Borderline

chapter twelve.

I want sleep.

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We were in the cave, although I had no idea how I ended up here. Did I sneak out after all? Was the communicating device not enough? How long had I been here?

Keith was in front of me, but not in his usual spot, not with the habitual one meter between us. He had put way less space between us this time, his hand prompted on my shoulder. I was looking at him through bleary eyes, wondering why he was so close. His lips moved, but I couldn't read them, and couldn't feel the warmth of his breath against my face. I swallowed, hoping to disperse whatever was blocking my ears from hearing what he was saying. Like a echo bouncing back to me, I could finally pick up on what words his mouth was forming.

"Lance. Lance, I have to tell you something..."

The image of him flickered, just like a hologram, and I wondered if this wasn't in fact real, and that he was just another created, artificial form in my room that seemed so very true. But how could his hand solidly be placed on my shoulder? I couldn't feel his touch, but I could see it.

I could see it, his lips moving, and the next tick, I could hear it too.

"Lance, I really l..."

I gasped awake, so fast that it felt that my whole being flew out of my body for the moment. I was so disoriented, the map inside my head momentarily turned completely upside down, in a way that prevented me from reading the coordinates of my thoughts. My chest was heaving and sinking, and my body felt both painfully awake but also very much exhausted. I didn't realize I was sweating until I touched my forehead, watching how the light around me reflected into the droplets in my hand. I also caught something else with my eyes; the device, placed just beside my legs, probably because I'd never put it away from yesterday.

Lance, I have to tell you something.

The dream I had - the fact that it was even a dream to begin with disconcerted me - was the faintest of an echo in my head, and I could hear it again, how it was bouncing from wall to wall, messing up every thought of mine, just like before.

My arm felt itchy, and numb, like I'd put all my weight on it during my sleep, but still I reached for the apparatus, trying to navigate through the fictitious morning fog, blinking away the remaining blur in my eyes.

I pressed open the chat we had yesterday, just to see. I was sure that it was something there, something I'd missed to read because I'd been just that tired. It was something he'd written, I knew that, almost for sure. 

The chat popped up in the air, and I blinked, closing it, just to turn it on again. I did this three times, and the results always stayed the same. I tried one more time, just to make sure, and threw the device to the side with a growl when nothing changed. My heart was thumping hard against my ribcage, and it felt unhealthy to have my pulse increased this way just when I woke up. My skin felt droughty - probably because I'd gone without my facemask yesterday - and it tasted horrible in my mouth. Not only was Keith stirring up my thoughts, but also messing up my skin routine. 

There was nothing new, no message I had missed to read. My mind had been just that desperate, and created an illusion based on what I really wanted to see. But what did I want to see, and what was it that Keith was supposed to say? Was my brain telling me something?

That was something I needed to figure out, so that's exactly what I did.

The hologram of him almost instantly formed in front of me as I sent signals to his device, biting down on my pride the whole time. I didn't know what was going on inside my head for me to act this way, but I had a very weak will to retreat, so I didn't, instead waiting for the connection to fully set.