Work Text:
I’m awake
That’s the first thing I know. The first thing I hear
me breathing
A sound like a tray clattering to the floor, and,
“Oh, Mr Williams! You’re awake!”
That's how I know.
This is funny for two reasons.
First off, it suggests that I’ve been asleep. You have to be asleep to wake up, right?
Which can’t be true because last thing I remember, I’m dying in a collapsed building. Which generally tends not to be soporific.
Not sure where I learned that word, but I like how it sounds inside my head, bouncing off the inside walls of my skull.
Second.
me breathing, butlouder an' faster
I don’t feel remotely awake. In fact, if the disembodied voice were to stop flapping an' ask me how I'm feeling, as is polite when dealing with strangers, I would tell them that I feel. Bone. Fucking. Tired.
I move my head to look all around me. ButI don't see nothing but white, and blinding at that.
I’m pretty sure I’m lying down, butit’s hard to concentrate with this voiced person flappin' round me.
An image of a mother hen beating me with her wings. I try and push Mother Hen off of me.
I think I hate the feel of feathers.
My arm falls limply and my muscles scream in protest, like I’ve been pushing a car up a hill in the blazing heat for hours.
My mouth opens, I think on its own?
I take my cue to try an' speak and nothing comes butnonsense. Like my mouth’s full of malasadas except really dry and tasting like bile and nothing like malasadas whatsoever. Like my mouth won't can't say the words running through my head. Like -
Soporific.
I blink a few times. My eyes start to focus through the blur and meet that the mask covering my face that’s making it really really hard to breathe.
Panic.
My heart starts running a marathon and my chest squeezes unbearably like when Gracie fell and split her head open.
And I have no fucking idea who Gracie is meant to be, butI feel I need to calm down because I need to find out where she is.
I must start crying, because what the fuck else can I do? and my face is wet
Cool beads of sweat trickle down my arms and legs.
I can feel the prickle of needles and lines puncturing my skin, feeding fluid into my veins.
where the fuck am I it doesn't matter because
My eyes close again against the taste of acid on my tongue I choke, cough cough
Strong arms grab me and pull –
Someone some stranger
somewhere
very far away
calling me,
calling me home
butI'm falling.