Fever Dream Red

42

I could feel the red heat flow to my cheeks before his sentence finished. I didn't know how I would make this work, but I knew I had to.

Me and Sunny both nodded silently.

I went to my bedroom straight away. I liad on the bed and fell asleep immediantly. We had all been up since the morning before, with only snack bars and water to sustain us.

I wasn't in the bed, I was just flayed on top of it. I hadn't changed. I couldn't be bothered to.

I awoke in the middle of the night. The place was dark. Even the moon wasn't keeping me company.

After a while I could make out the shapes of the bedroom. They gradually came to life, as if they were being drawn for me.

I glanced to the side of me and found Sunny, her hair tied up and her face relaxed, finding solace in dreams. She was neatly tucked up in bed.

It pained me then that she would've had to motionlessly creep inside of the duvet without me waking. That must've been hard.

I also noticed that Sunny smelt nice. Not of perfume or room spray: she just smelt nice.

Really, everyone has their own scent. It had nothing to do with whatever moisturizer you used or whatever. It was about you. It was a taster of who you were. You yourself don't know what you smell like.

You never will. Smells are hard to describe that way.

I crept downstairs, needing water from the tap.

I crept down the white wooden carpeted staircase into the kitchen, filling the house with light as I went.

I had always hated the dark. You never knew what lurked there. Anything could be just withing inches of you, and you would never know. I guess I really had a fear of the unknown. Perhaps I had both.

I flooded the kitchen with a warm beacon and I wondered along to collect the water.

Water always tasted better in the middle of the night when you most needed it. Sometimes I considered starving myself of water just so I could taste it like that.

I searched the drawers for a glass and eventually found one. I went to fill the glass with water from the tap.

No water came out.

I then realised that the water supply had probably ceased because of the apocalypse. I felt very stupid.

Dissapointed, I turned to return unvictorious back to my bedroom. However, someone had placed a big pack of water bottles to the side of the tap.

I hoped that whoever had done that were having sweet dreams. If I had to guess, it was either Doug, Alfie or Chloe. It definitely wasn't me.

I ripped the plastic with my bare hands, stretching it until it had no choice but to relent.

I dived my hand into the plastic case and brought back a bottle of water. I nearly hugged it happily.

Then I had to wrench the thing open. The tiny scores of grooves on the cap burnt my hands to smithereens, mocking them for their thirst.

Finally I mangaged it, and I stole a sip of the liquid I had waited so long to have.

I then turned the lights out and creeped back into bed.

I came in and saw Sunny in bed again. Much to my delight, she was asleep.

I shuffled into my side of the bed and laid there on my side. I looked out onto the carpeted floor, not onto Sunny. If I did so I feared I would never get to sleep.

I laid there sleepless nevertheless. I wasn't tired after spending close to twelve hours asleep. I also wasn't going to sleep when I knew Sunny was in the same bed as me.

If I held my breath, I could feel and hear her breathing. It came calmly and soundly, a little muffled. It was sweet and it felt like it could either send me to sleep or send me soaring into the sky.

Trying to fall asleep is desperately boring, so you just end up replaying the events of your life instead, like a tired old movie you've seen a countlesd number of times.

I thought about the potential glances me and Sunny had had. I thought about all th mixed signals until I managed to delude myself into thinking she actually liked me. Then I realised that I was deluding myself, and I then scolded myself for ever thinking that could be the case.

This process continued again and again every single day, but it occured more at night when there was no one to entertain me.

It was the worst emotional rollercoaster. I just felt heartache and I wanted nothing more than to be rid of that feeling. It was painful feeling that. I then decided dying of heartbreak must be the worst death in the whole world.

Something else kept me company that night. I was terribly hungry, but it took my attention away from my unrequited love, so I welcomed it. For a while.

It then got so unbearable that I just had to do something.

So for the second time that night, I crept down to the kitchen.

The bottles of water had not magically dissapeared in the half hour that I had been gone. They were still there, waiting to be of use once again. In a way I felt a sense of pity for them.

I dove my way into the fridge, hoping to find some kind of sustenance. I didn't find much, just a bunch of various cheeses. A lot of it was blue cheese. I hate blue cheese with everything I could muster.

How could you dare to eat, and enjoy, mouldy cheese. Were people not afraid of disease?

I looked a little further on the counters and found a dish with tin foil on it.

I uncovered it and found a caesar salad. How ironic.