Help Me

Phantom

Mikey

The next night. One very long, agonising day later...

Mikey jolted awake with a gasp, breathing heavily, but groaning loudly in pain when his knee collided harshly with the wall. He could still feel the man's hands closing tightly over his throat...
He coughed harshly as he struggled to draw in a breath, frantically looking around in all directions. All he could see was white... All he could see was the pain.

He whimpered as his knee throbbed, all the pain hitting him at once. The back of his head pounded, the stab wound on his side itched deep inside, the scratch on his face burned, the numerous cuts on his body stung, the bruises feeling brand new... Hands crushed his windpipe.
He let out a strangled gasp, his own hands reaching for his throat to try to pry off the man's hands... He had to get them off... He couldn't breathe... He couldn't breathe...

The nausea hit him like a train, and Mikey knew that he had to move. Blindly, he reached down for his crutches, but only succeeding in grabbing one because his hands were shaking so much. He was making a racket, he knew, and he cried out when he stumbled to his feet, crashing into the table when his knee wouldn't move. Somehow he managed to evade Brooklyn's sleeping form, but he could see him twitching in his sleep.
He let out another gasp when the pain increased again, feeling a fresh round of tears slide down his cheeks.

Voices murmered behind him, but he was focused on the task of reaching the bathroom before he fainted, or before he threw up... He didn't know which one would come first.

His shoulder smacked solidly into the door frame, and Mikey let out a sob... Why couldn't he just walk? Why couldn't he just be normal?
The voices got louder and louder behind him, but Mikey managed to stumble into the bathroom, locking the door and backing away, fingers trembling so much that the crutch fell to the floor with a crash.
Mikey followed shortly after, his knee giving out, all he pain creating a tornado of thoughts to whirl around in his head. He was blinded... He was completely incapacitated...
He clamped a hand over his mouth, his whole body jerking forwards as he involuntarily retched.

Toilet. He had to make it to the toilet.
His fingers scrambled along the cold, tiled floor for purchase, but the nausea only heightened when he remembered laying in the floor, exactly as he was now, but only thirteen days previously.
Unlucky thirteen. Figures.
The coldness from the floor somehow managed to seep into his body, his skin soaking it up at a rapid pace to the point where he felt like ice.

Despite his heart pulsating irregularly, the coldness seemed to slow everything down.

Mikey felt himself dragging his body across the floor in slow motion, every shuffle sending an agonizing bolt of pain to shoot right to his knee, every shuffle sending an invisible knife into his side, plunging deeper and deeper, twisting and turning like a crocodile trying to kill it's prey.
The back of his head felt like it was swelling up, however a brief, sluggish touch with his fingers told him that he was wrong.
Mikey retched again, and everything began to speed back up.

The pounding seemed to engulf him whole... It was all he could hear... It was all he could see, alongside the shockwaves of pain that accompanied it.

Mikey's body ached as he gripped the toilet seat harshly before pulling himself upright, tiredly slumping sideways and resting his head on his arm. His whole figure shuddered violently when he retched again... And again... And again...
The first round of vomit burned the back of his throat, the tears from before gushing out even quicker.
Why was he so weak? Why couldn't he have just fought harder?