My Fearless Leader | Leonardo x Reader

The Still Place

Part 3

Your POV

Finally.

Sweet nothingness. An ocean of silence.

I didn't think it was possible, but the static stuffed in my head and building noise clogging my insides were finally gone.

They weren't choking me anymore. There was just, inky blackness and echoing silence. And not the terrifying darkness of nightmares, or a screaming silence that let the voices of worries and regrets into my head. It was a cushion of sensory deprivation, and quiet softness. Wherever this was, I needed to stay. What did I do to finally get here?

Although, I can't think of much that exists besides this... Maybe I don't need to. I don't want to leave. Here is good. A place where I can lay down and rest.

... Something about that seems funny. I think I do remember, some aversion to the dormancy. But here it's different. I'm floating now, limbs and head light without whatever was buried inside of me pulling me down. And it's nice. It's like I've never known tiredness.

I try to remember the last time I felt a peace like this, but again I can't think of any existence besides this. What was making me feel so awful before anyway?

Something pushed at the curtain. I don't know how I could tell. There was just, something different– new. Like a flash...

But that doesn't make sense. There's only this. That's all there's supposed to be. Where I can just be; in a relief that lasts forever. Why would there be something else pulling at it?

The flash stayed this time. A white, I think. It was bright against the comforting black. It consumed that blackness too quickly, growing stronger.

'Wake up. Something's wrong.'

There's a pressure, somewhere... An aching movement at the front of my head. Why– how can I be hurting right now?

No.

There was another pressure at the back of my head as I rolled away.

'It's time to open your eyes.'

No. No more voices!

I can feel movement beneath my eyelids, like a blanket pulled tight around my eyes. But I don't feel it in this place. It's more like, like I'm starting to exist somewhere else...

The white is much brighter now, and with it, it pulled in whispers. Overlapping in voices that– that weren't even mine. Muffled and distant. Not even whispers, actually, and not of my thoughts. So they can't be from my mind.

But they're there. Intruding in this still place where they're not supposed to be.

'You can't stay like this. Wake up.'

And then I'm feeling way too much. My limbs, my heart, my stomach, my head. The pounding is back. And strangely my stomach felt knotted up, or filled with sand to make this dull, confusing presence. And then my head again, flinching at the sound of poorly-timed ringing.

Snap!

My neck twists way too fast, vision blurring with its motion. I could still see enough to recognize the setting as half familiar, half not. Plus, the world was on its side.

My eyes squeeze shut again. I feel a groan try and leave my throat, but it was much too dry to work. A phone was still ringing, and the stabbing sensation in my temple didn't like it.

"Y/n?"

I blink, once, then a couple more times until I can see clearly. There's an open door, and through it, part of the backside of someone sitting at a desk. A hand appears and picks up something, making the loud ringing finally stop. I'm still on my back. I feel it more clearly when my head rolls again to the other side and something cushiony gives beneath my head.