Oxygen.

It surrounds him, Filling his lungs, filling his airways, choking him, forcing its impossible weight on him, daring him to deny its sheer power. It swirls around him like a toxic snow storm, blinding him, rendering him completely defenseless.

He's drowning in it.

He really can't take this anymore. The poisonous substance attacks him every day, relentless. It forces him to go on, refusing to let him choose his own fate. He wants power, he wants control. But the simple combination of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, argon, water vapor, and most importantly oxygen prevents him from doing so. It blocks his right into passage, his right to his own decisions.

Asphyxiation.

That's what he describes it as. Not in the usual sense of the word, though; it's how he describes oxygen itself. Asphyxiation. The gas poisons everything it can find and takes control, so that nothing can escape its grasp. It slowly encircles its prey, constricting it until it can't breathe anymore, and then it's got it. Then it's the ruler of fate. It can present itself or take itself away as it pleases, leaving its victim alone and unable to fend for itself. And like so many blind rats trapped in an impossible maze, he has fallen into its inescapable trap along with the rest of his kind. Toys, they're all toys, with the purpose of pleasing the Great Asphyxiation. And like toys, they can all be thrown away just as easily as breathing. Just as easily as inhaling and filling your lungs with the poisonous tyrant hidden in the invisible lining of thin air.

Release.

He decides to tear himself away from this terrible way of workings and refuses the Asphyxiation passage into his body. It feels good for about a second, but then the Asphyxiation makes it clear that it will not allow itself to be defiled. It slowly surrounds his body, encircling his chest in tight spirals, weaving a pattern of death around him. But he still refuses to obey. It constricts painfully, tightening its grip gradually until he can't take it anymore. Almost against his will, he lets the poison back in, lets the toxic substance fill him once more. He hates himself now, for he can hear it in his ears, congratulating him by telling him he's just avoided making a dreadful mistake.

And now he's trapped.

The Asphyxiation won't leave him alone now, constantly keeping him under its wing with fake promises of glory and lies. It tells him things, things that bring him even closer into its bondage. He pretends to listen, but while it's not looking he seeks the help of those who have overpowered the sickening tyranny of- dare he speak its name?- oxygen. He lets them come over him, lets them into all the areas owned by the Great Asphyxiation. They find his neck, coiling around it like a snake, but he knows it should be there. He wants it to be there.

Then he's cut off.

He's broken free of the tyrant, the king of power, the owner of life, the Great Asphyxiation. The drug tries once again to overpower him, desperately, but now he has the aid of the Sacred Ones. They throw the poison away, tossing it to the side like a meaningless toy. And he laughs the rest of the intoxication out of his lungs as it's knocked away like something meaningless. Once it's all gone he's free. He's torn away from the terrifying finality of oxygen. He's finally free.....

And once it's all over, he smiles. He can finally be happy.