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quatre

it was 2am when eddie woke up in pure panic, air flooding his lungs that almost didn't feel welcoming.  a sort of air that felt thick and heavy, holding him down as he flailed restlessly against his bed.

a nightmare.

it was just a nightmare.

his mother was crying again.  hand in hand with his father as she sobbed long and hard against the bed.  the only other sound that fills the room where the three family members sit is the steady beeping of the heart monitor.  the sound of soft footsteps from outside the hospital room echoed up and down the hall outside.

"momma?"

"yes, eddiebear?" 

"when will papa get better?"

she went quiet, and so did eddie.

so they sat there.  silent as his mother listened to the steady exhaling and inhaling from her husband.  silent as the heart monitor beeped.

until it started beeping faster.

his mother looked up with an expression of pure panic as she rushed out to retrieve a nurse, leaving eddie to stare at his nearly-lifeless dad.  the small boy walked up to the bed where he was laying, no concern lacing his thoughts or expression as he stared.

even then it was all grey for him.

the muted colors that surrounded the muted atmosphere of the muted hospital.

he hated it even more than he'd ever hated anything.

but he had no time to think of that as he was pulled out of the room by a women who resembled his mother, held close as she muffled the sounds of talking and rustling of medical equipment and crying.

but she failed to muffle the slow fade of the heart monitor before it became an extended beep.

flatlining.

eddie shook his head as he let out a choked sob, jolting back to real life.  living in the present.  he didn't know what to do.  he couldn't just go back to sleep.

looking at the alarm clock on his nightstand, he shook his head and sighed.

2 AM. 

he'd barely slept.

eddie swung his feed over the frame of his old, beaten up bed.  his room was almost as cold as his thoughts, consuming him like everything else did and drowning him in a rush of cold adrenaline.  he bit his lip as he stood up, shuffling over to his door and slipping on a cozy jacket and sneaking down the stairs of the small house he lived in.

since his dads death they've yet to move.  they lived in a big house even when they were a family of three.  four bedrooms and three bathrooms with a game room separate from the standard living, eating, and kitchen rooms was surely a lot for the size of what they were.  and more so since it was just the two of them.  but eddie never complained.  his mothers room was set on the far side of the house, ignorant to any noise or movement throughout the rest of their humble abode, allowing eddie to sneak in and out as he wished.  he could probably drop a plate in the kitchen and his mother would remain peacefully (or whatever was peaceful anymore) asleep upstairs.

eddie quietly slipped out through the front door, exhaling deeply as the rush of cold that filled the night ahead of him seeped its way into his jacket.

most nights he'd go one way.  around the back of his house into the woods of trees that littered a large area of land.  but tonight he went the same as he had earlier.  the same path that led him to the chocolate brown boy.

people had always described chocolate to be amazing.  chocolate can be sweet, can be bitter.  chocolate comes in all different shapes and sizes, mixed with different things to make it even better.  but chocolate to eddie meant warm.  and he always wished to feel warm.  though he couldn't ever see the true beauty of chocolate, the way that those described it to be a brown so soft but amazing, only made eddie connect this candy to a boy.  a warm, chocolate brown boy.

eddie let his feet pull him down to the park where he was before -- where he wish he could just stay -- and lead him further beyond where him and the chocolate boy sat.

it wasn't until he finally looked up that he'd realized how far he walked.  all the way out to the other end of the park where a bridge led, above a rushing river, to a field of flowers.

eddie hadn't even thought that he'd find himself on the same bridge later on, more so for a reason unexpected.