What is this Feeling?

Time's Death March

Art by Jane on Instagram! (All rights and respect to them :])

Yo! Ik ikkkkk, I said I'll be more active, but life happened. I got a partner! I loaf them so much! I gots a mustache! So that's cool! Work has been kicking my ass, and family is harder to live with than ever before, but I'm hanging in there, I will slowly but surely finish this fanfic if it's the last thing I do!

Word count: 3560

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Hunter heard the ticking of a clock. He looked at the ceiling. A week. A week since that dream. It didn't feel like a week. He kept forgetting things. All he felt like doing was laying down. He was hungry, but eating made him feel nauseous. He was thirsty but drinking was so taxing, and it burned his throat. It was better to just lay there. He closed his eyes and all he saw was ooze, growing like vines. In his memories. In the very walls that defined his mind. He opened his eyes. That was all he saw anymore. All he felt was something crawling in his bloodstream. If you ever held a worm in your hand as it struggled to be free, that's what it felt like... but slowly inching all over his body. He should just lay there and waste away. Getting up would be too hard anyway.

Tick, tick, tick...

"Hunter?" Luz asked... wait. Hunter looked around. He was at the breakfast table. How did he get here? He was just in the basement? Wasn't he?

"Hey buddy... you aren't eating again" Gus said all of them being extra kind, they looked worried. Hunter was not doing good. He looked run down, his eye bags worse than ever, he needed a shower but everything was so cold. He was bundled up, he hadn't showered in a couple of days, he needed to. He hadn't brushed his hair since they came home a week ago. A week right? He looked at the calendar. Halloween was in two days, it had been a week. Wait. He was just thinking about his looks, not time. He was sleeping less. His eyes were so tired looking. He wasn't eating as much, nearly stopping all together, it hurt to do so anyways. What was the point in changing out of the layers of clothes he was wearing? He stopped going to human school. Mrs. Noceda didn't make him, she saw the state he was in, and thought it was best to keep him where he couldn't get hurt... or hurt others, but he missed being with his friends. However, he knew being with them would only risk them finding out what was happening. He couldn't risk that. He had a job to do. He had to keep them safe.

Tick, tick, tick...

He felt the breeze of the crisp autumn air. He instinctively took a deep breath, opening his eyes. He was outside. It was the middle of the day. The others were at school. He rocked in the rocking chair and he smiled. These things were so fun. He would bring one back to the demon realm, and sit outside and enjoy moments like these. He began to cough badly. He thought it would stop but the coughing continued, and it was painful "Hunter!" Willow's voice called from inside and she ran out and patted his back. She had a glass of water "are you okay?" She asked, concerned.

He took the water and began to drink but immediately stopped, it burned his throat, and he hated the feeling of it, he could feel it wash a thick, sludge like substance be washed down with the water, it was like swallowing mucus. "Yeah" he eventually said, teary eyed from the coughing "I am good" he smiled. He put the water down. "Why aren't you at school?" He asked with a confused tilt of his head.

Willow sat in another chair "I stayed home. No reason, didn't feel like going" that was not true. She stayed home to watch Hunter. Mrs. Noceda had work, and she was not about to leave him. There was silence, only the sound of creaking chairs from rocking and wind blowing through leafs and wind chimes could be heard. They were quiet. He smiled, watching people walk by. He looked at Willow. She was such a good friend. He finished the stuffed bee he made for her. He should give it to her, tell her all these emotions he felt when around her... after all it felt like he had less and less time to do so. 'Disgusting' he looked around, did he hear someone call that thought disgusting? It sounded like his uncle? But that couldn't be right, he wasn't asleep so there was no way he could have heard his uncle. He shrugged it off, hopefully it was just a fluke. He didn't know what was going to happen when Belos was strong again, but he knew one thing, he would never let him hurt Willow or the others. He thought he heard his uncle chuckle when he thought that... was that really him? "Hunter? Did you hear what I said?" Willow asked, bringing Hunter back.