Beautiful Nightmares (Larry Stylinson)

Chapter 14

LOUIS’ P.O.V

I found him laid out messily on the hotel room’s polished maple hardwood floors, with bottles scattered haphazardly around his flattened curls. Pooling gold and maroon liquid trickled down from his lips, which were squashed against the ground in an uncomfortable manner. His body seemed to have been crumpled in the menacing hands of alcohol, and then spit back out into a disjointed heap on the floor. The horrid combination of sweat, blood and liquor emitted from his broken frame and soaked my nose in its disgusting scent. I desperately tried not to gag – from the mere sight of his corpse-like body sprawled on the ground, and the horrifying stench that filled the room.

My hands shook, and perspiration freckled my brow as I contemplated whether or not he was dead.

I couldn’t process the possibility that his eyes would never turn that ecstasy-ridden shade of green, full of life and laughter once more - that if I turned him over, his irises would fall flat with the pigmentation of death. I couldn’t live a second of my life without him in it. I simply could not picture an older me; waking up with someone else sprawled beside me in my bed, tangled in my crinkled sheets with the relaxed style he had. I couldn’t see a future where I couldn’t cry for hours at a time without his presence near to comfort me. I couldn’t imagine that I would be able to love once more. I just couldn’t.

I exhaled shakily. I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath for a long time until I began to feel faint. Hot, sticky tears rolled in furious rivulets down my cheeks and tucked into the corner of my stricken mouth. Their salty taste was bitter, but yet, I didn’t twitch a single finger to wipe them away. I continued to stare at Harry in shock instead. I could not believe the scene lain out before my very eyes.

His body had begun convulsing, his spine arching in a possessed-by-demons way. Earsplitting screams escaped his now fully extended mouth, chilling me to the core. The sound of fabric tearing echoed in my ears as his bloodstained shirt ripped apart. Each individual knob of his spine could be seen, stretched against the tight confines of his blue-tinged skin. It seemed like something was trying to escape from inside Harry, throbbing with an immorality that made my knees tremble in fright. His frame twisted back and forth violently, like a python was wrapping around his neck and choking him to death. It was a fight to the final breath – between Harry and himself. The thing, or the snake in this case, was winning. He suddenly dry-heaved, and the desiccated sound of his gagging broke me out of my trance. I immediately ran to his side, not aware of how loud I was screaming his name – or how I was letting any noise leak from my lips at all.

 ~~~~~

HARRY’S P.O.V

White. Everything’s white. There’s nothing in here other than its infinitely dense shade. Suffocating. And to think that I only thought black could swallow you hole.

 

“Am I dreaming?” I wondered aloud, and reached up to scratch my head in concentration – but there was no hand to do so. A flash of panic seized me, and my gaze immediately glanced down to where my lower body should be. The regular lengthy, boot-clad feet were replaced by the whiteness, as were the rest of my legs – kneecaps, calves, thighs – all dissolved into thin air. I tried to twist, to writhe away, but nothing appeared to change.

 

 I should’ve been having the sensation of my heart furiously beating from dread by now, but I couldn’t feel anything other than the emotion of anxiety. With this appalling realization, I understood that I was nothing – yet everything in the same instance. I was the white. And it was I.