To Love the Rain

Chapter Two:

When I came to, I knew only the warm embrace of darkness and the soft cotton sheets of a bed. Slowly but surely, my senses came back to me one by one. A draft of cool air washed over my blankets, and I shivered slightly from the open window. I usually left my window open at night, but for some reason, the icy draft that washed over me seemed more ominous than the ones I was used to waking up to. I couldn't quite but a finger on it; it was just one of those feelings that eluded the realm of recognition. From the metallic light pitter patter of rain against something, I could tell that it was raining, again.

I frowned.

I licked my chapped lips habitually, and immediately regretted my actions as the sour taste of dried spit met my tongue. It was like a case of extreme cotton mouth, but worse. A faint, underlying stench of bleach seemed to permeate the room, as if I had just slept in a newly cleaned bathroom, causing me to frown in my half sleep induced state. An unbidden cough escaped my throat then, and my body retched along with the sudden exhale of breath. Groaning blearily, I reached out for the dresser that held my phone to check what time it was. However, instead of finding the cool, cracked wood of an age-old dresser, my hand swiped through nothing but air.

I frowned again.

That wasn't right.

I tried again, and this time, reached out a little bit farther.

Still nothing.

A primal, almost instinctual sense of urgency bubbled up inside my gut. Something was wrong. The sheets that I laid in were too soft, and much too thin to be my own. The constant pitter patter of rain against the balcony didn't hold the same timbre as the same cacophony at home. There was no bedside dresser besides me, and this was definitely not my home.

As I laid in bed with my eyes closed, trying my best to keep that uneasy bubbling in my gut to a minimum, I couldn't help but wonder if this was another one of those parties my friends dragged me to. Maybe I accidentally passed out on someone else's bed, and this was all a big misunderstanding. I didn't know what time it was, nor what day of the week it was, and so I couldn't rule that option out either. And so, I decided to just open my eyes.

White.

The entire room was a sickly shade of pale that somehow lit up the walls in its own, grotesque kind of way. It wasn't the pure, angelic color that decorated the heavens, but instead, a bastardized version that was almost revolting to the human eye.

I glanced around, confused at the unfamiliar environment in which I had woken up in.

Wherever I was, it was definitely not a friend's house.

The room was not entirely a sickly shade of white as I had previously thought. The curtains that hung loosely by the windows were turquoise; once again, it wasn't the royal shade of blue that gleamed in proud concessions but a grotesque version of the color that reminded me of hospital gloves.

Wait.

I raised my hand to eye level, and could practically hear my heart skip a beat.

Thin tubes that were filled with some type of liquid were attached to the back of my hand, taped in place by pale white strips. My eyes, still glued to the strange object attached to my left hand, followed the tubes up their preordained path. My heart hammered out one more resounding thump as my eyes finally rested on their destination.

Ba-dum.

I swallowed heavily.

An IV drip, exactly like the ones seen in movies hung above my head like an ever-present storm, casting its gloomy shadow over me. That dreadful feeling, the very same one that had been bubbling up inside my gut since the instant I woke up, flared like a firecracker inside my chest, setting off a chain reaction that seemed unstoppable. Somewhere, in the back of my mind that was racing a million miles per hour, I could hear a sickly-sweet voice whisper a single word over and over again.