter.

⠀Each and every sense tingled up his arms and legs, with a white hot pain. All senses adding up to a feeling of complete hopelessness he could not pin down and squash.

⠀He couldn't look back through his experiences of the past few days to try and anchor himself to reality. He couldn't think of what happened before, about the prison... about his dad.

⠀The thought of seeing his dad's head separate from his neck only made him breathe faster, and he felt hands come to his shoulders. They pinned him down as more voices lifted above him.

⠀"We're trying to help you!"

⠀"What's wrong with him?"

⠀"He needs epinephrine."

⠀"He... he has asthma."

⠀"You could have told me that before!"

⠀All the voices were muffled and clouded in his ears, he couldn't decipher one from another. He didn't have time to look around and greet whoever had joined him because he was too busy trying to breathe.

⠀The invisible chains that once held his body down, became real, in the form of hands gripping his shoulders and wrists. They stopped him writhing on the mattress, squirming. On top of that, plastic was pressed to his cheeks and the bridge of his nose ― digging into his skin and catching the edges of his eyes.

⠀"N-" he couldn't even speak, because as he did, they only held him down more and his chest only panged with a sharp pain, even more. He did not think it was possible to feel this way or to feel like you're drowning despite being bone dry on a creaky mattress.

⠀The air sucked through his nose, and suddenly a soft cloud of relief washed over his body after Dr. Edwards had pressed firmly on the inhaler, letting out a sharp sound and mist throughout the nebuliser. Isiah's body welcomed it, each muscle relaxing as Edwards steadily pressed the pump one more time.

⠀Beth watched her brother anxiously from the other side of the bed, furrowing her brows at the sight of his pale skin. She urged to reach for his hand, but her hands shook so much that she could not woo her muscles to move even an inch from where she was standing.

⠀Isiah's eyes fluttered, taking in the daylight and falling dust in front of him. Each breath was heaven-sent, and each pump of his blood felt anew in his cold body. His lungs warmed, they rested, and soon enough he was back to breathing like most of the people in the world.

⠀It was like being pulled from the water, slapping graciously to the ground in a pile of ache.

⠀All hands were taken from his body, the chains were broken, and he could finally make out who was around him and who he should try to be afraid of.

⠀"Isiah?" Beth's small voice was the welcoming he got, and his eyes instantly but slowly drifted to his younger sister. His body reached out to her, wanting comfort from someone he loved and knew above all else.

⠀It was all coming back to him, about what had happened after the prison fell. He remembered running beside his sister and Daryl.

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⠀Isiah held her hand tightly in his, swerving down the open window and looking over his shoulder to make sure she was following. The grip he had was only one way he knew she would be beside him.

⠀"Come on," his voice echoed in his own ears, anything to distract himself from the fact that Daryl had basically instructed them to abandon him. After finding the front door was being knocked by the dead, he told them to bolt and for Isiah to look after his sister.

⠀It had been that way ― cliche, yes. It was Daryl and Isiah who had taken the lead because it was just a fact that Beth was young and she was naive.

⠀"But, Daryl," Beth's voice was desperate, and she breathed heavily in the slightly warm evening air.

⠀"He told us to go," they ran as fast as their legs could carry them, ducking under branches and hitting any obstacle that came in their way. "That son o' bitch knows what he's talking about!"

⠀Isiah used his other hand to clutch his chest tightly, looking wildly forward.

⠀And soon they came to a road ― walkers circling their tired bodies left and right, Beth and Isiah stood together on the side of the road, praying to all things holy they could be saved one way or another.

⠀Isiah saw an opening in the cluster, taking no chances as he left forward through the gap. And right into the middle of the road, where no walker could catch him up.

⠀And then there was a moment, as the man turned on his heel because for a split second he had forgotten not to be selfish. To not try to survive all by himself, because there was actually people in this world that cared about him; and there were people he cared about.

⠀His sister appeared at the corner of his eye, just as a bright light cast his cheekbones, and he couldn't help but turn towards it. Like a moth to the flame, his eyes widened as the car came into contact with his body.

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⠀"Beth?" the man tried to sit up, groaning loudly. He noticed his leg was heavy, specifically the right.

⠀Beth rushed towards him, hooking her arms around his body and tightly hugging him close. Isiah did not resist to hug her back, to hold her close, pushing his face into the weird smelling blue scrubs she wore. "Thank god," he whispered tearfully, shaking in his sister's hold.

⠀Nothing else mattered in that moment, except the fact that he was not alone and he was with someone. He briefly closed his eyes, letting water paint his cheeks.

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(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ note.
welcome to the first chapter of whiplash give isiah some love because he deserve it

also can yall recognise i gave him asthma stuff like this is important.
( edited ✓ )