The Harvesting (ON HOLD)

Chapter Three

He awakes to a bright light flashing in his eyes, and he squints, using his hand as a shield from it. It felt as though his head was being pressed in by a car's wheel, and he could barely take it. As he tries to remember what happened before he ended up back in bed, only bits and pieces come back to him, none of which help him retrace his steps. He hears commotion downstairs and attempts to get up, but some strange feeling overcomes him and he immediately rushes to the bathroom across from his room, hurling over the toilet.

He felt miserable, a feeling he'd never felt so intensely before in his life. After he flushes down the mess that came from him, he slowly goes back to the bed, practically falling into it. His vision was blurry and he couldn't trust himself to safely make it down the stairs, so he stayed laying there, wondering what brought on such sickness.

Footsteps eventually come up the stairs. Jonathan walks in the room, smiling pitifully at Branden, crossing his large arms. "Hey, how ya feeling?"

"Worse than shit." He puts a hand over his face, sighing.

"You've been sleeping for a while. Do you remember anything?"

"Basically nothing. What happened to me?"

"After you finished working you said you felt a bit cruddy and went inside to rest. I haven't bothered you too much since then, but I wasn't expecting it to get this bad. Can I get you anything? I have tea."

"Tea would be great, thanks." Branden gets under the blanket, resting his head on the pillow and attempting to get some rest. He falls asleep for a few hours, awaking to a mug of cold tea on the bedside table. The sound of a mower comes from outside the window he never closed, and he takes a sip of the tea, which tasted more like iced tea from how long it was sitting for.

He stays in bed for the rest of the day, falling asleep on and off until Jonathan brings him chicken soup, the only meal he would have all day. After he finishes eating, he falls back asleep once more, not waking up again until 12:30 PM the next day.

*****

He groggily gets out of bed to use the bathroom and decides to go downstairs to see what Jonathan is doing. As he walks in the kitchen, he sees Jonathan, sitting at the table and eating a sandwich.

"Hey," he says, rubbing his aching head.

"Oh, hey! Wasn't expecting you to be up. How are you doing?" Jonathan asks with a concerned tone, putting his sandwich down and taking a sip of water.

"A bit better. My head is killing me, though. Do you have any Advil?"

"Yea, there's some in my bathroom. It should be the first thing you see in the medicine cabinet."

"Ok, thanks." After taking a glass of water with him, he heads back upstairs to get the medicine. As soon as he opens the cabinet, he notices it and takes a couple of the pills from the half full bottle. As he is about to leave the bedroom, he notices an odd looking key on the nightstand that brings back a faint memory of him sneaking in the barn and finding a door with a matching keyhole.

He quickly grabs it from the nightstand, walking out of the room and shoving it in his pocket. He gets back in bed, scrolling on his phone for a couple hours before falling asleep and waking up at dinner time. The Advil has kicked in and he feels a bit better, well enough to eat dinner with Jonathan and talk with him for a while.

Branden retires to bed a few hours before he normally would, wanting to wake up extra early to investigate the barn. Jonathan is going out to meet with some of his friends from church and will likely be gone for several hours, so he'll have plenty of time to look around.