𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐊

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐖𝐎

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 chalk as I move my two lips—as they part in desperation to inhale oxygen. My nose twitches as my fingers splay out and rub against a soft fabric. Thoughts and memories, shapes and colors, flood the back of my eyelids as they frown—as they push together and dip alongside my confused eyebrows.

It takes me another few seconds, but eventually, my lashes pull from the goop stuck, hardening to the lining of my eyes, and spring free. The white tips graze my vision for a split second before the darkness of a black ceiling I don't recognize permeates.

"Wh—?"

I try to talk, but it comes out like a slur.

My body is ribbed and weak, but I still palm, what I think is a mattress, with both of my hands and shove, attempting to rise to a sitting position. Stars filter the sides of my sight as I do it, as the strain makes me feel woozy and incapable of doing something so easily mundane.

"Aeron?" I hear a voice to my left.

I don't follow it.

I don't comprehend it.

Instead, I groan at the sound infiltrating my sensitive eardrums, and I scowl deeper. My confusion feels like a mist of warm water on my cheeks. The lethargic sensations in the curves of my joints feel like melted glue thrown in a freezer—one inch of movement, and I'll shatter.

I don't know how I do it, but one second, I'm lying flat, and the next, I'm hunched over, my head dipped between my legs.

Black sheets engulf me.

A pajama set rests on my body.

"Aeron, you're awake!" that same voice ricochets.

I think then, that I've been helped.

And this justification is rectified when I feel the bed dip at the edge, and a hand close over one of my own. My eyes are still tired as I blink at the sheets. My neck is too stiff in this moment to lift, but my throat is so dry that I can't communicate—I can't stop these hands from touching me.

A finger to my chin is all that it takes for my neck to crackle with unuse and rise to a formal resting position. I blink rapidly, but slowly, trying to gauge the sight in front of me.

It takes an unusual amount of time, but slowly, I start to see messy, black curls, and soft, puppy-dog eyes that are the first thing I recognize in this entire room.

"Here," Aeris speaks to me, "Drink this."

I don't ask for more information. I part my lips around the silicone cup and allow Aeris to tip it back. Water floods my mouth in plentiful waves, and I'm so thirsty for it, that my hands instinctively come up and grip the cup.

I take it from Aeris, and I tip back, not stopping until I've drunk every morsel of liquid.

I shake as I come back down, but I still manage to hand the cup back to Aeris and find placement on the mattress once more.