Drain You

The next three days went by smoothly and without any appearances at all of Kurdt. Anna was still always on alert though. Every time Kurt left a room, she was so scared that he’d come back as Kurdt. Every time he went to sleep, she was scared that he’d wake back up as Kurdt.

Finally, Anna, Krist, and Dave decided that the best thing to do would probably be to take Kurt to some sort of therapist, just to see what they had to say. This was a problem, though, because Kurt absolutely hated any sort of doctors. He refused to get any medical attention ever, unless it was something so serious that he couldn’t handle it on his own, such as the time he’d punched a wall when drunk and broken his hand. So it was going to be a challenge to get him to go to any sort of therapist, and Anna had no idea how to go about it. Originally, she’d suggested to just talk to him about it and see what he said, but Krist and Dave had quickly shot that down, because deep down, all three of them knew it wouldn’t work. Eventually they settled on just getting him in the car by telling him they were going somewhere else, and that seemed to work. That part was easy. When they got to the therapist’s office was when it all went downhill.

“Fuck this, I’m not going in there,” Kurt said as soon as he saw the building.

“Please, Kurty? This is the only solution we could think of. You obviously need help, and we have no idea how to give you that,” Anna said, and as she looked at Kurt, the thing she dreaded most began to happen. Kurt’s head lowered and his eyes grew wide and unblinking. At first Anna was sure that this was him transitioning into Kurdt, but all of a sudden, Kurt’s whole body began convulsing and his blood-curdling screams began cutting through the air.

“Kurt!” Anna screamed at him, getting out of the car, running as fast as she could around to the passenger side and shaking him roughly. “Kurt! Kurt, please be okay!” she yelled, and finally his shaking stopped and so did his screams. He slid limply down in his seat and his head hung low to his chest. He seemed completely… lifeless.

Frantically, Anna checked for a pulse, and couldn’t help but let out a small yell of relief when she found a slow but steady one in his wrist.

“Kurt!” she yelled again, attempting to wake him up. After he’d had no response the first few times, she very hesitantly slapped him across the face, and after that didn’t work, she slapped him harder, as hard as she possibly could. No response.

Tears began quickly pouring down her face as she urgently picked up the car-phone in the center console and dialed 911. After she’d explained the situation to the dispatcher and was informed that there would be an ambulance there as soon as possible, she just stood there staring intently at Kurt, tears streaming down her cheeks, wishing with all her heart that he would just wake up.



But he didn’t wake up. Not that night, not even the next day. The doctors said it was a complete mystery. All of the tests they ran on him showed nothing at all being wrong. His blood work came back positive, and his brain scans showed no abnormalities.

It got to the point where Anna never left the hospital. She quickly became a walking zombie, eating nothing but small morsels of hospital food that Krist and Dave forced on her and drinking only lukewarm hospital coffee.

Finally, three days later, Kurt’s eyes slowly slid open. Anna didn’t notice at first, and then when his hand twitched toward hers, she automatically pressed the call button on the side of the bed and got as close to Kurt as she possibly could.

“Oh, Kurty, are you okay?” she whispered, hoping to God that she was in fact looking at Kurt instead of Kurdt. It was impossible to tell by looking at his groggy face and heavy eyes.

“I’m… I’m okay, I think. Thirsty,” he rasped, and she couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief when she realized that this was her Kurt. She reached to the bedside table, grabbed a bottle of water and tilted it toward his mouth. Just as he finished drinking, two nurses and a doctor came rushing into the room and huddled around him.

After the doctor asked him some basic questions like his name, age, birthday, and Anna’s name, and examined a few different things, he took Anna aside to talk to her.

“He seems to have made a full recovery from whatever it was that ailed him, but because we still don’t know what exactly the problem was, we’re going to have to keep him for a day or two just for observation, and to make sure that he really is alright. We’ll leave you two alone now, but I’ll be checking in every few hours just to see how he’s doing. If any problems occur, don’t hesitate to press the call button or come find someone to help,” the doctor said, taking a few notes on his clipboard.

“Okay, thanks so much,” Anna replied, and with that, the doctor and two nurses exited the room and everything was silent again.

As Anna turned to Kurt, she did so hesitantly, fearing that somehow him waking up had been a dream and he’d just be asleep again, but he wasn’t. When she turned to him, he was definitely awake, and to her surprise, wide-eyed, healthy-looking, and smiling, and it wasn’t the wide sinister smile of Kurdt, it was the small innocent smile of her Kurt.

“Are you okay, Kurty?” Anna asked again, and this time Kurt smiled widely at her and nodded.

“I’m okay. Better than okay, actually,” he said, patting the bed beside him and motioning for her to come sit down.

“Okay, you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on here, because on my end, you’ve been in a coma for no apparent reason for the past three days, and now you wake up all happy, and I have no idea why,” Anna said, sitting down beside Kurt. He wrapped both of his arms around her and hugged her tightly before responding.

“He’s gone. Kurdt. He’s gone, and the nightmares and hallucinations will be too. I don’t know exactly what happened, I wasn’t awake for most of it, but Kurdt fought off the inner-demons that were causing the hallucinations and the nightmares, and when he got them to go away, he left too,” Kurt said happily, and Anna couldn’t help but look at him like he was insane. She didn’t understand, and she told him so.

“Wait, what? What does that even mean?” she asked, and Kurt shrugged slightly.

“I guess you probably wouldn’t understand it if you weren’t in there when it happened, but it’s true. Kurdt is gone, and the hallucinations and nightmares will too. I’m okay, A, and everything is going to get better,” he said, and his smile was so wide and infectious that she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“Are you sure, Kurty?” she asked, and he nodded firmly.

“Yeah, I am. Everything is gonna be okay now,” he said, taking her hand in his and squeezing it.



Three months later, there had been no sign of Kurdt, and Kurt reported that the nightmares and hallucinations had completely stopped. Kurt had completely returned to his old, happy self, and there seemed to be absolutely nothing wrong with him.



Four months later, one night in the middle of the night, Kurt shot straight up in bed, a huge, sinister smile spreading across his face. He got out of bed quietly, so that he wouldn’t disrupt Anna, who was still sleeping. He slipped into some clothes, tied his hair back quickly with a rubber band, and exited as quietly as possible out of the front door of the apartment.