If our love is tragedy why are you my remedy? - AruAni oneshot

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In the quiet of the night, Annie's head buzzes and her body is enveloped in a foreign heat. The blazing fire and woolen blanket aren't enough to prevent the brittle air from making contact with her skin. A jolt of hot pain in her head sends a shiver down her spine, making her lips quiver and her arms wrap around her knees under the blanket. 

Coated in sweat, she struggles to even toss and turn in bed. Her inability to sleep comes with a worsening pain in her head and a deep string in her eyes that causes tears to well up on their crevices and her eyelids to lock tight. 

She coughs and her lungs burn. 

She can't tell the difference between reality and her fever-dreams. Time doesn't seem to be going by yet it races past her and leaves her in the dirt to dwell on her whole life. Time brings him to her in her worst moments, his gentle touch on her thorny skin; his tender gaze on her bitter eyes - like daggers pointing at him, stabbing past his thin lawyer of skin and through his flesh. He speaks words of sweetness, words pouring out of his mouth like a chocolate fountain, unlike her own, that poison and rot him. 

But he's not there. That, she knows. 

She's on her own. All on her own, burning yet freezing at the same time with the inability to think straight or do anything. She's convinced herself she's going to die. Right here, all on her own, without ever calling her father for a final time or apologizing to the one person she knows she hurt with the daggers that she carries. 

Her father. 

She has to call her father. 

Not that he'd rush to care for her - or even see her - but she has to hear from him one last time. Someone needs to care for August if she passes. 

Her hand shakes with every inch she moves it but she grabs her phone from the nightstand. Her eyes only fill with more tears when she opens them, making it almost impossible to see. The light the screen emits is too bright, too much for her to handle. She shuts her eyelids again and purses her lips together. Again. She has to try again. 

Another cough escapes Annie's throat. Her lungs heave for air she struggles to regain. She opens her eyes again and blinks to adjust to the light. She searches her contacts for a number she hasn't called in years and dials it. The familiar sound of ringing goes on for what Annie feels is ages. She can't keep her eyes open anymore. She doesn't even know what she's going to say. Her throat feels so dry. Can she even speak? 

Just when she thinks there's no answer, the phone call goes through. There's no voice on the other end, though. No one speaks. Only the muffled shuffling sound of someone - most likely her father - breaks the silence. 

"...Dad?" She's the first to speak. Suddenly, a wave comes crashing at her. She's a small child, lying in bed, wrapped in a blanket with a fever slowly burning away at her skin. No one to care for her, no one to keep her company except for the gray cat in the corner. 

A voice answers from the other line. "Annie?" 

When she's about to speak up again, her lips seal and lock tight. That isn't her father's voice. It's much softer, more delicate. Like a blooming flower... or a chocolate fountain. Sweet and warm as the first spring sun. 

She should hang up. She knows she should. But when she tries to, her lungs burn again and her throat releases more coughs. Her chest heaves with the volcanic fire that erupts into it, tightening her lungs and threatening to cut off her last supply of oxygen. Her head is ringing like the wedding bells she rejected. 

"Annie!?" He repeats again. "What's going on!?" The line goes blank seconds later, or Annie's body gives out and everything fades into darkness, she really doesn't know which came first. All she knows that when she opens her eyes, there's a cold feeling against her head.