—This is really bad.
Energy Guy ran, His boots pounded against the forest floor, kicking up dead leaves and snapping twigs beneath his feet. His lungs burned, his heart hammered, and every muscle screamed in protest.
He didn't care. He had to keep going.
One step. Then another. Then another.
But his legs were heavy. Too heavy.
Why now, of all times? He had stamina for days in training, energy to spare when it didn't matter. So why couldn't he pick up his feet, just this once?
The answer came fast and cruel.
A sharp, searing pain exploded across his chest. Not dull. Not aching.
Burning.
He gasped. Staggered. Crumpled.
His knees hit the ground, and then the rest of him followed, falling face-first into the grass. The earth didn't catch him gently.
He clutched at his chest.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
His fingers twitched weakly, but he couldn't feel them. Couldn't feel anything anymore.
Just heat.
Raw, blinding, white-hot heat.
Like someone had set fire to his insides.
"Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot."
That word looped in his mind like a broken record, searing itself into his brain. It was all he could think. All he could feel.
Every breath was a war. Every heartbeat, a betrayal.
He tried to crawl, moved an inch, maybe two, before collapsing again.
The threat was still coming. He could hear it. He could feel it.
But he couldn't lift his head. Couldn't even scream.
So he laughed.
"This is what I deserve… isn't it?"
Maybe if he had listened.
Maybe if he had just followed orders.
Maybe if he hadn't tried to matter, to make something of his life beyond being a tool, a pawn, a soldier.
Maybe then he wouldn't be dying in the middle of nowhere, broken and alone.
His vision flickered, strobing in and out like a dying bulb. Trees became shadows. Sky became static. And finally-
Darkness.
His eyelids closed against his will, his body rejecting the idea of surviving any longer.
His soul, if he even had one, drifted out like steam from a shattered engine.
Nothing was left.
Not strength.
Not hope.
Not even pain.
Only the stillness of the forest.
And the silence that follows failure.