[WP] What it feels like to hold your breath for too long

...

Desperation: That's what Ronalde felt first.

It pierced inward like ten-thousand needles of wanting, each a stab with its own portion of primal sortie. A craving, a hunger, a frenzy: not for food or for thirst, or even lust- but action.

Action was why that feeling showed itself within his lungs. A growing demand that he change the circumstances, until nothing in his mind seemed to hold any other rationality.

BREATHE!

Instinct and man scream together in their thoughts, that as a word, concept, half-felt thought in Ronalde's skull, he do so. That he breathe in, desperately wanting- or the dark grim might come to sweep him away on the shadowed sands of time. That he might fade and cease upon the seconds that ticked along with every failed beating of his chest.

But still, upon the pain and constriction at his throat- there could be no breath. Air could find no manner in which to travel, not out, not down or inside. Spots and speckles, panic and frustrated fear: His world was shrinking, and quickly, taking his strength along for the fall back to nothingness.

Ronalde could not remember his weapon now- its steel perhaps lying forgotten among the bodies and blood on the floor. Could he recollect himself, even be aware of his own thoughts in more than a frenzied blur, he might see it not two paces to his left, protruding from the green-skinned corpse draining life upon the floor: but instead, all he saw was evil.

As he saw it, it saw him.

A smiling face of scars and sharp teeth, of rancid tongue and sickening grin that held him down with two mighty arms of coiled muscle and grit. Upon his throat there were two horrible hands, each with fingers far too long for the body which possessed them, wrapped tightly upon his throat as his own tried in pure terror to wretched them off- to no avail.

His fist freed itself from the struggle in vain: a single gauntlet covered blunt in half-polished steel. With all Ronalde's remaining strength, movement rushed out and found its purchase. A heavy and brutal punch, that opened to fingers seeking eyes seeking-

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

In came the air!

The gorgeous, the beautiful, the rancid air of battle and horrors. Sound, smells, shock and scream: All came in a flood with the breath, and the second gasp that followed it as the tables turned, and Ronalde threw the Goblin back and screamed with all his ancestor's heritage behind him before rushing to deliver a final blow.

The sound of the Goblin's skull hitting stone was as sickening as he might have ever imagined, but in the scene of chaos unfolding around him, Ronalde barely noticed as his hands grabbed at the nearest weapon with clumsy- almost drunken exhaustion. On the stumbling steps, he found the spear plucked free from a corpse, soon rammed through another, and then replaced by a sword, lost in a similar manner to be replaced by a broken iron blade that found itself wretched free of his grip by a brutally mangled helm and a screaming beast that had not yet realized it was dead.

"RALLY!" A voice of his own side shouted out among the chaos, just as another monstrosity leapt at him, only to fall dead to an arrow in its skull. "RALLY TO THE CAPTAIN!"

BANG! BANG! BANG! Like thunder: Creatures fell beneath the onslaught, bodies tumbling near the broken gates of the hall, blood sprayed with mist and haze to the air and walls.

"RALLY!" A shout raised beyond that crash of sound and magics burst, more still bursting through the air with resounding and deafening effect. "RALLY, TO ME!" As more voices had joined- however muted. "RALLY TO THE CAPTAIN!" They demanded, as the room devolved further into all but entirely nonsensical madness. Figures swung with flashes of steel and showers of gore, a knight of no small bearing went down beneath five smaller figures- green and red upon their skin and knives seeking the slits of the mans armor.

"No!" As Ronalde tried in vain to pull the closest Goblin off, smashing at the creatures with the closest object at hand- a bloodied shield of Royal Crest, the others turned on him with a sudden violence; their sudden kicks and slashes throwing him backwards as he stumbled about the frenzy and into another crowd. Half-tripping upon the corpses- he could only hold the precious small thought of rational comprehension that he had fallen into hell itself.

The outpost was lost! There was no way! No manner in which so many beasts could be defeated by their numbers alone!

"GRAW!" A lone green figure rushed him, leaping with a ruined blade more fragment than sword, blocked and pushed back only by the many hard days of training beaten into Ronalde's first-intincts. It came again, once more blocked by the shield, ringing off with a dent and then another, and then another still. As he stumbled and tripped- pushed backwards by this onslaught, the cold indifference of the stone wall finally ceased his escape, back pressed hard against the thick blocks of height and weight.

Panting and exhausted, bloodied beyond any normal recognition, Ronadle stared at the approaching Goblin and the several fellows that hand come with it, eyeing them with the hopelessness of emotion past fear. Reaching down, his hands had barely found a half-broken lance before they were lunging for him in a screaming frenzy.

"NO!" He shouted, throwing forward the metal tipped thrust of splintered wood, running through the first, releasing it as hands tried to grappled upon his shield. "STAY BACK!" He shouted again, blocking another heavy attack from his left, shield returning the impact with a shoddy counter that threw the second creature off guard- just as the third came rushing in. "STAY BACK!"

"GRAW-BANG" Its scream cut short.

Ronalde's ears rang out as the third creature fell dead, chest all but burst under the unnatural force that had crushed it. Eyes unaccepting the bloodied floor, the walls, the slow and feeble motions of the death not yet taken around him: He realized the battle had ended.

A face he recognized approached, motion waving before his face as words muffled in past his ears, and a warm set of hands took him by the arms, guiding him. He felt his boots slosh and squish, he felt his balance crumble and right itself, and he saw eyes star off into the distance with grim set jaws. Many lay still, while others writhed and screamed- all with a distant sort of sound that was far from clear in Ronalde's ears.

Finally he saw a rough wooden bunk unoccupied, cloth fresh and untarnished. As soon as he had sat, soon he lay: armor and all still strapped upon his exhausted frame. Weight, thoughts, muscles, air: It all pressed on by the fading moment as he lay very still.

As his chest settled in upon its breathing, deep weight settled in place of the once felt burning, until sleep finally took him up within its heavy embrace.