Lepidopterophobia

Prologue

(sorry everyone, something went wrong with the original thing so I republished it. either way, enjoy :D!)

A single heartbeat could be surprisingly loud. Especially when it was supposed to be two.

Why wasn't it two?

It had to be.

There were two people in the room. So there had to be two heartbeats. It was just how things worked.

Tyrael noted silence, excluding his racing heart and shallow breathing, even though there had been so much noise just moments before. His eyes opened, even though he didn't remember closing them in the first place. He wasn't fully awake, even now. But he remembered fighting. And being scared. And yelling someone's name. Or rather, trying to yell someone's name.

A very familiar someone's name.

Fyrdra.

He tried it. Twice. Thrice. He yelled it again, this time much louder. He felt like his throat was going to catch on fire it was so sore. It wasn't from the yelling, he knew that much. Someone had been holding it. Squeezing it. Trying to make him stop breathing, and succeeding for a just a little bit too long.

Coughs came and they suddenly wouldn't stop. Tyrael couldn't breathe.

The elf's hands found his brother's shoulders and shook. He was far too pale, and there was some wet stuff on his neck. It was water. Weird, dyed, water. Maybe even some of the water Fyrdra would use to wash his brush when painting. That sort of water. Yeah. Because if it wasn't water then it'd be

No, no it couldn't be. It just couldn't.

No!

This... this couldn't be happening.

Right?

Yeah, yeah! Its gotta be a joke or something!

Some sick, overly complicated joke.

His friend Mikirven always was a prankster, he would love to do something like this. Like that one time he caught some ferrets and put them in Tyrael's bed. Sure, Fyrdra ended up adopting one, but Tyrael still screamed. A lot. His father came running up stairs, and so did Fyrdra, and Mikirven got in so much trouble that he wasn't allowed out of his house other than for school for a week. He laughed a lot, though, so it was obvious he didn't really regret it, at least that much.

But then Fyrdra also made Mikirven apologize, and he hadn't done any pranks on Tyrael in a few months. So maybe it wasn't a joke.

Maybe a dream then? Tyrael hadn't had one this bad, though. Then again, the adults always told him that sometimes your dreams get worse when you get older. Less scary monsters in the night, more stressful situations every day. Or something like that. It could've been a dream, for sure.

That or a nightmare.

Yes, that would make more sense.

A nightmare that he would wake up from any second now, with his brother shaking him and telling him he was late for school. He shut his eyes, desperately wanting to open them and wake up somewhere else. In bed. Or in class. Or, but hopefully not, Tyrael had fallen asleep at the dinner table again. The smell of mint always did make him tired, maybe that was it.

It had to be.

He'd wake up, face in his salad, Fyrdra shaking his shoulder lightly and chuckling. The elf opened his eyes, mouth already forming an explanation, an excuse, maybe even an apology, given that there was no proper reason for his tiredness...

But all he saw were his hands.

The short elf vaguely registered footsteps, but his attention didn't linger on it. He couldn't look away from his hands, and all that he could hear was his uneven breathing, much too fast.