Delirium || Harry Styles

Chapter 16: the Angel-Headed Demons

Faint beeping sounds, the lingering cold and the sting in my head.

Those were the things I noticed first.

Bright light soon came washing my eyes as they opened slowly, carefully. The visual of my whereabouts began to slowly fade in from the blur. I squinted, blinking a few times to adjust with the sudden plethora of light. The last thing I remembered was lying frigid on the tile floor of my bathroom, propped against the wall, blood on my skin, blood on the floor, blood on Caroline's hands.

Caroline.

She must've put me here. At a hospital. Alone.

I shivered, the anxiety rushing up to my throat.

Because when I was alone, the demons usually arise from the darkness. And I was terrified out of my mind.

They were still in my head, they still demanded to be felt.

And I just wanted to run away from that place, to end the reigning demons inside of me. Because right then, they were winning. And I was losing. They were immensely strong and I was stupendously weak to their advantage.

My hands trembled vigorously as I noticed the transparent cannula placed in my nostrils. I traced the cylindrical tube until the back of my ear, feeling the small pipe hook around it. An oxygen supply was placed next to my bed, mocking me for my need of respiratory help.

Next to the oxygen supply was a blood bag, its colour an almost-black crimson. I wondered whose body fluid it used to belong to and how it was going to waste. Because the person whose blood had been donated to me, was just giving their most precious lifesource to a waste of a person.

I wouldn't last very long anyway.

My trembling hands tore the cannula off of my face and threw it to the ground like it was some kind of epidemic. That was when my eyes fell to the white bandage covering both of my lower arm. They wrapped me up so neatly, so full of affection. And I stared at the thing for a while, trying to remember the traces of dark crimson lines that was evident beneath it.

They saved me, they treated me, they healed me. But I didn't need it, nor did I want it.

Hell, if I wanted to be saved, I would've asked for it.

I weakly lifted my body from the pillow and the disgustingly clean white sheets I was lying atop, with the stinging in my head growing intense. The stings were real, so real I almost wanted to cry out in pain.

I didn't want to be there.

And I wanted to get out.

Far, far away from the place where the sheets were white as they were new and the only sound I could hear was the beeping machines indicating that my heart was still - unfortunately - beating constantly and healthily.

My limbs were drained out of all their energy, but they were still working as they should. I held onto the bedside table as I stood up from the bed. The stupid IV attached to the back of my hand was utterly disturbing, so I jerked it off harshly.

I felt vile, and my head was unrealistically light but intensely stinging. Just walking a few steps felt like I was stuck in a merry-go-round rotating in immense velocity. I had to hold onto various things while I walked, and I reached for the door handle when my limbs had successfully brought me close enough to the door. I held onto it like it was my lifeline, my energy gone from half-empty to none.

Thinking rationally was a luxury to me, and luxury was out of my grasp at the moment.

Still holding onto the door handle, I leaned my body against the wall, feeling the toll of my emotions. Mixture of fear, disappointment, sadness and hatred for myself welled up in my stomach, they built up to make me feel nauseous.