THE ART OF BURNING

XVI: MARCO, GODDAMNIT, MARCO!

[ ━━ ❝ ✧˚⋆｡☾✩˚⋆｡࿐❞ ━━ ]
MEREDITH
(tw: death)

THE ROOM IS DARK and something is beeping.

Meredith sits up, all the blood suddenly rushing to her head, pressing her hands into the rough wood beneath her to steady herself. What is it? It's soft, too soft to be of any danger to her. She reaches her arm out, feeling her way around this unfamiliar space. Her fingers slide into the deep crevices of old wood.

Her eyes are starting to adjust to the darkness, the abstract black blobs starting to form into legitimate things, the shadows deepening into sharper shadows. She notices an outline of the door; an open window, the blinds ruffling with the warm breeze dripping in; warm bodies pulsing with each breath; a boy beside her. A boy beside her. Something flutters in her chest, fast and panicked and warm. She reaches out to him, and her hand closes around Silas's. In his sleep, he grabs tight to her hand.

Something is beeping and Meredith's trying very hard not to notice it.

She starts imagining how she'd draw the world right now, trying to distract herself. The light bleeding in from the window is a bright, fiery red-orange, but she doesn't think she'd use any colors. Just charcoal, all ill-defined shapes and thick, chalky. Maybe on newsprint of Fabriano. She'd leave a lot of cream in it. Or maybe she'd scrap the whole charcoal idea and use oil pastels instead. Or she could use watercolors; she loves watercolors. Maybe she'll make it a contrast piece, color everything around the window in black.

She misses her art supplies more than she misses her family. Out here, all she's got is a sheet of bright pink sticky notes and an eraserless mechanical pencil.

Something is beeping, soft but persistent.

Meredith desperately wants to go back to sleep, but the world won't SHUT UP. Her eyes are heavy, her blanket warm, but THE BEEPING WON'T STOP. It's making her want to pull her hair out.

She gets up, finds her bag with her feet. Blindly, she roots through it until her hand finally closes around her phone. She pulls it out, cupping it with both hands, squinting at the sudden brightness. It's three forty-three in the morning. She looks back at the window; it's still bright and fiery and red-orange, like the sunrise. Does time work differently in this dimension? What's the sun doing rising at three forty-three in the morning?

Something is beeping. Something here, in this house, is beeping.

Leaving her phone laying there, the light from it burning blue into the ceiling ten feet above it, she scrambles to her feet, transfixed. She cautiously makes her way around Silas towards the window, possibilities bouncing around in her head. It's icy cold without her warm blanket wrapped around her. She pulls her sweatshirt tighter around herself, shivering, and, well, technically it isn't exactly her sweatshirt. It's Silas's old swim-team sweatshirt from, like, freshman year, and she stole it. She's never giving it back. The fabric feels familiar, smells like home.