SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Time passed in swirls.

I was no longer in pain, no longer aching and sad, I was simply lost in a wash of sensations and muted colors that spun through my mind like a beautiful but subtle kaleidoscope. I felt rough, cold hands on my face a few times, but the feeling didn't really break through the dream.

"Aerin... why do you always do that?"

I twitched at the distant voice, almost roused out of my dreamlike state, but something came over my head and I slowly sank back down into the folds of semi-conscious dreaming. Colors swum and spiraled until a watery face took shape in my sleeping mind.

My heart ached, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out.

Kimberly...

Every part of my being resounded with her name, the name of my beautiful little sister, the sibling I had basically raised, and cherished, and missed more than anyone else. Her chubby, freckled cheeks, her long brown hair, those watery blue eyes with their hazel flecks.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"That... that thing you do with your arms."

"Oh... nervous habit, I guess."

Colors swirled, muddled, hazed. Figures flickered out of my vision, and everything was blurry. I was voiceless, a mindless wanderer in a place full of echoes and sounds, dreaming.

"You don't need to be nervous."

Kimberly. My sister. Her warmth. Her voice. Melting like honey into my mind.

"But... tomorrow's my first day of college. I can't help but be nervous."

"Why?"

"Well, I mean... I dunno."

"You're perfect the way you are. You don't need to try so hard for everyone to see that."

Silence echoed inside the colorful haze, but her form dissolved like mist, leaving me alone. I reached through the colors, trying to find her, reaching for her, but there was nothing there.

I remembered all of this in a blurry haze since the colors kept swirling around, taking me through vague memories and recollections, and I hated it. I wanted to wake up, but I couldn't. I was trapped in a euphoric state, trapped inside my own head, trapped, trapped, trapped...

Until the moment I suddenly wasn't trapped anymore.

My eyes suddenly flew open and I gasped, voice raspy and dry, chest heaving violently. I was sweating profusely - completely soaked with a maddening fever, body on fire, every nerve in my being lit up with electrifying sensations. I writhed under my satin sheets, trying to breathe right.

My thirst, I realized, cringing at the sensitivity in my skin. I need blood, now.

I struggled to get up, but upon doing so I realized I wasn't hurting half as bad as before. Confused, I lifted my shirt and looked at my chest only to see that the bruises had faded considerably. Most of them had even turned yellow, which only perplexed me further until I looked at my phone and saw that it was nine in the evening on my birthday.

I'd been unconscious for two full days.

It was July 15th. I was officially seventy six years old.

"Fuck," I breathed, raising a hand and touching my razor sharp fangs; my face was hot and tingling, my ears burned as if I'd been slapped, and the dryness in my throat was maddening, demanding attention, sending waves upon waves of heat running through me. "I need blood..."