Chapter 4

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The rain was merciless in its assault, choking the following day in sheets of hail. The day was gloomy—a mocking, passive-aggressive reminder of the environment's impermanence. Not only that, but there was a palpable tension in the air, like anxiously sitting in the waiting room, anticipating whether or not the doctor would say your loved one had survived the horrible accident. Sunny felt small, like a roach on a petri dish, beneath the fluorescents. The hospital felt sterile (Surprisingly, Sunny, hospitals are supposed to be sterile, who'd have thought?), but something about this place felt different. It wasn't the sterility, it was the heat. Sunny thought it may have been the heater going into overdrive, but at the same time he thought better. The place seemed to have this... this air about it. It was like a terrible hellish cousin of the feeling you got before your roller coaster hit its first drop—the sense that something was coming (Only in this case, that something cannot be seen), and you were helpless to stop it. A specter of fear haunted him, invisible and not something on which you could put your finger, but there—noticeably present and maddeningly invisible—abstract, even.

Only one or two people came to see him, but never for long—only to administer his shots. That was, however, until the girl came back. Olivia walked gaily into the room, a pep seemingly natural to being in her step.

"Good morning, Sunny!"

"Good morning, Olivia, how are ya?"

Olivia told him how she was doing, and was thankful that she didn't ask him in return. It may not have been intentional, but Sunny suspected she didn't ask because she knew just how well he was doing. Despite the girl's outgoing & cheery demeanor, that terrible feeling still resided in the pit of Sunny's stomach.

A few hours later, Sunny was trying to will himself to go to sleep. He felt like shit and needed any excuse he could find to not deal with this physical pain—this restlessness—brought on by the withdrawal. Oh, how things were so much bearable when Captain H came to save the day... This restlessness was not purely physiological. Again, Sunny thought how the air of this place seemed to be tainted, as if everyone in the hospital was breathing in an odorless death. Sunny was attempting to pin his finger on it when it happened. The lights went out. 

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