Alive and Kicking (Chrissy x Eddie)

Chrissy I

When Chrissy wakes up, the first thing she smells is the strong stench of antiseptics.

Her body flails as an unwanted memory creeps to the surface; passing out at cheerleading, being brought in an ambulance, and her hoarse voice telling the doctors she's just fine. She recalled them slipping her some anorexia pamphlets afterward, which in the narrowed-eyed view of her mother, she scoffed and threw in the trash, despite how her fingers wanted to hold onto them tightly.

Chrissy gasps, blinking and thrashing like the fear didn't disappear when she passed out again, but it stayed dormant until now.

The stench.

The coldness.

The pulsing.

The unholy voice.

Chrissy is running through her house.

Her mother is not her mother but is talking like her mother. Whispering venomous taunts, covered in chocolate to seem kind and caring, but filled with pieces of shrapnel when she accepts what she thinks is a gift.

Her father, helpless, scared, screaming.

Her brother; gone.

And that...thing. The voice that has been following her the past week, making her think she is absolutely, certifiably, 100% crazy.

And she's so tired.

Tired of trying to explain to the student counselor why she hasn't slept much or why she skipped lunch again today. She's tired of fearing that every waking moment and every sleeping moment will be filled with the thoughts of this thing, that there's no place she's free from it. Tired of trying to find solutions to a problem that can't be solved because this beast will follow her wherever she wants to go.

When he tells her to join him, it almost seems like a blessing.

No more pain.

No more night terrors.

No more guilt and resentment for a body that will never be perfect to her mother.

No more fear.

Perhaps, for once, just...peace.

She is terrified of him, of course, but she is about to the point of just letting him take her.

She doesn't think of Eddie back in his house, finding drugs, trying to help her. Not at first. Not until it's begun.

It's painless. It's like she's just feeling nothingness. Not the creeping vines of the beast, nor the fear clutching her stomach. It's just absolutely unfeeling and it is delightful and almost addicting.

In the back of her mind is a buzz of recognition. She whimpers and she jerks away from the monster and focuses her mind on a song- Money for Nothing.

A smile forces itself into her subconscious theater in her mind, where she feels her true self lives, reacting to things she can't in the physical world. She remembers just moments ago in Eddie's car, enjoying how gobsmacked he looked that she would even know the name of this band. She likes surprising him. She likes that he looked so pleased with her music knowledge.

She likes the way Eddie acts around her.

She wonders if he put this on for her, and she mourns the fact she'll never get to ask him.

Just behind her, there's a light. She turns and sees Eddie - like through a window - on the ground. Scared.

For her.