Pulled In

3

Grayson

After coffee and introductions, Ghost and Toast offered us some clothes to change into since we were still in pajamas. Elizabeth ended up in a white button up and black dress pants since she was the same size as Toast. I ended up in a red t-shirt and jeans since I was around Ghost's height. Correction, I was actually shorter than Ghost, which made me mad since he is canonically one of the shortest human characters.

Not long after, we were all sitting in the living room, when I felt a little ball of panic well up in my chest. Suddenly, I couldn't breath properly and my vision was all fuzzy. My head pounded and, without any warning to the other, I ran to the bathroom I had seen earlier.

I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it, vaguely aware of someone on the other side calling my name. Everything was hazy and I suddenly felt like I wasn't the one controlling myself. I saw my hands reach for the scissors and bring them to my hair. I saw large chucks of curls fall to the floor around my feet. I saw a pair of red eyes watching me from the mirror. Those weren't my eyes. Were they? No. My eyes were green.

I heard the door behind me open and suddenly someone was easing me onto the floor. I felt weird. Like I was laughing and crying at the same time. Everything went from being hazy and broken to being in perfect focus. Too perfect. The lights were too bright. The smells were too strong. The sounds were too loud. Someone was restraining me, and only then did I realize how much I was thrashing around.

"Hey kid, calm down. You're gonna hurt yourself. Breathe. I know it hurts. Just breathe."

I knew that voice. I couldn't place it just then, but I knew it. It must have belonged to the person holding me down.

I did what the voice told me to do. I took a few deep breaths. As I did, the sensory overload I had just been feeling began to diminish.

"That's better. It always hurts if you haven't done it in a while. The first time is the worst, but I need you to calm down so you don't get hurt."

After a few more minutes, I found myself calm, and staring up at a flustered Johnny Ghost.
"What happened?"

"I think you can figure that out."

I stood up slowly, legs shaking beneath me, and walked to the mirror. Sure enough, when I looked at my reflection, my eyes were now red. But what startled me even more was the fact that, despite the fact that my glasses had fallen off at some point while I was having my breakdown, I could see perfectly clearly.
"I can- I can see without my glasses."

I took in this fact, and was turning to say something to Ghost when I realized I had picked back up the scissors and now was aiming them at his chest.

Just before I could cause any damage, Ghost caught my hand and twisted it until I dropped the scissors, then dragged me back into the living room where Elizabeth was leaning dizzily against a chair. Ghost pushed me back onto the couch and handed me a pillow, which I latched on to compulsively, biting down out of pure instinct to stop something else bad from happening.