Chapter Text
Huntington's disease (HD), also known as Huntington's chorea, is a neurodegenerative disease that is mostly inherited.
The earliest symptoms are often subtle problems with mood or mental abilities. A general lack of coordination and an unsteady gait often follow. ... Mental abilities generally decline into dementia.
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About eight percent of cases start before the age of 20 years, and are known as juvenile HD, which typically present with the slow movement symptoms of Parkinson's disease rather than those of chorea.
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No cure for HD is known.
-- English Wikipedia, "Huntington's disease"
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
-- T.S. Elliot, "The Waste Land"
Sunny awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling.
He was laying on a bed, in what looked like a bedroom.
It certainly wasn't his... but whose was it? It didn't seem like ### and ####'s bedroom.
Maybe it was ######'s? He'd never seen it before-- never been inside her house before, as a matter of fact-- so maybe he'd wound up there somehow?
But... why? Why was he here?
He tried to think back to yesterday, but came up with nothing. It was like a giant hole in his memories, or a sudden cut in a film.
A feeling settled in his gut. It felt like he was missing something.
The door creaked. A voice called out, light and uncertain.
"Uhm... hello? Sunny? Are you awake?"
A girl (...?) stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.
"H-Hey... it's me, #######. I, uhm, I just wanted to visit."
The stranger shuffled over to his bedside, fidgeting with her hands. Her blue eyes seemed intent on avoiding his own.
"So... how are you doing? Did you sleep okay?"
Sunny didn't really know how to answer that. Could he really trust this person?
A wave of guilt scratched at the back of his mind. He was missing something dearly important; it felt... shameful, almost to have forgotten it.
But... why? What?
Something to do with... wood. No, music. He remembered black and white keys, the feeling of wood pressed against his cheek, strings pressing into his fingertips.
And flowers. That was right, flowers-- my thoughts will follow you into your dreams-- it had something to do with flowers... or at least, he thought so.
But what was it, exactly?
A distant melody-- a waltz-- came unprompted to the forefront of his mind. A fresh wave of sadness came alongside with it.
It was important, but there was still something he wasn't seeing, wasn't remembering, for some frustrating reason.
Maybe the stranger at his bedside had something to do with it...?
"Sunny? Are you okay?"
He blinked. Oh, he must have spaced out. Right, people didn't like it when he did that...
He nodded in response.
"Sorry. Was thinking."
Where was he...? Right.
He was missing something... no, missing someone.
Who?
The answer came to him, in a flash of insight: his sister.
Where was his sister? She must be looking for him.
He looked up, suddenly meeting the stranger's eyes. She flinched slightly.
"Do you know where my sister is?" he asked, quietly. "Her name is Mari."
"U-Uh, n-no, sorry," the stranger answered, obviously uncomfortable with the question.
"Oh," Sunny replied, disappointed. "Do you know when she'll be here?"
The stranger shook her head.
"I... I'm not sure when Mari will be b-back, sorry," she mumbled, seemingly fighting back a tear.
Sunny panicked, slightly. Had he done something to make her cry?
"S-Sorry, please don't cry..."
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Sunny took a closer look at the... girl?
(No, that wasn't right. Something told him that wasn't right, but... why?)
Once more, he tried to put a name to her face, but nothing about her appearance-- light blue eyes, short blonde hair, pink flower pin-- rang a bell for him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I forgot to ask, but..."
"Who are you?"
Sunny shook himself out of a short reverie.
Where was he? What was he doing?
He looked around.
He was... in a kitchen, it seemed. It was clean, almost sterile-looking. Even though he couldn't remember ever having been here before, he still felt oddly comfortable.
(Something still felt wrong, though. How did he get here...?)
He was standing at the stove and holding a frying pan with some eggs on it, sunny-side up and sizzling in the heat.
His stomach rumbled at the sight. How convenient.
...
After a few moments, he decided that the eggs were probably cooked enough.
He tried to bring the pan up, off the stove, but his arms seemed oddly sluggish. He lurched from one motion to the next, swinging the pan over, tilting it, pushing the eggs off with a spatula.
He figured he looked like some sort of weird robot.
With that out of the way, he picked up the plate, holding it in a surprisingly firm grip.
He turned towards what looked like a dining table, just over in the next room.
He started walking... though it didn't really feel like "walking" to Sunny.
His body seemed to resist every motion, sending him teetering and tottering as his feet slowly shuffled over the wooden floor.
(...what was happening to him...?)
Finally arriving at the table after expending what seemed like far too much effort, he set the plate down lightly in front of an empty chair.
It was almost like he'd accomplished something with that simple motion.
You successfully walked twelve feet while carrying a plate. Congratulations.
The thought depressed him.
He belatedly realized he was thirsty. What was there to drink...?
His eyes alighted on the refrigerator. Right, there was orange juice in there.
(How did he know that?)
He shuffled over, and swung the door open; his hands shook as he pulled out a carton of juice, despite his attempts to will them into stillness.
The shaking only got worse as he reached for a glass, and as he took one from the cabinets a particularly violent tremor caused it to slip from his fingers.
It shattered on the floor with a loud crash!
(What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he do this?)
His legs shook as he tried shuffling to the-- living room?-- to find a broom, or at least something with which he could clean this mess up.
He'd taken no more than three steps though, before he lost his balance, falling to the floor in an undignified heap.
A sharp, burning pain erupted from one of his legs as he crumpled; probably thanks to the broken glass strewn about the floor, he realized.
He brought himself up into a semi-kneeling position.
He couldn't muster the will to try standing again, though.
Teardrops fell onto his hands as he stared down at them.
Why?
Why couldn't he do anything?
What was happening to his body?
A girl's voice called out for him.
"Sunny? Are you there? I heard something break--"
A stranger walked into the kitchen, from the living room. She had long, shockingly neon pink hair, capped off with a teal ribbon.
"Sunny! Are you okay? What the hell happened?" she cried.
Sunny couldn't bring himself to respond, so he just looked up at her, struggling and failing to hold in his tears.
(What was he supposed to say? "I can't pour a glass of orange juice for myself?")
She flinched, almost imperceptibly, before extending a hand towards him.
"I-- Okay, just... let me help you up. You know you should've asked for help, right?"
(No, he didn't know that. How could he have expected needing help with something so simple?)
"Oh god, Sunny, your leg! C-Come on, we need to do something about that cut--"