Antisepticeye Oneshots

Sleep (Jack)

Premise: Sean is making thumbnails for his videos tomorrow, and almost ends up choking himself with his headphones cord.

Sean is busy editing the thumbnails for the videos he recorded today. It's really late, but he's almost finished the second one, and is determined to get it done by tonight. He has his headphones and is listening to some music. He bobs his head to the beat while staring at his computer, completely focused on his task.

He moves his hand off the mouse and tugs on the edge of his hoodie near his neck. It's really hot in this room, but he can't get himself to take the piece of clothing off, because a sudden urge to sleep overtakes him. He looks at the time on the corner of his computer screen: it's 1:41 in the morning. It's not uncommon for him to stay up so late, but he really feels tired right now. Wait, did the music stop?

Sean didn't realize that he's been staring at nothing the last few minutes, being lost in thought. His headphones are in his lap, probably after falling off of his head. He chuckles to himself, now aware of how much he needs to sleep. He can finish the last thumbnail in the morning, but he really shouldn't have started so late.

His eyelids feel heavy, making it almost impossible to keep them open any longer. Sleep is definitely trying hard to overtake him tonight. He attempts to fight it so he can get up and go to bed, but he doesn't seem to be strong enough. The strange awareness of how tight his clothing is comes back to him. His neck feels exposed to the cold air of the room, but that feeling quickly fades, along with his awareness of everything around him.

One feeling that isn't fading though, is a strangely familiar burning in his chest and it's getting worse by the second. He wants to do something about it, but is unable to as something fights against his consciousness. Abruptly, he gets a strong pain around his neck, but the sensation in his lungs is much more prominent. It's grows until it's unbearable, and then a light bulb goes off in his head as he identifies what's happening to him.

He's choking.

Everything in his body is screaming that he's in danger, but he can't do anything about it. He tries to breathe air into his lungs, but finds himself unable to. The world around him looks distant and faded as his consciousness starts breaking down without any oxygen to fuel his brain. His whole body is numb as something that feels like sleep overpowers him. It isn't sleep, though. It fights against him with a much greater force than sleep.

If he doesn't fight back, he's going to die.

He feels as if his mind being pulled away from reality into unconsciousness. But, no matter how far he goes into this empty void, the suffocating sensation in his lungs still persists. He uses what's left of his energy to get back control of his conscious. His survival instincts kick in as he desperately struggles for his life.

This seems to give him what he needs to gain control again and come back to reality. Whatever is doing this to him promptly disappears and so does the numbness in his hands and feet. His notices that his hands are holding firmly onto his headphones cord, and he immediately lets go. The cord is wrapped tightly around his throat, and he pulls it away, finally giving him the chance to breathe.

He coughs intensely until it hurts his throat and sucks his deep breaths of air to fill his lungs. The burning sensation in chest fades away and he sits back in his chair, relieved. A few minutes pass as he thinks about what happened to him. Had he been unconsciously choking himself with the cord from his headphones? What was making him do that?

He sits up and shuts off his computer before getting up to go to his room. He decides to take a detour to the bathroom to get a drink, first. The feeling of the water going down his throat is refreshing, but it hurts to swallow. He puts the empty cup back on the edge of the sink and examines himself in the mirror. A prominent red line wraps fully around his neck from where the cord left its mark. He has no answers for why it happened to him, but he can't stop thinking about it. Unusual occurrences are common for him, but nothing like this has ever happened before. The most that has happened is when lights flicker randomly, or he sees things out of the corner of his eye at night.

He knows that he's going to have to tell Signe about this. She's obviously not gonna have any answers for him, but she'll definitely notice the mark that's on his throat. He rubs his eyes, feeling sleepy again. This time, the sleepiness doesn't feel forceful which makes Sean think that he's just simply tired.

He switches the bathroom light off and walks down the hall to his bedroom, dragging his feet. Signe is laying on her side of the bed, sound asleep, as he opens the door. He smiles, noticing how cute she looks, and goes to his side of the bed on the far side of the room. He immediately gets under the covers and closes his eyes. The worry that what happened earlier might happen again lingers in his mind, but then he's quickly consumed by sleep and falls unconscious.