Songbird in a Snowstorm [Yandere! Marble Hornets x Reader]

Keen Observations

Hours pass with you watching the thin streams of sunlight creep across the floor. The shadows had a way of jumping another couple of inches every time you close your eyes. Either that or the room just so happened to be cloaked in darkness by the time you found the strength to open them again. All this time and somehow not a single ache had let up. In fact, the twinge in your spine might have grown ever so slightly. It was hard to tell. You woke up like this. Maybe you fell asleep like this too.

Not much has broken through the haze in your mind. At least, not enough to form concrete memories. There were bits and pieces that you were just barely able to hang onto. The feeling of a cool rag leaving wet stripes across your arms. Bandages coming on and off at the will of gentle hands. Sometimes there would be fuzzy, hushed words drifting aimlessly in the air. But more often than not, it was just you endlessly sinking in warm darkness.

When you open your eyes again, everything in the room is just as dull as it had ever been. The collection of empty water bottles stationed at your bedside gained another couple of additions. A discarded towel lay at the foot of the bunk, faded and crumpled up into a messy heap.

There's something damp and cool resting over your forehead. Your hand comes up to rid yourself of the irritation, meeting with the tattered edge of a wet rag. Blinking away the blurriness in your vision, a slumped figure in the corner draws your attention. Jessica, you figured. The messy brown hair cascading over her shoulders made it hard to be anyone else.

She's on her knees, huddled by the singular large wood crate that decorated the room. A short plank rests just a couple inches from her crouched form. The wood was the same color as the rest of the floor. Stain just as faded and beaten, splintered at the edges like anything else. Without making a sound Jessica reaches her hand down into the resulting hole in the floor.

You didn't quite catch what it is that she's squirreling away. "Jessica...?" Her name feels foreign on your tongue. The fact that you had mumbled out anything at all escaped you. Or it would have, if not for her head snapping up in alarm. The scrape of wood on wood fills your ears, followed by a definitive click. Any other day you would ask her what she is doing. But today? No.

Even thinking of getting up causes another ache to make itself known somewhere deep in your bones. The blankets draped over your body are pleasantly warm and they all but beckon you to close your eyes and sleep for the next year. Tears form at the corners of your eyes as you half heartedly stifle a yawn. You've been asleep for this long. A couple more hours of sleep couldn't hurt.

"You're awake," or not. The hope behind her voice jolts you straight back into consciousness. What little light there is streaming into the room is all too bright. The heat enveloping your body, stuffy and oppressive. But Jessica's face fills the bulk of your vision a moment later and you can forgive some of the more glaring flaws.

It hurts, but you can feel the ghost of a smile playing on your lips. "Can't get rid of me that easily." Your half assed attempt at a joke earns an exasperated huff. Better than nothing. "Are you okay?" You ask, glancing up at Jessica where she's situated herself at your bedside.

The shadows under her eyes look so much darker than you ever remember them being. And considering the circumstances, that's saying something. Speaking softly, Jessica responds with a simple, "Only because of you." The murderous heat writhing on your back begins to claw its way into your heart. One of her hands moves to rest atop the various blankets covering your battered ribs. Her voice is heavy with remorse, "Please don't fight them for me." Jessica looks you straight in the eye, fixing you with a borderline misty stare. "It's not worth it." Oh. Oh fuck.

You can't pull the words from your head to form a coherent sentence. So instead you give a singular nod. One that might come off as solemn to anyone else. Not because you're actually agreeing. Of fucking course not. It's because you're a coward and it's easier to go along with the story she fabricated than it is to look her in the eye and tell her that when it mattered, you ran. There could be no other reason.