jamie
The labored breath is the only thing that gives him away here.
The only thing that distinguishes him from the darkness that gathers around him.
The wheezing, rasping breath. Because he had tried to summon a portal that might take him home to Pangea and it had failed. It had failed and it had left him drained and he feels like something less than as he sways here in the shadows. Beneath the cover of darkness. He may as well not exist at all.
And perhaps he might not have if not for the bright yellow eyes. And those traitorous lungs.
He should have walked. At least then he could have stopped to rest along the way. And why had he been in such a hurry to get back to Pangea? The fog curls around him, licking up his legs, hugging his sides, and any passers by would have been forgiven for thinking him fog pressed into the shape of a horse rather than tangible darkness. It brings him some comfort, his fog. Sometimes he swears it speaks to him.
But there is something off about him. Something not all there.
The fog is not speaking, he is merely imagining it.
The fog is not speaking, it is merely the sound of his own breath.
Like a living thing.
Something independent from the rest of him.
Something with a mind and a will of its own.
Because he does not want to admit that it belongs to him. Because he wants no part of it.
And yet it inhabits his chest. He carves out his lungs. And it feels strange and pointless that something as dark as he should have to go through the motions of living the way the rest of them do. It seems pointless that something as dark as he should have a heart and lungs and blood.
And he groans, too. Just once. But it is these things that give him away. The way he reacts to the pain and the exhaustion. And he should lie down to sleep but he does not want to risk being trampled. So, he stands and he breathes and he lurks and he waits for daylight.