Insomniac

Chapter 5: The Start of Everything

        Sean jolts up, gasping, only to curl in on himself as pain shoots through his chest and down his spine. Dipping and heaving, his surroundings are blurry, out of focus, causing nausea to crawl up his throat. Fearing he might vomit, he squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to make himself more motion sick.

After a few minutes of sitting like that, he cracks open one eye and peers out. But the room still spun and dipped and, when he makes to uncurl, pain still zaps his chest and spine. "Fuck." 999. He needs to call 999.

This time more gingerly, he uncurls fully and looks around. He thinks he's in his room.

But his phone certainly isn't when he checks the sheets and the side table and they both come up empty.

So he stumbles out of bed and somehow makes it to the door. He has find Robin.

The hall that lay before him is dark, familiarly so. Like when he had gone to the bathroom to take care of his stitches, along with something else. A different memory he couldn't quite grasp: a dark hallway, bathed in red. A mirror, just out of reach.

It's then, as he tries to remember, that warmth drips from his nose and onto the floor. He doesn't bother to stem the bleeding, doesn't have the awareness for it. It's just a nonsense sensation adrift in the sea of his pain.

"Robin?" His voice doesn't carry as it usually would as he makes his way down the darkened hallway. But even that stifled volume sends waves of pain through his lungs. "Robin?"

The only response he earns are whispers, worming their way into his ears, into his brain, saying 'your fault' and 'you deserve this'. It makes his skin crawl and his hands itch to tear them off, to make it stop.

His fault for what? Is this that creature's doing? It must be, right? Those words from before -- from when he were trapped helplessly on that couch while whatever it was had haunted him -- were intermingling with the others. It quickly overrode them, until each and every single whisper sounded just. Like. It.

His breathing stutters at the memory (somehow still so vivid even though it should have faded by now) and the cruel words. He curls a hand up to his chest, clutching at his shirt. "Shut up. You're not here." Not real.

But they don't quiet. Instead, the whispers grow more intense, more frequent, until they might as well be white noise. Thick in his lungs, the air is dense with them. It weighs down on him, palpable against his skin. He feels the walls close in on him as he walks, rejecting him. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here.

Now, more than ever, he's sure that this wasn't his home.

It's then, at that realization, that the world gives another heave and Sean pitches forwards, smacking his shoulder against the wall. His body giving up, he slides down onto the ground. He needs to move, but can't. Needs to find Robin, but can't. Needs to get to his phone, but can't. Needs to escape, but can't.

It's right there. The living room is just right there. And yet he can't even move.

"͏Y̧ou̴ real͞l̶y ͜are p͠at̕͠h̨e̛͞t̵͡i̵̵̡c. Wha҉t happ͘en̢e͝d̛ ̷t̵o͞ yo͘u?"

A complicated rush of fear and confusion and anger floods him. He doesn't look up, doesn't dare, but his head is jerked up anyways by a grip so firm he's certain it was going to break his jaw. Staring into its acid green pupils, a name takes over the whispers from before. It pulsates into his brain like an all-consuming migraine, so much so that he fears it'll be the only thing he'll hear or think ever again unless he speaks it. "An...ti..."