Dark Requiem [malexmale]

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

A heartbeat. Electronic. Cold.

No... No wait, that was a beeping sound. A beeping, a machine. A heart monitor. It sounded eerie, slow, steady, as if the person was deep asleep, relaxed.

Me. I felt relaxed. My body felt heavy, drowsy, my eyelids too heavy to lift, my body made up of limp rubber loosely stitched together. I couldn't move. My breath was slow, steady, and my heart beat was a steady buh-thump, pushing blood sluggishly through my veins. I couldn't even sense the beast inside me awakening with me. It, too, was feeling completely... out of it.

Fuck, it felt so good. Like I'd slept a million years and I could sleep another million years.

Wait. Heart monitor? That beep... it was me. I was hooked up to a heart monitor, but how? What had happened? Why was I in a hospital?

The curiosity and mild wave of fear forced me to focus in on my surroundings, starting first with my sense of hearing as I struggled to open heavy lids. I heard the heart monitor, and the soft push and pull of air, a gentle whoosh in time with each inhale, each exhale. Except my lips weren't moving, I realized slowly. Instead, my lips felt like they were wrapped around some kind of plastic tubing, and there was a tugging sensation like something was stuck to my face, my mouth.

The sounds around me were eerie. That beeping. That breathing that sounded more mechanical now as I listened to the interminable clicks that followed each rush of air that filled my lungs, then deflated them. Very faintly, I could make out the sounds of flat shoes on marble flooring, the opening and closing of a door somewhere and... rain? Was it raining? I could hear the soft plinking sound of rain against glass, the distant sound of thunder a low grumble in the sky, muffled by the room around me.

What the hell was going on?

I finally forced my eyes open and immediately everything was blurry. I blinked several times, clearing my vision further with each blink until I found myself staring up at a white ceiling with gray spirals spanning them to starch white walls. An ugly generic painting of an ocean landscape done in water colors, mint green curtains pulled shut over a large window, a creamy sofa with a lump underneath the blankets. I could faintly make out white hair spilling from beneath that blanket, however.

Joxeia?

I blinked again, tilting my head ever so slightly to the side to see the machines that were hooked up to me. I only recognized the heart monitor; the other two devices were colorful in their buttons, both stainless steel with little screens on them with numbers I didn't understand. An IV bag was strung up over my head, the clear liquid dropping in time with the heart beat. At least, until the heartbeat began to pick up as I came out of my sleep.

Or at least, tried to.

It felt like there was a magnet inside me, begging me to close my eyes and go back to sleep. And the silence, the peace, it was so lulling, so gentle. I closed my eyes with the intention to slip back into sleep when I suddenly remembered what had happened before I'd fallen asleep.

Michael. I had been talking to Michael. I woke up, or I tried to. But I was drugged. I was still drugged. It felt like I was still being drugged somehow.

But Michael. He needed me. I could feel the beast in me shifting as it, too, rose from its slumber. Panic rushed through my veins as I remembered Michael getting yanked out of his hospital bed by that massive creature, getting thrown across the room. His head and his back had made impact on the wall, and that sound... oh god, that sound. He'd cracked his skull open, or broke his spine.

A shudder went through me.

I felt a surge of strength, thanks to the anger in the beast as it growled and clawed at my insides to escape. I started to take a deep breath of air, only to choke. Panic rushed through my veins now and I moaned in pain as I tried to breath, only to choke again, this time drool dribbling from the corners of my mouth as I tried to lift my hands, except they moved like a drunken mess. Flailing on the bed, unable to grip anything, so I was just stupidly batting at my face.