Ace in the Hole [COMPLETED]

C.1

Their first day together, and they already neared death. Matthew was screwing in a new lightbulb for their apartment's main room, standing on a stool that Joceline was holding down. Since it was near night, and the whole room was dark, Joceline had to hold a phone out for a flashlight. Sadly, Joceline's "holding the stool down" included shaking the stool every now and then, mostly by accident because of how Matthew shifted here and there. Matthew eventually fell, instinctively grabbing onto Joceline's head as he collapsed onto the couch. She complained with a shout, but that was before the stool slipped away from Matthew's feet, and the lightbulb fell out of his hands.

The lightbulb crashed, Matthew broke his back against the couch's backrest, and Joceline fell with him as his tight grip yanked her head down violently. It was a collective choir of groans and grumbling as the two recovered from their near-death experiences.

"Eugh... sorry..." Matthew tried to fix himself on the couch, so at least his back wasn't in constant pain. He looked over at Joceline, who was slumped against the base of the couch, rubbing at her neck. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." She turned to face him with an extremely annoyed look. "You just almost broke my NECK."

Matthew rolled his eyes. "Maybe if you held the stool properly, we wouldn't have this problem!"

"Maybe if you knew what balance was!"

He grunted, shaking his head and throwing off his disorientation. "Whatever. The lightbulb broke. What now?"

"Buy a new one?" Joceline shrugged, now looking around in the dark for her phone. "Online shopping is a thing, y'know."

"It's the dead of night. There are glass shards on the floor. We don't even have a next dinner ready! You wanna sleep in total darkness, or starving and bankrupt?"

"Eh. I'm fine with it, unlike you." She snickered as she picked her phone up, shining the light around. She then placed the light right under her face, shining it up and playing a ghoulish mask. "Boo!"

"Oh, very scary." Matthew rolled his eyes again, then winced as the light was flashed into his face. "Ow! Hey, watch it!"

"Yeah, yeah." She snickered again, turning the light to the floor, reflecting the dazzle of glass shards. "You clean that up, since you dropped it."

"You dropped me."

"So what does that mean?"

"You clean me up."

"What?!"

He snorted in laughter as Joceline flashed his face again. "Ow, ow! Hey, I'm just using your logic!"

"Grrr..." She shook her head, turning her flashlight around the room. "Fine. Where is the broom?"

"I dunno. Where did you put it?"

"Where did you put it? You used it last!"

"For what?"

"I dunno!"

They went on bickering for a while more as Joceline and Matthew went to look for the broom. With only one flashlight between them, broken glass on the floor, and a very small yet cluttered area to maneuver through, they never did find the broom.

"Forget it," said Matthew eventually. "Just... go to sleep, won't you?"

"Fine. I get the bottom bunk." She trudged over to the bunk bed, her light on the floor. "Come on."

Matthew grumbled, following after her, then wincing as he felt his foot land on something small yet sharp. "Crap! I think I stepped on one."

"This is what happens when you don't wear sandals," she said, her face already buried into a pillow. "It wasn't a big one, was it?"

"No." Matthew hobbled over to the bed, trying to check his foot out as he rested against the bunk's ladder. "Give me a light!"

"Here," she called lazily, turning her light on and flashing it over her shoulder. Matthew took it with one hand, then checked his foot out with a prayer and a hope. While there wasn't any blood, he could see the glass shard had stuck into his foot like an annoying pebble. He flicked it off with ease, and luckily it didn't bleed.

"Thanks." He carefully handed the phone back to her, and thus began to climb up the bed. He hit his head against the ceiling with a forceful shock, yet managed to slip into the bed without further issue. While he was pressed up between his cushion and the ceiling, consumed in the darkness and claustrophobia, he found himself oddly comfortable in his cushion, with his neck resting against a cloud-like pillow.

He still found himself disturbed, though, with his body becoming restless even as his eyes began to shut to a close. Unseen visions, unheard voices, whatever the hell, all these made him writhe constantly, shifting from here to there. If it weren't for the railing that caged him in, he would have fallen off the bed a long time ago. This came with complaints from Joceline, of course. "Can you stop moving so much? You're shaking the bed!"

Matthew responded with a grumble. "I... can't... sleep..."

"You want me to tuck you in or something?" Joceline grumbled as well, seeing that Matthew hadn't really stopped. "Jeez... How did you even sleep back then?"

Things started to crawl into his vision. They were vague worms, like lighter shadows swimming in the oil-black ocean. While they took no true form nor order, their presence made the waters of his mind ripple out uneasily.

"Light," he muttered. He had left his phone in his bag, yet there was still the glass on the floor. He would have to make due with these conditions.

"Here." Joceline's hand reached out to him, holding her phone and its brilliant light. Matthew took a second to register what was going on, yet he took it without question. "It's on a timer to shut down. You got thirty minutes to sleep."

"Alright. Thanks." He tried to look for a good place to put the light. After a while, he just placed it behind his pillow, so the light splashed onto the ceiling and back into his face. With luminance dazzling his eyes, he managed to shut his eyes tight, the specter of light bleeding through his eyelids and sunnying him with a new world.

- id est -

It was an open field, rolling hills of golden grass, and he stood upon a road that cut through from horizon to horizon. The sun blessed him, and he felt every bit of warmth and cool that came with the sun's kiss and the wind's breath.

Yet out of all these things that made this all so real, there was an aspect of fantasy that he prized even more. She stood far down the road, as dazzling as the sun in her golden dress, with a smile that shone through even the darkest of shadows.

"Abrenica!" he called. So with that sight, she became the sole object of that world, and he chased after the center of his universe as she turned to run from him. She always played hard to get...