Ilia couldn't breathe.

The fire danced around her with hushed footfalls, wrapping flickering fingers around the air before pulling it away from her lungs. Away from the groaning building that faltered on its last legs like a harsh gale skipping across even choppier seas. Away from the dewdrops of bullets that splattered across smooth wood and soft carpet like pinpricks of blood staining flesh. Away from the crumbling reality of everything and nothing all at once.

She couldn't see, not really. Not through the tears spilling from her eyes in their own kind of lost resolve, leaving liquid scars marring her cheeks and chin. She could feel herself falling: down down down downdowndown - into an endless abyss of what felt like poisonous regret and cruel clarity. How had it come to this? How had she allowed it to get this bad? How had she allowed herself to get this bad?

Her knees struck against the ground, and the impact shook her to her very bones: ivory structures knocking against one another in a concerning rattle, threatening to break and bend and split and to just give out. She wanted that. Why couldn't she have that? Because I don't deserve anything. The thought echoed, thrumming in her ears louder than the blood than ran through her veins.

But it was the truth. It was her truth - and it was suffocating.

Ilia couldn't breathe.