You can teach a dog not to bite

ᐡ ᐧ ﻌ ᐧ ᐡ I'm living in a [%&$#]ing cartoon

She gets up from the bed, waiting, hoping I say something.

I wish I didn't.

"We can't sleep?"

Her face changes too many times to be comforting. With a defeated sigh she leans against the doorway.

"It's... It's complicated. You technically can sleep, but it's not as refreshing as you think. When we sleep we're kinda... Turned off? Like a light switch. Your eyes close, your body stops moving, and for you it's instant, not even needing to wait for the fade into sleep. Then you wake up, finding it's now hours later." Her hand was on her neck, staring at me hoping I did understand.

"So... It's just a time skip..." My joke makes her eyes light up, a soft chuckle bringing a sense of peace to the room.

"Yeah, like a time skip."

"How long does it take to usually fall asleep?"

"Well... I'd say maybe a few minutes? It's not super long, I wouldn't say so at least. Waking up really isn't random either. Depending on the time of day usually determines if you'll be asleep for an hour or all night. I tend to sleep near 10pm so I don't miss too much." Listening to her talk was even more relaxing than I cared to admit.

"I see... That's... That's good to know." I sigh against the plush mattress, "Thank you."

"Of course, Harper. I'll be next door if you need anything!" She shut my door gently, the latch echoing, leaving a painful silence.

It was dark, too. The faint glow-in-the-dark green of the white walls was... comforting in a way. It meant I wasn't completely left in the dark. I pull my legs up to my chest, leaning against the wall of the dog bed with a small whine. I wanted to hum, to sing a song that'd make me feel better but not a single one was coming back to me. I clutched my knees tighter, feeling tears well up.

It sucked, everything sucked, this place just sucked. The only good thing was this mattress under my body and the fact that I didn't look like a joke. It felt cruel. Lying down on my side and curling up like a dog. This felt demeaning. But it was comfortable, way more than it needed to be. After a while, thinking maybe I was just too stressed to actually sleep. Waiting for what Ragatha had said would happen. Was I thinking too hard about it? Was it really that easy to not notice? But it's just... It wasn't coming. Sleep, or, the sleep I was used to, didn't exist.

Now I had no way of telling if I even slept.

The longer I sat here the worse I started to feel. The dark behind my eyelids only served as a movie screen to every 'what if' situation. My head felt heavy, hitting my knees and yanking back up.

The first ones were what I expected. What if I can't leave? What if I'm stuck forever?

But... But then it got more personal. More than I wanted and too fast for me to stop it. I had nothing else here to think about, to distract myself because I didn't even know where here was. What if I never saw Mola again? What if my family never finds me? What if...

That's when my stomach started to get queasy, eyes filling with tears as something burned at the back of my throat. This was all way too real to be a stupid dream. This was... This was just... I'm stuck. I'm stuck in this... place. Whatever or wherever or whenever I was. I couldn't determine how much time was passing, not a ticking clock nor a repeating function. It was dead silent.

Silence.

On and on.

Not a footstep.

Not a shuffle.

Not even a gust of wind.

Focusing on the silence worsened my state of mind. Unable to ignore the ringing in my ears. No longer were the thoughts themselves plaguing me, but it was everything all together. Flashes of memories I barely recognized mixing with the unfamiliar way this new body was working. No need to eat, no need to sleep, no need to breathe and yet I was doing everything on auto pilot while at the exact same time knowing and feeling absolutely no difference.