The glow of the monitor was the only light in Corpse’s room, casting flickering shadows over the deep hollows of his face. He sat motionless, jaw clenched, fingers twitching slightly over his mouse. His chest was tight—tight enough that each breath felt like dragging broken glass through his ribs. He could feel the familiar pressure mounting behind his sternum, curling upward into his throat. The flare was coming on fast this time. Violent. Sudden. His heart stuttered in uneven rhythm, his pulse thudding in his ears like distant drums.

Still, his voice came through the stream. Low, cracked, but composed.

“Damn, you really sus’d me for breathing?” he asked, trying to inject that dry, trademark humor into his tone. His laugh was too short, too shallow.

“You always breathe sus,” Valkyrae shot back, teasing loudly, oblivious to the growing pain in his voice. “That’s, like, your thing, Corpse!”

“She’s right, man,” Karl chimed in, giggling through another round. “You say one word and I’m like—‘Yup. He’s the killer.’”

Corpse didn’t reply. His hands had started to tremble, the warmth draining from his fingers. The edges of his vision were beginning to blur—color bleeding into static. His body was turning against him in real time, and every second sitting in that chair felt like he was being crushed under invisible weight.

“Corpse?” Sykkuno’s voice floated in, soft and sweet, but distracted. “Are you muted, or just being dramatic again?”

“Bet he’s plotting the next killing spree with his chat,” Valkyrae laughed. “That’s so you.”

He muted his mic, jaw grinding. The noise, the chatter—voices bouncing off the walls in his skull—it was unbearable. They didn’t mean to hurt, but right now, every word felt like a needle. None of them noticed. None of them ever really saw it happen when the pain hit. He could be burning from the inside out, and they’d keep joking about vents and sus breathing.

Except you.

You weren’t saying anything in the group. But he knew you noticed—knew from the way your avatar hovered near his in the game, like you were watching, waiting. That quiet intuition you always carried, like you could hear the change in his breathing, even through a screen.

His vision dimmed for a second, pain flaring sharp beneath his ribs. His fingers were barely obeying him now, stiff and slow as they hovered over the keyboard. The sounds from the others blurred—too loud, too light, too far away from what he was feeling. His throat burned from the effort of keeping quiet, and his lungs were done pretending they weren’t suffocating. He couldn’t keep this up. Not tonight.

He tapped out a few words in your private messages with shaking fingers, swallowing down the thick knot in his throat.

corpse: “Can you hop on call? Please. Just you.”