Hidden In The Dark (IN EDITING)

Leave Me Again

Air greets my lungs in a scruffy burn when I come back to conscious, the lack of bacteria in the air crawls up my skin. A sick chemical smell fills the expansion of my-what feels like-small lungs. Bright white lights shine down on me when I open my eyes, they erupt in a painful sting causing me to squeeze my eyelids together.

My fingers slightly twitch at my side when I feel around, the tips of my fingers meet the thin cotton bedsheet under me. I grab the rails beside me and pull myself up slowly. The scary looking hospital room surrounds me with just the sound of the beeping from the machine I am hooked up to.

Everything looks spotless and dead, my fingers move to my head when a throb erupts from the area of my hairline. I wince as my fingers press against the bandage on my head. Then everything starts to come back to me. An empty chair that faces my bed makes reality set in.

The dream.

I roll off the bed dragging all the equipment behind me while I run to the makeshift sink and mirror. Not caring if anyone heard the crashing, I look at my reflection in the mirror. The image before me makes my fingers grip harshly at the rim of the sink bowl.

My face is the color of my bedsheets with a slight
hint of purple and blue. The way my skin is sunken into my facial structure gives off the illusion that I'm not in fact a teenage girl, but a monster that hides in corners.

All I feel is bone when my fingers brush across my face, from my cheekbones to my jawline. Those same dreadfully familiar tears roll down my face when I spot the bandage on my hairline. Just like the dream.

It's just a dream.

In a moment of insincerity a dry laugh escapes past my dried cracked lips that now look frost bitten instead of kissed by cherries. My mind was playing a very sick game, and it's one I can't keep up with. I reach for the faucet handle and turn on the cold water, my hands cupping to catch the water before I toss it on my face.

Then why am I not waking up?

"Leaigh?" I hear a frail cracked voice call out to me, my head whips to the side. My mother has dropped her hands to her sides, tears pour down her face. Before I can get a word out she's already in front of me and pulling me into her embrace. Her motherly scent finally fills my senses and I break in her arms.

"Mom." I feel her fingers brush the strands of my hair behind my ear with a tight hold on me. I don't make a move to step away, feeling safe and calm wrapped in her essence. "What happened to me?"

She finally steps back to wipe under her water line where her eyeliner was beginning to run. "You had a brain aneurysm that ruptured, the hospital had to perform an emergency surgery."

"How long have I been here?" A sad looks crosses her face, I feel her grab my hand and pull me towards my bed where we sit on the edge. "A month, the aneurysm and surgery were too much for your brain to handle so you fell into a coma."

A month. I've been out for a month just laying in a sanitized bed. Just the thought of my life being on pause for a month while everyone else's was just playing out normally made an unfamiliar feeling flow through my head.

"Wait where's Gray?"

"His parents made him stay in Hershey, he's not good Leaigh. They thought he'd be better away from here and with his aunt and uncle while you were...gone." My fingers grace the skin of my cheeks where the tears roll down. "I-I need to tell him mom, I need to tell him I'm ok."

She pulls out her phone and hands it to me with a sad smile on her face. I see the clear hesitancy to leave but she stands and walks out of the hospital room to give me some privacy. My fingers shake as I type his number and put the phone up to my ear.

"Hello?" Just the sound of Grayson's voice let's me know he isn't in the right state of mind. That was always a plus for both of us when we were growing up, being able to know if something was wrong.

"Gray it's me." The phone goes so silent I pull it away from my ear to make sure he didn't hang up. "Grayson are you there?"

"Please tell me I haven't officially lost my mind and not talking to my bestfriend who is in a coma." I let out a huge breath before a weak chuckle escapes my mouth, my tongue rubs against the inside of my mouth feeling the lack of moisture in it.

"No I'm talking to you right now and no longer in a coma. But unfortunately it's a bit too late to say you haven't lost your mind." The recognition of his own breath of relief echoes through the line until he lets out a humorless laugh.

"I thought I was going to lose my best friend Leaigh." Tears began to gather at my waterline and threaten to spill over. The bright lights on the ceiling begin to
have an unclear glare caused by the thick layer of lacrimal fluid that covers my eyes.

"You're not, I'm okay Gray. I'll never leave you. We still haven't walked across that graduation stage yet. And you're not old and married, so you still have to prove to me that you won't forget me...ever."

"Then promise me you won't leave me again." The silence overtakes the line as I think about what just previously took place. The way things were going now left me unsure if I would be able to keep up with a promise. And promises are the most important thing to me.

"I promise."

I fidget with my moms phone in my hand, my feet are an inch away from the ground while sit on the side. My face is sticky an irritated from the constant number of tears that have been shed in the past 20 minutes. When I finished the call with Gray I felt abnormally lonely and guilt stricken for an unknown reason.

Little pieces of my 'dream' keep flashing through my head whenever I see something that slightly relates to it. The flickering light above the sink reminded me of how the lights flickered on and off and everything went horribly. Mom hasn't returned yet but I'm not worried, she isn't the clingy type that has to be by my side every second. The hospital machines still lay on the floor, I wince at the thought of having to pay for the damages.

The board on the wall to my left is covered with my information and nurses name. I keep my eyes there looking at the description of my condition, along with the date I was emitted. March 21, 2019. The morning I was messing around with Vali.

Vali.

The second the thought fills my head I feel two fingers in the side of my face before they pull my head to face forward. My eyes are drawn to dull Gray eyes that normally glow like luminescent lights. The normal flawless man before me has dark circles under his eyes, ones that aren't caused by lack of sleep.

He looked weaker if even possible for his inhuman self, I took notice to his nonrigid stance. I'm not the person for physical touch but I didn't want his hand to leave my thin face. I felt like he would disappear forever if he let go and as much as it totally went against my morals, the feeling got stronger and stronger.

It slowly felt like air was starting to fill my lungs for the first time in a while. The way he watched me with guilt in his features made me want to cry, now I feel like an emotional mess. What I didn't expect was him to pull me to my feet and crash me against him.

Something nagged at me but I couldn't pinpoint what was responsible for me feeling this way. I feel myself go completely limp in his arms that feel so safe. That moment was enough to draw tears back out and down my face. Vali's sweet musky scent wafts through my nostrils as I inhale him, the usual cold of his body so warm now.

My fingers grip the black fabric of his cloths in order to pull him closer. This action seems so foreign and scarce to Vali but he doesn't show hesitation or rigid posture. Part of me believes he is weak, like he's just woken from his own deathbed.

"Has it been long enough for answers?" I laugh out mixed with a sob, there were no logical words to explain the way I felt with Vali. I couldn't even begin to fathom what this actually was and maybe that's because it never existed before now.

It's not everyday that you meet some being that completely goes against everything you are and have known. Here I was thinking I was going to be killed in the alleyway that afternoon or worse....kidnapped. But never did I think this striking mysterious being who can't even walk through a doorway without ducking would be the one to reveal himself.

"Yes. But not here."