candy striper :: l.h.

twenty-three » the wreck of our hearts

;

through the waves of the deep.

and the storms of the sea,

i have you, and you have me.

we're not too far gone.

- sleeping wolf ; the wreck of our hearts

fallon.

Too goddamn bright, was the first thing that I could coherently think as I felt myself slowly begin to resurface, the light flooding in from the window the first thing to breach my eyesight. It felt like after countless months of sitting at the bottom of an ocean, I was finally getting pulled back up to breathe.

Blink by blink, everything eventually managed to clear up, the shapes and fog and blurs clouding my vision dissolving until I could fully manage to make out the gray walls surrounding me, the harmonic beeps and intoxicating smell of detergent and bleach mingling. I'd spent too much of my time here to not know where I was. I winced as I made my first attempt to sit up, a dull but sharp ache splintering right through my spine and into my head – a literal migraine on crack.

Having had experience with the anatomy of hospital beds beforehand, I forced myself to crane my neck to the side and reach over to press down on the nurse call button, crying out at the stabbing soreness in my neck not long after. Breathing shakily, I lowered my head to peer down at my neck only to find a thick, white brace secured around it. If my throat weren't so hoarse, I would've groaned. Instead, I settled for sinking back down into the rough mattress in defeat.

It was frustrating. I was more than obviously fucked up from head to toe but I couldn't remember even a single detail of how it'd all happened – of how I'd ended up here. Something in my head began to flicker, too, like a switch repeatedly being turned on and off as I looked around the room more in-depthly. Something ringed of a sort of familiarity that I couldn't exactly place my finger on. I sighed and shut my eyes tightly to console the ache. My head and thoughts and memory altogether felt like jelly.

"Fallon?"

I peered up at the call of my name, my chest bubbling in relief at the sight of something familiar – someone.

"Mom," I whispered airily as she quickly strided over to cautiously wrap her arms around my middle, like she were afraid that if she touched me too even the tiniest bit too much, I'd crack. There was almost a slight look of wistfulness on her face as she pulled away.

She swallowed, her eyes wide and darting all over my face. "You're... You're awake."

"I am," I parroted her, smiling gently and nodding. I cleared my throat and winced at the feeling of scratchiness, my mom immediately catching on and moving to reach for a tote bag at the side of my bed. I watched silently as she pulled out a large water bottle and untwisted the cap for me, moving in close to hover the bottle over my cracked lips. I nearly moaned at the feeling of the water on my tongue, the feeling of it soothing the back of my throat hitting me almost instantly.