I Fell in Love with Hope - Lancali

I wake to the sounds of struggle.
Choked gasps spare no effort. Someone is trying to breathe,
desperately so, but the breath cannot be caught. It is interrupted,
stuck in a coughing fit.
Air is a necessary medium of exchange between a body and its
environment. It is not an infinite resource and those who no longer
have the means to collect have only one place to fall.
That is what I wake to when the dream is over.
I wake to Sony drowning from the inside out.
“Sony?” Hikari, C, and Neo wake simultaneously, a herd hearing the
faint cries of a wounded member in the night.
“Oh my god, Sony!” Hikari yells.
Sony is on her back, her eyes wide and afraid, her nails digging into
the bed of the truck, her chest caved in. Spots swell on her right side
as a violent shade of red spurts from her throat and stains her chin.
“C, get her in the backseat. Neo start the car,” I order, and everyone
moves quickly, like doctors running down a hall, when a code sounds
on the intercom.
Hikari whimpers, C rushing to pick Sony up. I open the backdoor and
fumble for the tank under the seat and the oxygen mask.
C sits Sony down so that her back leans against my front. Hikari is
crying in fear, her hands shaking as she helps me put the mask on
Sony’s face.
The engine rumbles, and the headlights stretch into the empty lot,
Neo turning the key in the ignition. He moves into the passenger
seat over the