Collective Bodily Whiplash
it’s that feeling of numbness, his entire body flooded with a burning cold shooting up his veins, striking hardest at the heart as it swells, pushing against every surrounding organ and bone in his chest, the aching feeling spreading in pulses.
His mind is wiped. It’s empty. Every sense, every thought comes to a holt, the only awareness left is that shooting pain in his chest and throughout his body. He can feel it moving, but he can never pinpoint the location it’s just. Everywhere.
It’s the feeling of dread, of disbelief, of anguish.
It’s an array of emotions he’s never quite felt before, one that he never thought he’d be feeling at all.
He’s felt before pain, but none quite this bad. This type of pain was new, indescribable, and inescapable. It came from within.
He felt trapped. All he wanted to do was crawl out of this vessel, escape it all, escape the pain. But he couldn’t. All he could do was scream. He didn’t feel a thing when his knees hit the ground.
And the turn in in emotion was so sudden. He couldn’t quite make out the source of the churn in his stomach. Was it good? It was good. It had to be. His brain was light years behind his eyes. What was it he’d just seen? Was he hallucinating? He was so tired.
The invisibility cloak.
And the exact opposite flood of emotions that rush through him when he sees Harry in the crowd after it all. His brain, his heart, his entire body rushed with a feeling of warmth, relief. He was hit fast enough to get collective bodily whiplash. He hadn’t had a chance to finish processing that Harry was alive, let alone that he was walking towards him. Face to face with him. Lips interlocking.
His thoughts melted away. Nothing else mattered, not the emptiness he’d felt moments ago, not the physical pain he’d begun to feel; from the cuts, the bruises, the fatigue; and certainly not that everyone was watching. He didn’t care about any of it.