We're Not Sleeping, We're Just Dreaming (Waterparks fanfic)

Nine - Keon

The falling feeling refused to leave me as specks of colour began to flood my vision. Was I unconscious? Was I dead? Was I dying at the very least? Light came in bursts and little dashes as I struggled to make sense of where I was, the sound of overlapping voices making me want to scream. I felt myself stood, aware of my body, pulling my hands towards my head to hold it still and stop the fucking spinning feeling that sickened me to my stomach.
Then suddenly, white. Nothing but white. I frantically looked around, desperate for an explanation but there was nothingness. Just white. Surely I was dead now? Was this proof the afterlife existed? Maybe.
"I hope you got what you wanted."
I turned suddenly on my heel.
"A...Awsten?" I mumbled, my voice raspy and like I'd smoked 20 packs. "I...I...I'm dead now, right?"
He sighed. "Thankfully, no."
I let out a frustrated sigh and kicked at the ground with my heel. "Fuck."
He walked over and took my hand, his other hand stroking up my arms. I felt him trace every blemish on my forearm though it didn't sting as it would if he had done it in real life. "Not surprised they know you did this to yourself. They'd have to be fucking blind to miss it."
I sighed, turning my arm slowly back and forth, staring at every blemish and every burn, every bruise and every blister. "What happens now?"
Awsten sighed.
"In real terms, you're here for a while. At least, until they wake you up. If they can wake you up."
I made a confused face. "I don't understand..." I mumbled.
"You're comatose. They've forced you into a coma. Stop you killing yourself again as they try and get to the bottom of this before you fucking flatline and give out."
I sighed. I didn't know how to feel - they were going to try and override my attempt but that was to be expected. Stupid boy, overdosing in school like they wouldn't have called an ambulance.
"They don't know what you took, they're racing against the clock, they really haven't got long...." he continued. "You could still get what you want out of this."
I thought to myself for a second.
"Why are you even here? What the fuck is this?"
He shrugged. "It's your brain, your conscious, you tell me."
He took my hand and I maintained our eye contact. "Watch this."
The feeling of falling rushed through my entire body again as I closed my eyes and willed it to stop, hunching over and not letting go of Awsten's hand, the only stable element of this experience that I could latch onto.
"Open your eyes, Keon."
I slowly allowed them to open. School. Specifically the chemistry classroom, though empty, and exactly the same as earlier in the day.
"Care to take a walk?"
I turned. Awsten was sat on one of the tables. My face must have been visibly confused as he laughed a moment.
"I'm in your subconscious. I'm not the real Awsten but I guess you can call me that if you like. I'm whoever, or whatever, you want me to be. I'm just the voice at the back of your mind."
He jumped down from the table and walked through the door. I shrugged and followed him - I had nothing better to do.
"What even is this?" I asked, following him down the seemingly endless corridor.
"This? It's what your subconscious needs you to see."
I sighed and continued to walk, until we found ourselves in the art department. The door to Mr McKenna's room was oddly closed, which was most irregular.
"Ready?"
I shrugged. "You haven't told me what for."
He took one of my hands in his left and opened the door with his right, pulling me inside.
Immediately I wished I had declined - the scene from earlier.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked him. He didn't speak.
I analysed the scene with both eyes intensely - the real Awsten, stood there, a twisted look of panic, terror and horror painted across his face as he stares at the ground, Mr McKenna and Otto, instantly recognisable from his beanie and hair, crouching down and tending to something. Geoff absent, before appearing behind me, walking straight through me but I feel nothing.
"They can't see you,", Awsten mumbled, stood directly behind my left shoulder. "Essentially you're a ghost of the future."
I slowly took a few steps to the left to see over Mr McKenna's shoulder but instantly regretted it, my stomach twisting intensely at the sight of it. My rigid body, writhing around on the floor like an animal who had been electrocuted or otherwise tortured, my lip bloody and eyes rolling uncontrollably back and forth, the pupils small and shocked in appearance, my gaunt face pale and sweating.
"I...I...I don't want to see this."
Awsten looked at me, moving to where I could see both him and my convulsing figure.
"Why? Are you scared of the truth?"
Suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my head, doubling over and clutching my hair, the tension mounting as I feel a strange sensation in my face, like I've suddenly breathed in a load of water into my nose. My fingers stroke my face, trying desperately to come to a conclusion before coming away with blood - I quickly run three fingers under my nose and identify the blood as coming from one nostril as I fumble for a tissue in my pockets.
"What's happening?!" I start to panic more, desperately mopping at the blood.
"They have to feed you somehow..." Awsten mumbled, offering forward another packet of tissues as the blood streams down my hands.
"What?"
He sighs. "They're putting in a feeding tube, they put it up your nose."
The bleeding begins to slow as I look him in the eyes. "So I can feel everything that happens to me?"
He sighs. "Theoretically, yes, maybe not all but likely most."
I mop at the last of the stream, and notice Awsten walking away again.
"Come on. Lots to do. Unless you've got something else better to do in comatose..."