Silent Cries ☾N.H.S

23| comatose

❝ oh i know that i am here,
and you are there,
but we still have our love.
we move just like the moon and sun. ❞

- i love you more than you will ever know by never shout never

A/N: coming back up after finishing writing this chapter and honestly saying good luck to you all

☾23☽

"Walter!" I yelled upward, my face paling.

"Wh-what?" He stuttered, his hands reaching out, and then stopping when he saw who was drowning below.

"It's Niall!" Tears fell from my eyes and dropped into the swelling ocean below.

I clung to the soil feebly and looked down desperately. What if I joined him? What if I just dropped down into the grave and let the ocean take me with him?

"Don't let go!" Walter screamed, his voice sounding far away.

"Where are you?" My chest buzzed with anxiety.

Then Walter's face poked out, but it was burning. His face was on fire. Almost letting go, I screamed in fear.

Then it was gone. The fire was gone.

"Halo," he whispered, his beautiful face back to normal, and his dark eyelashes no longer seared, but long and healthy. "It's a trick."

"What is?"

"I don't know, but the d-demons with m-matchsticks were hallucinations, like holograms. It's just a trick to try to make you fall. It's not Niall." He reached out to me again, a shadow behind him.

I tried to reach up, but at the exact moment my hand met Walter's warm one, there was a tug at my leg and a cold, moist hand around my ankle.

Looking down, it was Niall, his eyes were dark holes on his face, unseeing and not blue like they were supposed to be. It wasn't Niall. It was just a hallucination. Whoever that was below, wanted me to die. Niall didn't want me to die.

Shaking free, I kicked backwards and he fell back in, his body taken down into the swirling water.

Choking back a sob, I was flung forward and landed on top of Walter, his face burying into my neck and his arms overwhelming me.

"I almost let go. I wanted to join him," I sobbed, clinging to his biceps and soaking his t-shirt with tears.

"Shush," he whispered. "You're here now, and that's all that matters."

"What if I had-" my words were cut off by his hand pressing over my mouth urgently.

"Did you hear that?" He asked.

"Hff whff?" I asked, my voice muffled.

Walter dropped his hand, and looked around, pulling me up against him as he stood up. He rocked forward, and I was dragged as he walked in front of me.

"Walter? Where are you going?"

He didn't reply, but sped up. I stumbled and fell into his back as he finally stopped. He blinked back at me.

"There was a light," he muttered, scratching his wild hair.

I shook my head. "No, no there wasn-"

Just then a blinding light pierced my vision, cutting off my words. As if spellbound, we jerked forward.

"What's happening?" I asked, looking over at Walter who was looking just as confused as I felt.

"Just stay by my side," he whispered.

At the end of the tunnel was a simple white door with a small gridded window. We stopped in front of it, our faces coming closer together as we peered in. The thick white light hit out faces from inside the room, brightening Walter's saddening face.

"Fuck me," Walter mouthed, staring at what looked like a hospital room.

I inhaled sharply. This must be a nightmare. None of this was real. None.

"Is this another hallucination, or are we the hallucination?" I asked, my voice trembling.

After I jumped off the bridge, had everything that preceded just been a figment of my imagination?

It had to be, because there inside the pristine room, was a bed folded with crisp clean blankets, and resting inside those blankets was my body.

Covered in tubes, and a breathing mask, I lay there with my chest rising gently with life. It looked like I was asleep in a deep coma.

And far against one side of the wall, slumped over on the window seat, was a sleeping figure. His roots poked up through his faded, messy hair, and he wore bedraggled clothes. The boy frowned and stirred in his sleep restlessly.

"Halo, wait," he mumbled in his slumber.