DAVE
Drowning in Memory
Darkness tastes like copper and regret.
I'm floating somewhere beyond pain, beyond the antiseptic sting of hospital air, beyond the mechanical rhythm of machines that count heartbeats like prayers. Consciousness exists here in fragments, scattered pieces of self that refuse to coalesce into anything resembling whole.
The poison works through my system like liquid malice, rewriting cellular structures while my wolf paces the edges of awareness, snarling at invaders it can't fight.
Memory surfaces unbidden.
---
Seven years old, hiding behind the garden shed while Maxwell holds Harrison's head underwater in the koi pond. They're seventeen and fourteen respectively, old enough to know better, young enough not to care. Harrison's legs kick frantically, sending ra
