Flesh and Bone

Chapter 13: Dangerous Blood In The Shifting Sands

It was just an hour before school was going to start, and Cecile had already gotten herself fed, dressed, and ready to go. On the other hand, her dorm-mate Otis had pulled an all-nighter again. She found him sleeping at his desk underneath his still-lit lamp, the light gone out on his laptop screen as he snored with his mouth open.

On one hand he definitely needed his sleep; just as she expected he'd do, Otis had thrown himself into his work at her insistence. Press Club, studying, homework, sleep a few hours in between and then repeat was his new routine. But of course she knew that on the other hand all that effort would be wasted if she didn't wake him up when he needed it, his health unfortunately be damned. Cecile shook him on the shoulder, waking him from his slumber.

Blinking before rubbing his face and head, Otis tried assuaging an early-morning headache that came with the territory of poor sleep before looking up at his stirrer. "H'y." He grumbled, consonants being crumpled up in his dried-out cotton-mouth. "Wha's 'p?"

Letting his shoulder go, Cecile gave him a bit of a nod up toward the door. "School's gonna begin in an hour. Time to get up."

The sleepy boy eventually dragged himself about their dorm room, getting showered and dressed while Cecile settled down near the front door. When he emerged from the bathroom fumbling with his tie it was her turn to be woken up. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Cecile attempted to will herself to stay awake.

It wasn't the fact that she was trying to catch up on her own schoolwork— without having the daily administrative duties that come with leading the Wellston Weekly, she had a surplus of time. Instead it was something far less tangible: the nightmares.

Her first nightmare came to her several days ago— it was the one about being lost in the school, then coming to a great abyss that threatened to swallow her up. And the two orbs, those great glowing golden spheres that tore through the darkness and into her very soul. This constantly repeating terror remained rattling around her head and ruining her ability to dream, to sleep peacefully every other day now.

The jolt always came when she felt herself being choked by this great, unknown force, and it was always at the end of the hallucination. As her last breath seemed to escape her lips in the nightmare adrenaline would once again flood into her actual body, leaving her waking up in breathless panic and just about ready to scream. Every time this nightmare happened, she woke up sweating like she ran a mile.

And she did not dare go back to sleep again, lest that monster from the depths dared be waiting for her in her subconscious once more. Meeting it once was enough for a night. So to take her mind off these crazed delusions she was having, Cecile took it upon herself to just wake herself up and continue where she'd left off before going to bed. That mostly meant catch-up schoolwork packets and homework she'd missed during her month-long hospital stay. To be honest if it weren't the price she was slowly paying on her health she could almost appreciate the extra time she had on her hands.

It wasn't just her obligations to school that she took care of, too. When she stirred awake today, she went about putting some last finishing touches on what she needed to show Isen; namely the procedures they'd need to follow for her rehabilitation. They were mostly exercises for her legs, but she also felt obligated to tackle some of the ones concerning memory as well if they found the time.

Ripping out a big yawn while picking out his breakfast from the fridge, Otis tried to make small talk to keep himself from dropping to the floor out of exhaustion right then and there. It wasn't much of a chat, but Cecile helped him along nonetheless.

The morning routine done and over with, the day could finally begin. Otis and Cecile headed down the elevator together, him looking extremely conspicuous amongst an elevator full of girls. Even though a couple of the girls in the dorm had been jealous of Cecile's little privilege letting Otis stay in a girls-only dorm building no one said anything. Perhaps it was because of the fact that Otis kept to himself and was always with Cecile the entire time. Maybe the word got around about what had happened to him at the boys' dorm, and they were showing a little bit of solidarity for him in this safe space.