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It started with chest pain, and a weird sort of crackle when he breathed, like the radio when it lost signal for a couple seconds. He’d been tired, but he figured that was normal until he sat down in his recording booth for the poetry corner and it hurt. Everything did, but it was mostly his chest that got him. a pain that spread through his lungs and caught in his throat, forcing him to cough.
Cherri turned off and put away his recording equipment with a groan. He couldn’t ignore this anymore. With much effort, he stood up to turn the “on air” sign in his window off and shut the blinds. The sunlight was hot, and he was cold, but he didn’t want anyone to disturb him right now. Arranging some soft stuff and a blanket into a pile on the floor, he laid down right there. He tried to ignore his awful headache and the pain in his chest, and how fucking cold he was… He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and shut his eyes.
When he woke up, it’d all gotten worse. His breathing was short now, his chest hurt more, and when he did breathe deeply the pain got sharp. Cherri coughed hard, and his whole body shook with it. He was damp, too, his shirt soaked with sweat. He was still fucking cold. It was the middle of the day and the station was hot, and somehow he was under a blanket and still felt like he was freezing. Whatever this was officially sucked. The best he could label it as was “really bad fever”. Cherri wondered if he’d come back and still be sick if he died. Not worth finding out, the Witch would be mad.
Eventually, Cherri managed the energy to get up, though he almost fell over multiple times. He was dizzy and nauseous and maybe it wasn’t a good idea to be up, but he wanted to try to drink something, just in case it helped. He found his way to the kitchen, leaning heavily on a wall and not sure whether to be grateful or miserable about the fact that Dr. D was out today. He’d gone to visit girlie, maybe? Cherri hadn’t been entirely awake when D had said he was leaving that morning. Cherri rifled through the powerless fridge in the kitchen that mostly functioned as a kinda shitty shelf until he found a half empty can of now-flat soda he’d been drinking earlier. In faded red and green boxy letters it read “cherry limeade”. Cherri took a sip and just tasted sugar with a hint of something so fakely sour it was sweet. Good enough.
Because he didn’t feel quite well enough to go all the way back to his recording booth with an open drink, he sat down at one of the bar stools that sat on one side of the kitchen counter. He took another sip or two of the soda, then he set it down and braced against the counter, another painful shiver going through him. He coughed, and when he breathed back in, it was a lot more crackly than it had been in the morning.
“…shit,” he managed, though speaking made his throat hurt enough that he didn’t wanna do it again. He suddenly wanted to go back to the floor. He was shaking, he realized. Suddenly, he gagged, and he just barely managed to get himself to a trash can before he threw up. It was getting worse. How the fuck was it getting worse? Cherri dropped to his knees on the ground, still shaking.
He stayed there for a while, because he just didn’t have the energy to move. Eventually, though, he managed to get to his feet and slowly make his way back to his recording booth. He laid down on his weird little floor bed and tried once again to sleep.