Behind a Smile

C11 - Lights out

TW - Lack of food

Joan was fine. Objectively. Relatively. Okay, they were not fine. But today was an important meeting, which they couldn't miss. They were all for prioritizing health and self-care and all that. They were also a hypocrite. Besides, self-care is also reducing stress, and they would be a lot less stressed if they could just get through this meeting. Once it was over, they could rest. Somewhere. The table really seemed like a good napping place right now, but that would defeat the purpose of pushing through this meeting. No naps for Joan. Why not again? Right, the meeting. Everyone was staring at them. Focus, Joan, focus.

With all their strength they sat as upright and focused as they could. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" they asked, in an attempt to hide the fact that they had not absorbed anything up until now.

Worried glances were cast across the room. "I asked whether you could show us your presentation. Are you okay, you look a bit pale." One of the employees noted. They weren't sure which one, it was all a little... foggy inside their head.

Right a question was asked. The presentation. "Yes, I am fine and ready to give my presentation." They moved to stand up and immediately their vision began to swim. They thought they hid it well but apparently not because within seconds there were two people at their side, supporting them. "Whoops, I guess I stood up a bit too fast." A few murmurs from the crowd.

Starting up their presentation, they realized that it was on the community demographic research that their department had been doing for the past two months. They had totally forgotten it was about that. Luckily, they still had their notes on their laptop.

They started presenting, trying to hide that they were only focusing on standing up and saying the information in their notes. Not listening, not paying attention to the room, nothing else. In fact, even those things were becoming hard to do. They hadn't noticed it before, but it was kind of hard to stand upright when you didn't know which way was up due to spots in their sight. When had those come back?

It seemed like no time had passed but, in an instant, everything was different. Their vision was black. No idea whether their eyes were open or not but there were a lot more voices and a lot more people around them right now. It also appeared they weren't standing up anymore. What had happened?

Slowly, the voices became clearer.

"Fainted"

"Burning up"

"Activate not that kind of doctor protocol"

"Put them in the recovery position"

"Do they need to go to the medbay?"

"The medbay is sending over some people and a stretcher"

"They have been unconscious for 3 minutes"

Right. They should probably open their eyes now. How do you do that again? Never mind, apparently their brain understood the signal because they were starting to open. Oof that was a bright light.

The voices became louder and it was giving them a headache. Or they already had a headache and were only now noticing it. Or a bit of both. The fog in their head had only increased. What if they just went back to sleep. They deserved a nap. If it weren't for that annoying tapping on their face.

"Joan, keep your eyes open. Stay with us. You can go sleep soon, just wait a little bit."

The voice was nice. But sleep also sounded really nice. But they supposed they could wait a little bit. They moved their arm to shield their face a bit from the light and immediately the lights were dimmed and their arm removed again.