Person of Interest

Chapter 6: Morning After

"I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep."

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: "Song of Myself"

Your POV:

I'd never had the displeasure of being cursed with a hangover, but that morning, I think I might have gotten close to what I imagined it might be like.

Waking up was slow going, but that was fine; I didn't know what had happened the night before (heck, I didn't know what year it was), but I knew that I didn't want to deal with it until later. Much, much later. Maybe never; maybe I actually was hungover and had blacked out last night so I wouldn't have to remember-

'heh... you aight there, sweetheart?'

I sat up with a shriek, throwing the twisted covers off of my torso as I frantically scanned my surroundings. My breathing was deep and wild as my eyes shot back and forth across my empty room.

...I was alone. He... sans... was gone. I sighed out the breath I was holding and allowed myself to relax just a bit, laying back down and pulling the covers back up to my chin before freezing when I realized that sans had probably carried me to bed. Urgh...Knowing that the skeleton had most likely tucked me in the night before was not helping my already fragile mental state.

The familiar, calming aura of the waking city outside were at stark odds with my racing thoughts.

The warm light of dawn greeted me cheerily through the window, casting soft, chittering patterns on the wall above my bed... Birds sung brightly in the lone tree beyond that wall, going about their business without a care in the world... I could hear people laughing and talking below that tree as they prepared to cross the street, making small talk on their way to their normal nine to five jobs... How strange it seemed that the sun would rise that morning, but there it was: the day still started, right on time.

...Could I really take on any of that right now?

It was so surreal; there I was, after everything I'd felt and seen the night before, just lying in my bed like nothing had happened. Like this was just another morning. Like it was all just some outrageous dream... or more accurately, an especially vivid nightmare.

I stared listlessly at the ceiling of my dingy apartment as I slowly sorted through the circumstances leading up to that point. The alleyway, the shot, running home, him... my soul. what had sans done to me? Why couldn't I remember anything after... that?

Worse still than what I couldn't remember were the things I knew I wouldn't be able to forget. Those lifeless eyes looking blankly off into the distance over the red shock of blood soaking through the white snow... it was an image that was sure to remain seared into the back of my mind until the day I died. And from the way things were looking, that day might arrive ahead of schedule. That thought nearly swung me back into panic mode.

Oh God, forget what he'd done, what was Sans planning to do with me?

'I have to leave. Now.'

I threw my comforters off and quickly stood, fully intending to pack away what little I owned and go into hiding- I'd be fine, it was nothing I hadn't handled before- when a dark bundle sitting on my desk caught my eye. I walked over to tentatively pick up and examine the pile of fabric and... what in the world?