Trust Me | Tsukimi Shin

(Part Thirteen)

        Chizue felt... tired.

Chizue felt very, very.... tired... so, so tired.

Her eyelids felt unbearably heavy, and the idea of just sinking into a deep sleep once again felt so very appealing. She could just keep her eyes closed tight, and then drift away into a dream, and then wake up whenever she pleased. That sounded nice... really nice...

Wait... wasn't she in a game? Did she dream the game?

The game...

Chizue didn't feel tired anymore once the panic began to set in. She was too scared to open her eyes, so she decided to figure out her surroundings through her other senses first.

Chizue could feel... the soreness of her back and the stiffness of her muscles, and the cold surface of a table beneath her. She could feel a pinch in the nook of her elbow, as well as her body pulsing rhythmically. Chizue could hear her heart, too, loud and clear, and the beeping beside her blared in time with it. She could taste metal. No, that was blood... it was a foul, old, bitter taste like she hadn't opened her mouth for ages, and Chizue is suddenly painfully thirsty upon that realization. She couldn't smell much, an overpowering aseptic scent of disinfectant overwhelming her. Was she in a hospital...?

Chizue finally decides to open her eyes and is greeted by darkness, the only light being a pale green glow emitted by a heart-rate monitor. The longer she stares into the darkness, the further her eyes adjust, and she comes to a blood-curdling realization that there are multiple human figures all standing ominously in the dark. Heart leaping into her throat, she scrambles into an upright position and the wind is knocked out of her from the hot, shooting pain that cut through her body and forced a croak out of her. Clutching her gut, she weakly pushes her back to the wall and yanks her IV out, hand clapping onto the now open wound that had blood trickling down her arm.

Her eyes finally adjusted, and she realized that the figures she had seen were... inhumanly still. They were vaguely shaped like other participants in the game, and slowly, hesitantly, she slides off the table and drops to her feet. Immediately, her knees buckle and she collapses on the floor. Her legs were stiff and incredibly weak. Clutching onto the side of the table, she pulls herself up so she can stand on her trembling legs. She was like a newborn deer learning how to walk for the first time, and it made her terrifyingly vulnerable.

She has to cling to any railings, walls, and devices she finds to aid her, and Chizue slowly guides herself towards the immobile silhouettes. Her hand reaches out, meeting cloth, and she rapidly blinks and squints to see what it was she was looking at.

It was... Keiji?

She gasps and rips back her hand. "K-Keij-?" Chizue coughs, then wheezes, her throat scratchy and sore. Her voice sounded akin to a dry sponge scraping a coarse surface, gravelly and grating on the ears. Her voice didn't sound like her own... she really needed water.

Her eyes catch a familiar head of teal hair at the end, fluffy and tucked into a green hat. Chizue's eyes widen and she makes a beeline for the doll, standing in front of it and taking in the sight in silence. It was Shin, unmistakably, and eerily similar. Hand reaching for his cheek, she grazes the synthetic skin with her finger. It felt like real, human skin, having a nearly unnoticeable roughness of pores, and Chizue's stomach churns.

Where was her doll...? It wasn't there...

Anxiety nips at her insides and climbs up her chest. Her heart rate spikes. Was Chizue a doll? Right now? Was she... not real? The fake Reko couldn't tell, so how would Chizue know...?