dollhouse ☾ muke

ⅠV

[ michael ]

I sit up and see the room brighten as the doctor turns on the lights.

I turn and see Luke awaken.

"It's time to prepare for Halloween. Take your medicine and go to the recreational room." He then goes away, leaving Luke and I sitting on our beds.

"What are we preparing for?" Luke stands up and walks to the door, me following behind.

"Halloween." I state.

"What happens on Halloween is what I meant?" He looks at me and grabs his pills from the nurse.

"Lunatic Ball." I swallow my liquid that tastes like wine and barf.

"Which is?" He questions.

"It's a huge celebration we have every year. They get old tuxes and dresses and masks for us to wear and dance around in all night. It's suppose to make us feel normal." I smile and open the recreational room's, aka the ball room's, French doors.

"Mike and Luke y'all are in charge of dusting the railings of the stairs and balcony." A girl says as she hands us feather dusters.

"This should be easy." Luke throws his in the air.

"You haven't even seen half of this room." I sigh and start to dust the stairs.

>

I sit on the top stairs and lean against the wall.

"What's wrong?" Luke sits beside me.

And that's when it happened, yet again. It was an everyday occurrence, it only started that since I got my new medicine.

I can't breathe, it's like the smoke of my demons are real and it sucks. I could see Luke screaming as I slammed against the ground, due to throwing my lungs up.

It is encouraging that somebody actually pays attention to me. I feel relief start coming back and my breathing slows back to normal.

"Michael, don't you fucking do that. I was scared." He says, hugging me.

"Why do you care?" I hug him back, awkwardly.

"Because that's what friends do."