Alarm Clock - Ereri/Riren (Re-uploaded)

Chapter 4

It was so hard to open my eyes. Like superglue had shut them tight. But I was awake and someone was touching my forehead. They were saying something but everything that they were saying was muffled. A faint light was slipping through the cracks of my struggling eyelids. Finally, I managed to open them wide enough to see Mikasa standing over me with tears in her eyes. The room was rather bright and it didn't seem like anywhere at home or at school. Soon enough the sound of a heart monitor gradually became louder and I finally figured out that I was in the hospital. In a panic, I quickly stood up making grunting noises and frantically breathing.

"Shh shh. Eren it's ok, it's ok." Mikasa said lightly guiding me back down onto the bed. I noticed that I wasn't hooked to the IV drip this time so that was good. I looked around the room and saw my mother sleeping on a chair next to the door.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice rather coarse. But I already knew the answer.

"You had another episode in your class and you blacked out." She said slightly holding back her tears. I'm surprised she still gets emotional about this stuff. This has been happening for years now. But they only ever got bad enough for me to be in the hospital about twice a year or so.

"I don't remember it this time." I said groggily.

"Doctor said you might have memory loss. They also suspected you had a concussion since you ended up hitting your head pretty hard when fainted."

"Shit. Did people see?" I asked, smushing my hands against my cheeks.

"Oh...yeah they did. Jean and Marco were the ones who called the ambulance since the teacher wasn't in the class at the time." she said hesitantly, trying to soften the blow of embarrassment I was about to feel. I hated when this happened in public. They weren't particularly triggered by anything but usually what went down with these episodes, according to the people who saw it happen, was that I would start breathing really heavily and crying a lot. After a while I would eventually get up and collapse after a few minutes. I remembered it sometimes and didn't at other times. Specialists that we went to said that they had never really seen any kind of behaviour like this but it was close to a panic disorder so we just went with that. It hadn't happened in front of my peers until now and it was sure to affect the way people saw me. They were sure to perceive me as some mentally ill spaz. I sighed and looked down at the ground in defeat. I'd figure out something later. Some excuse to tell everyone. Very few people knew about these attacks and I preferred to keep it that way. "Connie and Sasha still aren't back but they called to make sure you were doing ok. Annie still has the flu but she says "E just needs to take a chill pill"" she continued. I laughed weakly. That was typical of Annie.

"And Armin?" I asked.

"He's worried sick Eren." She said with a sigh. "He says he wishes he could be here." Of course Armin felt that way. He worried too much.

"Does everyone know?" I said, rubbing my eyes and bringing my hand to my head when I realized the sharp headache I had. I felt a stitch on my forehead. Did I really fall that hard?

"Yeah pretty much." she said rubbing her neck. " A rumour is going around that you were just on acid or something. You're getting praised for it though." She scoffed. "People think it's balzy."

"Well that takes care of it then doesn't it?" I said cheerily.

"Eren. You'd seriously rather people think you took drugs in school than know you had an attack?" she whispered angrily, trying not to wake up my mother. "You know it's completely nor-"

"No, it's not Mika!" there was an unnerving silence between the two of us broken by my mother's grunts and uneven breaths. She was waking up. Both me and Mikasa were still giving each other a long death stare.

"Oh Eren, liebchen you're awake." she exclaimed, rushing over to me. She took me by the face and turned it towards hers, checking for anything out of the ordinary. I softened my expression a bit and touched her arm to reassure her a bit. She looked so worried. She then hugged my head against her chest. "Do you want me to call your brother? He studied a bit of psychology so he-"

"No mom. Don't bring Zeke into this." I interrupted.

"But I think he could really help you seeing as you two are so close and I-"

"No!" I yelled. I didn't want to see him. And I doubted he would even want to come. The room went quiet again. I was usually in a snappy mood after attacks so she didn't seem all too fazed. Mikasa, who was still glaring ferociously, grabbed my mother by the wrist and led her to the door of the hospital room.

"I think we should let Eren rest mom. He's probably tired." She said, finally walking out.

After they left, the doctors came in and explained that they wanted to keep me for a few days to make sure I didn't have any issues with my brain or whatever. They also said they were bringing in a neurologist to check certain things out. Boy was this gonna be fun. Mikasa and my mom went home because I shooed them away and dad was working a night shift so even if he was at the hospital, he was in the middle of surgery and I didn't see him anyways. I was all alone. And it didn't make it any more bearable that I was too paranoid to fall asleep. I tried to keep myself awake for as long as possible. What if the nurses came in and undressed me without my permission? What if the drugs they were giving me were to knock me out so they could do things? These ideas were so far fetched, trust me, I know. But it was the subtle things like someone looking at me funny or someone's behaviour I found slightly out of the ordinary that triggered them. What made it even worse was that I knew why I was so paranoid. It was like this inner voice in my head was a doctor who had diagnosed me and I knew exactly what I needed to fix the problem, but I just didn't. Luckily, I drifted off to sleep out of exhaustion.

Days in the hospital were lonely. Most of the time I'd just binge watch a series on my computer, or email my teachers about what work needed to be done while I was away. No stupid episdoe was gonna get in the way of that new instrument. I'd goof off with some of the nurses, who never really understood any of the jokes I made but it was still fun trying to get a kick out of them. Kind of like those royal security guards you would try to make smile. But all in all, it was pretty boring. I still got paranoid at night though. Marco came to visit me a few times with some cookies his mom made when he heard I landed back in here. Jean was grounded for sneaking out so he couldn't come. Good news was that Annie had come back to school yesterday and I was glad to see she was doing better. We all kind of freaked out whenever she got sick because, like I said before, she had diabetes, and that made it relatively difficult for her to recover. The person who really visited me most, was Mikasa of course. She also stayed until I fell asleep because she knew how paranoid I often was. She and my parents only really knew about that. I couldn't really shake this one thought throughout the entire time I was at the hospital though. That Levi guy was cute.