Never Lose The Light
Chapter 10
Even as my eyes blinked open the vast world of black encompassing my sight didn't vanish. My legs felt like lumbering weights, heavy and unfeeling; oblivious to any need of moving. What a foolish thought, though, to move.
People were talking, someone was crying, all too close to me, too loud for me. My arm was cold, sprinkled with little shiver bumps, and I could feel something formed like a string coiled around my feet. All the same, I couldn't bring myself to move from the comfort of soft, squishy darkness upon all sides. It had been so very long since I felt so at peace, and to break away would be to roam the world incomplete.
Perhaps if I only stayed still long enough, closed my eyes... Maybe I could reclaim the flitting repose.
Then again, one should know better than to hope for the impossible. Wisps of hair continuously flew into my face, tickling my twitching nose and dancing across my cheek until I would exasperatedly force them back with my hand. As well, now that I was awake my stomach yearned for food and my skin felt taut from filth and the stench of others sweat.
Even my swatch of comfort seemed to be deteriorating the longer I was awake for: it was giving my neck a crick and my side was worn; I found it hard to breath resting my cheek deep into a stuffy cushion and one of them from behind my lower back had gone so far as to disappear.
Grudgingly so, I turned to roll out of my burrow, the sting still caught onto my foot and dragging something along. Misjudging my spin, however, I found myself slipping onto the floor, wincing as my hip centered on the ground and was followed shortly by my head crashing into my arm. My teeth had clench together in the fall, opening and biting my tongue with the force of my head's landing. It did, at least, take my mind off of the pain in my hip. I was now simply focused on the tongue that felt as if bits of it had been scraped away.
Swallowing the slightly metallic saliva roving my mouth, I tentatively brushed the tip of my tongue against my teeth; I drew it back much swifter after a sharp intake of breath upon the burning contact. Rather than to tempt discomfort once more, I folded my tongue into my mouth in my best attempt to avoid its grazing any barriers. I would just suck on some ice, the perfect solution. That, and I was wondering why little kids enjoyed it so much.
The only quandary with that, which I discovered upon standing, was that I had forgotten the cable tangled about my feet and holding my ankles together. My short-lived stance lost balance before I was even properly upright, sending me plummeting to the couch. My shoulders stiffened as I landed where the middle cushion should have been, but was instead somewhere at my feet.
Before I set to free my appendages, however, I reached for the remote that I had spotted beside the couch. Sitting now directly across from the television, I was graced with an unfolding scene of torment: a clearly horrified girl curled into a cell with only a toilet, moving only to find a whole in the wall and bring out a small scroll the width of toilet paper.
I must have left it on before I fell asleep, explaining the crying I had heard upon waking. Nothing more than a larger electricity bill to be paid.
I switched the box off quickly, knowing Holly's bill would be enough to last a lifetime, health insurance or not. As well as remembering a bit of its mockery last night and shameful at being so easily ruined. I shouldn't have paid mind to it, really. I shouldn't have been feeling anything so foolish what with Holly as she was. I had to be there for her, and what sort of horrific friend would I be if I let my own worries and thoughts obscure her getting better?
First priority had to be her health. I don't suppose I could forgive myself if I let it be any other way. It would be my fault if anything happened, no one else would take care of her. If I were to focus on anything else I would simply slip up, I knew it. So long as I kept centered on her, she should be find. This should all turn out all right.
If I didn't though... That couldn't happen, Holly wouldn't die. That ghastly scene I'd watched unfold was merely fiction. My imagination running away with me. A reminder of when I was younger, nothing more.
Banishing the troubling thoughts from my head, I bent my torso down so I could reach my feet without a struggle and grasped at the binding chord with one hand. Swiveling my gaze to my ankles so that I could untie the vexation properly, I frowned when I recognized the wire. Trailing my eyes along it, I quickly spotted my iPod, still attached, just a few inches from my left heel.
The earphones were twisted to the point of tearing a bit of the wire's protective casing and the knot proved irksome to remove, trying my low patience eve after being disconnected from my silver music player. I shortly lost track of the amount of times I resorted to yanking angrily, knowing full well it would get me nowhere.
Predictably, the end result was not a great happiness inducer, mangled and irreversibly broken. I refused to even entertain the idea of mending them with some electric tape. Perhaps I could covert the surface damage, but there was no concealing that they more than likely would not work. Instead, I simply tossed them into the waste basket and replaced the couch cushion.
The pain in my tongue was forgotten, but still emerged if it was to brush against my teeth; acknowledging the hurt, I scooped up my iPod and drifted to the kitchen. I would just stop for some new earphones on my way to visit Holly, I decided as I scrounged around the freezer for an ice cube, immediately shoving it into my mouth as the frozen water shocked my hand with its extreme temperature.
My gums and teeth instantly emitted their own numbing reactions, painfully chilled as the remaining pain ebbed from my tongue. If not for the desired effect of the cold, I would have spat it out. The unnaturally cold feel of my teeth was straining, as if the bones were ice themselves, and I simply couldn't understand why kids enjoyed ice.
For a distraction as the cube was melting, I transfered my attention to the music player waiting in my hand. The screen had darkened, but I didn't remember switching the contraption off at all, so I fiddled with the power and saw no light. I'd probably drained it, and so I could simply charge it as I took a shower. No big deal.
The computer was normally always on as it was how we judged and created the majority of Reboant Rhythm; since Holly was in the hospital I had instead printed out the most important sheets and brought my laptop. It couldn't do as many programs and held less of our work within its history, but I considered it a good replacement. However, it also meant that after entering the room across from the kitchen and slipping into the spinning red chair that I had to reboot the computer.
It never really took long, considering we didn't download much to it, only what we needed. It did give me more than enough time to glance around the room I was in, though. The pale walls and slightly orange carpet, the desk topped with a dictionary easily five inches thick and even longer length-wise. The gold sheets covering a bed under a picture of a corvette and the Hello Kitty scissors were legendary. Well, at least for this flat and any significant friends. Holly's room.
I hadn't set foot in there any moment more than necessary. Other than printing out the needed papers and gathering her some clothes, I liked to make sure the door was closed and I was on the other side of it. That I didn't accidentally leave my iPod running so that I would have to charge it.
Everything in here simply seemed so very awkward without her. The bed was still unmade, the comforter kicked to the end and falling off. One curtain was pulled open and the other hung loosely before the room's lone window. It all felt so very solitary. As if I didn't belong there.
That last thought echoing in my head, I turned back to the computer, grabbing the needed wire, as it finished rebooting, eyes grazing slowly across the screen. Slowly, that is, until I spotted the time in the bottom right hand corner. My eyes widened dangerously and I nearly dropped my iPod.
It wasn't supposed to be this late, I never slept for four hours. I still had to shower, change out of the mangy clothes I'd fallen asleep in. The hospital itself was an hour and a half away and I had to eat yet, plus get new earphones. How could it be nine?
If I apologize roughly googolplex times for how late this is, would it be enough?
Yeah, didn't think so.
What with school starting soon, I think it'll only get worse, too.
My excuses I can't say are so grand, either.
Or, at least the ones that are I wouldn't much want to share.
Still, I'm so horribly sorry.
I have written some other things, though. Hardly a great excuse for not updating this, but at least I wasn't technically dormant for the whole month. Just most of it. I put up some one-shots, what I consider Fragments, and a story called Hold On To Me if anyone wants to give their input there. Or just see I didn't completely fall off the face of the earth.
People were talking, someone was crying, all too close to me, too loud for me. My arm was cold, sprinkled with little shiver bumps, and I could feel something formed like a string coiled around my feet. All the same, I couldn't bring myself to move from the comfort of soft, squishy darkness upon all sides. It had been so very long since I felt so at peace, and to break away would be to roam the world incomplete.
Perhaps if I only stayed still long enough, closed my eyes... Maybe I could reclaim the flitting repose.
Then again, one should know better than to hope for the impossible. Wisps of hair continuously flew into my face, tickling my twitching nose and dancing across my cheek until I would exasperatedly force them back with my hand. As well, now that I was awake my stomach yearned for food and my skin felt taut from filth and the stench of others sweat.
Even my swatch of comfort seemed to be deteriorating the longer I was awake for: it was giving my neck a crick and my side was worn; I found it hard to breath resting my cheek deep into a stuffy cushion and one of them from behind my lower back had gone so far as to disappear.
Grudgingly so, I turned to roll out of my burrow, the sting still caught onto my foot and dragging something along. Misjudging my spin, however, I found myself slipping onto the floor, wincing as my hip centered on the ground and was followed shortly by my head crashing into my arm. My teeth had clench together in the fall, opening and biting my tongue with the force of my head's landing. It did, at least, take my mind off of the pain in my hip. I was now simply focused on the tongue that felt as if bits of it had been scraped away.
Swallowing the slightly metallic saliva roving my mouth, I tentatively brushed the tip of my tongue against my teeth; I drew it back much swifter after a sharp intake of breath upon the burning contact. Rather than to tempt discomfort once more, I folded my tongue into my mouth in my best attempt to avoid its grazing any barriers. I would just suck on some ice, the perfect solution. That, and I was wondering why little kids enjoyed it so much.
The only quandary with that, which I discovered upon standing, was that I had forgotten the cable tangled about my feet and holding my ankles together. My short-lived stance lost balance before I was even properly upright, sending me plummeting to the couch. My shoulders stiffened as I landed where the middle cushion should have been, but was instead somewhere at my feet.
Before I set to free my appendages, however, I reached for the remote that I had spotted beside the couch. Sitting now directly across from the television, I was graced with an unfolding scene of torment: a clearly horrified girl curled into a cell with only a toilet, moving only to find a whole in the wall and bring out a small scroll the width of toilet paper.
I must have left it on before I fell asleep, explaining the crying I had heard upon waking. Nothing more than a larger electricity bill to be paid.
I switched the box off quickly, knowing Holly's bill would be enough to last a lifetime, health insurance or not. As well as remembering a bit of its mockery last night and shameful at being so easily ruined. I shouldn't have paid mind to it, really. I shouldn't have been feeling anything so foolish what with Holly as she was. I had to be there for her, and what sort of horrific friend would I be if I let my own worries and thoughts obscure her getting better?
First priority had to be her health. I don't suppose I could forgive myself if I let it be any other way. It would be my fault if anything happened, no one else would take care of her. If I were to focus on anything else I would simply slip up, I knew it. So long as I kept centered on her, she should be find. This should all turn out all right.
If I didn't though... That couldn't happen, Holly wouldn't die. That ghastly scene I'd watched unfold was merely fiction. My imagination running away with me. A reminder of when I was younger, nothing more.
Banishing the troubling thoughts from my head, I bent my torso down so I could reach my feet without a struggle and grasped at the binding chord with one hand. Swiveling my gaze to my ankles so that I could untie the vexation properly, I frowned when I recognized the wire. Trailing my eyes along it, I quickly spotted my iPod, still attached, just a few inches from my left heel.
The earphones were twisted to the point of tearing a bit of the wire's protective casing and the knot proved irksome to remove, trying my low patience eve after being disconnected from my silver music player. I shortly lost track of the amount of times I resorted to yanking angrily, knowing full well it would get me nowhere.
Predictably, the end result was not a great happiness inducer, mangled and irreversibly broken. I refused to even entertain the idea of mending them with some electric tape. Perhaps I could covert the surface damage, but there was no concealing that they more than likely would not work. Instead, I simply tossed them into the waste basket and replaced the couch cushion.
The pain in my tongue was forgotten, but still emerged if it was to brush against my teeth; acknowledging the hurt, I scooped up my iPod and drifted to the kitchen. I would just stop for some new earphones on my way to visit Holly, I decided as I scrounged around the freezer for an ice cube, immediately shoving it into my mouth as the frozen water shocked my hand with its extreme temperature.
My gums and teeth instantly emitted their own numbing reactions, painfully chilled as the remaining pain ebbed from my tongue. If not for the desired effect of the cold, I would have spat it out. The unnaturally cold feel of my teeth was straining, as if the bones were ice themselves, and I simply couldn't understand why kids enjoyed ice.
For a distraction as the cube was melting, I transfered my attention to the music player waiting in my hand. The screen had darkened, but I didn't remember switching the contraption off at all, so I fiddled with the power and saw no light. I'd probably drained it, and so I could simply charge it as I took a shower. No big deal.
The computer was normally always on as it was how we judged and created the majority of Reboant Rhythm; since Holly was in the hospital I had instead printed out the most important sheets and brought my laptop. It couldn't do as many programs and held less of our work within its history, but I considered it a good replacement. However, it also meant that after entering the room across from the kitchen and slipping into the spinning red chair that I had to reboot the computer.
It never really took long, considering we didn't download much to it, only what we needed. It did give me more than enough time to glance around the room I was in, though. The pale walls and slightly orange carpet, the desk topped with a dictionary easily five inches thick and even longer length-wise. The gold sheets covering a bed under a picture of a corvette and the Hello Kitty scissors were legendary. Well, at least for this flat and any significant friends. Holly's room.
I hadn't set foot in there any moment more than necessary. Other than printing out the needed papers and gathering her some clothes, I liked to make sure the door was closed and I was on the other side of it. That I didn't accidentally leave my iPod running so that I would have to charge it.
Everything in here simply seemed so very awkward without her. The bed was still unmade, the comforter kicked to the end and falling off. One curtain was pulled open and the other hung loosely before the room's lone window. It all felt so very solitary. As if I didn't belong there.
That last thought echoing in my head, I turned back to the computer, grabbing the needed wire, as it finished rebooting, eyes grazing slowly across the screen. Slowly, that is, until I spotted the time in the bottom right hand corner. My eyes widened dangerously and I nearly dropped my iPod.
It wasn't supposed to be this late, I never slept for four hours. I still had to shower, change out of the mangy clothes I'd fallen asleep in. The hospital itself was an hour and a half away and I had to eat yet, plus get new earphones. How could it be nine?
If I apologize roughly googolplex times for how late this is, would it be enough?
Yeah, didn't think so.
What with school starting soon, I think it'll only get worse, too.
My excuses I can't say are so grand, either.
Or, at least the ones that are I wouldn't much want to share.
Still, I'm so horribly sorry.
I have written some other things, though. Hardly a great excuse for not updating this, but at least I wasn't technically dormant for the whole month. Just most of it. I put up some one-shots, what I consider Fragments, and a story called Hold On To Me if anyone wants to give their input there. Or just see I didn't completely fall off the face of the earth.