Bitten

Chapter 11

Possible Trigger Warning!!
Talks about Mental Health and Mental Illness!!!!

Keith's POV
September 20th, 2019
10:00 a.m.

The past week has been a struggle for me.

Every since I woke up from that coma, I just couldn't seem to relax.

Well, I guess the only thing that would help me calm down was listening to music and drawing scenes with the lyrics in my sketchbook that my mom bought.

Anywho, the doctors' diagnosed it as anxiety, and they say it's probably the stress I went through when I was bit.

I hate spiders.

They kept Claire and I for a week, just to make sure our vitals were normal.

Today, we finally get to go home.

I get to sleep in my own bed, and eat some amazing food (don't get me wrong, hospital food is pretty good, but homemade food is the best).

You know, now that I think about it, I haven't seen Claire since we were in that shared 'dreamscape'. That's how we were able to communicate.

Anyways, I'm currently packing all of my stuff that was in my hospital room. We had to leave the hospital by 10:15 a.m., so it didn't give us much time.

It took me about five minutes to finish gathering my stuff. Once I was done, I walked out into the hallway and headed towards the lobby.

Claire was standing by the desk.

She looked over at me and gave me a weak smile. I brought my stuff with me when I hugged her.

We embraced for a few seconds before pulling away. I looked her over, just to see if she was alright. Everything looked normal about her....

Except her eyes?

I should say it's more of her eyelashes. Some of them were missing.

I opened my mouth to ask her, but she silenced me with a look. The look that basically said 'we'll talk about it later.'

Mom and Dad we're taking care of some of the medical stuff at the front counter, so I casually asked Claire, "Did the doctors diagnose you with anxiety?"

She gave me a side glance, "Yes and no. They mostly just diagnosed me with OCD." And with that statement, she lifted her right hand towards her left eye and began to play with her eyelashes.

~Time Skip~

We got home around 11:00 a.m. Once we were out of the hospital, Dad drove to the nearest McDonalds and ordered lunch. (If I had to choose between hospital food and McDonalds, McDonalds would be my choice).

We got in the house, and I immediately went to my room. Katie was at our grandparents house during all of this, which was good, because she didn't need to see Claire and I in our state of health.

My room was pretty big. I have a a queen sized bed, and a pretty big closet. I have a bookshelf right next to my bed, and it held all of my books that I thought were good.

I had a desk in my room as well. It was on the opposite side of the book shelf.

I threw my bag onto my bed and sat down in my swivel chair by my desk. I sighed, pressing my hands against my face in exhaustion.

Knock knock

I turned my chair so that it was facing the door. "Come in." I said as my chair began to turn in a circle.

Claire poked her head in, "Mom wants to know if you need anything." She said. I looked at her. Her eyes seemed....distant?

"Yeah, could I have a glass of water? My hands are shaking, so I'm gonna guess it's the anxiety of being at home again." I told her. She nodded, and was about to leave, but I couldn't help but ask.

"Claire, why do you only have half of your eyelashes?" I said quizzically. She stopped and looked at me before replying.

"Like I said, I was diagnosed with OCD, but this type of OCD is called Trichtillomania. This means I pull out my eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, etc." And with that, she headed down the stairs and into the kitchen.

I watched as she left my room. I've never heard of anything like that, but then I began to think about how much it would hurt to pull out one's hair.

I turned a bit in my swivel chair and looked outside of my window. After a few seconds of me reminiscing and staring, I opened up my phone and started to scroll through Pinterest, because that was where I found art inspiration and memes.

Claire walked in a few minutes later and gave me the glass of water. Once she set it down in front of me,my hands began to tremble. I thought it was odd, but decided to ignore it.

"Hey Claire? Does it.......hurt, when you pull at your eyelashes?" I asked, glancing up from my phone so I could look at her.

"It does hurt, but I guess the pain is somewhat satisfying. It's basically a coping method, you know? Like how drawing is yours. Yes, my method is a bit unstable and isn't good for me, but I can't stop myself." And with that, her hand brushed her eyelashes that were not so protected behind her glasses.

I nodded, and began to reach for my cup of water. All of a sudden, it started to shake. I quickly scooted my chair away from the glass.

"Claire, what did you do to my water?" I asked, looking at her in confusion and annoyance.

"I did nothing to it. All I did was grab the glass and pour water in it." She stated matter of factly as she slowly made her way towards me.

I looked back at the cup. My hands were tingling again, but more than they were before. The cup was shaking harder now, but as my emotions flew through my body, the most common ones were confusion, understanding, and anxiety.

That's when the cup fell, and the water began to come right at me.

1017 words.

Hey everyone! It's been a while 😅.

I've had writers block for over a week, as well as art block (so I was extremely bored, but good thing I have a whole library filled with fan fictions 😂)

Anywho, I don't really have much to say. Here may be some grammatical mistakes in this chapter, as it is......1:30 in the morning 😂

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

But before I go, would you guys like a character description page, that way you'll know what each character looks like? Comment if you would like to have it!