limbo and coffee

4: settle down

No one's

"What the fuck?!" Azrael shouted after a few seconds of silence. They were unnerved by the fact that someone just came here and stabbed Asea's hand like... And before they can stand up to get the guy, he was quick to leave, the metal door quickly opening and closing.

"Asea!" Emerald was quick to pull Astraea to her side as they quickly attend to her bleeding wrist. Asea didn't even scream, she was too shocked to react. "Aeria, find...find anything." Aeria took a few seconds to react to what Roo said. The scalpel's still on her wrist and she's going pale by just looking at it.

"Let me." Ethan, who looks worried, offered his hand but Asea stopped him. She raised her left hand carefully, pushed her knees against her chest, and pulled it in one go, a groan coming out of her mouth.

"Asea, what the--" Jace was stopped by Ethan quickly holding her hand to steady it as blood quickly bleed out of the opened wound. Aeria came, quickly opening the kit as she tries to calm herself, the sophomore lessons of her course finally becoming useful today.

Yet, what happened just made them feel like Lego blocks scrambled out of formation. They couldn't move fast, they couldn't do anything but watch. "Asea, calm down, okay?" Emerald asked her as she quickly nodded.

Ethan, which they really thought is a mysophobe and wouldn't touch anyone, not even his friends, was quick to get a bandage just to stop the bleeding. "Don't sleep." Ethan snapped his other hand on Asea as she nodded subtly, relaxing as Ethan presses hard on the wrist. "Ethan's a Nursing major, don't worry," Yasser assured her friends as Roo blinks fast. The salty man is actually helping them, wow. That's new.

"Sophomore?" Aeria asked as Yasser smiled and nodded. "We're all in our third year here, are you?" The way he still has this calm, gentle smile amidst this bleeding incident, made Aeria momentarily forget that she just found out Yasser's bonded. Made her momentarily forget she was actually affected by the unfortunate fact when she just met him a few hours ago. Bullshit.

"No. Sophomore. I'm just a sophomore." He nodded and looked back at Ethan who just finished expertly bandaging Asea's wrist. By the time he finished, they fell silent. Not knowing what to do. To even think. Where to even start? The guy just came in, asked for who has the fucking asterisk, whatever that is, and stabbed the nearest on the door, Asea, on the wrist. How fucked up is that? Too.

"Asterisk. Asea has the asterisk..." Em said, her worried eyes looking at them, to Roo and Jace especially, to Yasser and Trey. Roo stared at Em and realized what could've been running on her mind. Anyone who has the asterisk would get hurt? Is it really that?

"This is fucked up. This is fucked up!" Azrael pulled on his hair in frustration as they all fell into an even deeper silence. There are two ways to react here. Freak out or just stay silent, bottle it up, and wait for it to explode.

They can also use their remaining sanity to think of what to do. Find whatever that hint is or find a way out.

If they can stay sane, that is.

😶😶😶

Aeria's

Okay. Aeria decided. She'll have to stop thinking about the fact that they were kidnapped and trapped in this comfortable hell. She has to be calm because if she dropped, it will be more things to stress about by her friends.

Asea's already laying on Em's lap as she stares off to space as if that would help ease the pain on her wrist.

Aeria wanted to say something, anything, in the sense of, "Asea, that would stop hurting soon, don't worry." Or "let's just be thankful that it's just the wrist, right?" The former would come out forced and would be fillers to silence that can be filled conveniently with nothing since thinking in times like this strives in silence. The latter would be just insensitive of her and just plain bullshit. She didn't want to be the bullshit one today. They have already too much on their plate and it's hard to take in even if they were called smart by the medals that hang their necks before college (fucking hell) existed.