Watch the World

What Fresh Hell?

Angela's eyes blinked slowly open and she took in the room around her. She was in the green bedroom again but most if the furniture had been removed. All that remained was her bed, the wardrobe (which was built into the wall) and an armchair that contained a very tired and weary looking Gabe.

He sat up as soon as he noticed she was awake and moved to kneel down by the bed.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, far too loudly, the words seemed to bang around inside her head, causing her to grimace and let out a small moan. "Sorry." He whispered, looking even more concerned than he did before, he held out a glass for her to take "Here, drink this, it'll make you feel a bit better, I promise."

Angela weakly held her arm out to take the glass, but before she could touch it, she heard a shattering sound. She clenched her eyes shut bringing her hands up to cover her ears, she suddenly felt very dizzy, the world was spinning around her and she was certain that the ground had disappeared.

Suddenly she felt hands supporting her and realised that she had, in fact, fallen off the bed. At any other time she would have laughed, but right now all she could focus on was the pounding in her head. It was constant and each and every sound seemed to pierce into her skull.

"Why did you drop the bloody glass?" She hissed, teeth clenched together tightly to keep from screaming.

"Uh- yeah, sorry I- uh, dropped it." Gabe mumbled back. Angela heard a note of something strange in his voice but didn't press the matter, her head was too sore and she still couldn't move. Taking a deep breath she opened her eyes, ignoring the pain that the light in the room brought to them. Everything was overly bright and seemed to sting her eyes as she looked at it, she painfully took in the sight of a very worried looking Gabe just as the lights in the room started to flicker.

"What the-?" She muttered, her throat raw. She wondered vaguely how long she had been asleep for before the lights flickered quickly back on again, causing her to clench her eyes shut once more, but her lids couldn't keep the flashing lights away from her eyes and each flicker caused a new wave of pain to go through her head, making coherent thinking impossible.

Gabe watched in horror as she began to mutter nonsense to herself, oblivious of his presence.

"Light, no. Loud, too loud" she let out a moan "Help, help. Can't-, breathe, drink. HELP!" Suddenly she screamed, the sound reverberation throughout the room as Gabe shrank back, unsure as to what to do. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply and concentrating but nothing seemed to help.

He glanced up at the lights hanging down from the ceiling, now brighter than ever and growing brighter and brighter each second, he realised what was going to happen before it did and ran across to the bed, jumping on top of Angela and covering his head as the bulbs exploded, hot glass showering the room.

A burning hot shard sliced across his cheek and Angela felt the unmistakeable sting of a piece of glass grazing her thigh, but she barely felt it. She was suddenly exhausted, the pain in her head had dulled and, in the dark, she quickly fell back into unconsciousness.

Gabe slowly climbed to his feet and looked down at the sleeping girl.

Sighing, he shook his head and went about cleaning the room up.

The next time Angela woke up, the room was as it had been the last time she woke up, minus the armchair. Now, Gabe was sat leaning against the wall on the floor. She felt immensely better, her headache had gone and she felt like she could stand up again. Gingerly, she swung her legs off the bed and went to get to her feet.

Her toes had barely grazed the ground before Gabe scrambled up from the wall and put his hands on her shoulders, keeping her firmly in place.

"You are in no condition to be getting up right now." He said quickly when he saw the look on her face.