avaritia | l.s au

4. what a peculiar state we're in

OneRepublic - Au Revoir

Louis had fainted right there in their backyard in the cold and brutal windy weather. Numb to his core.

Mark had found him 20 minutes later, freezing cold, scratches on his face, hands and arms. His t-shirt was ripped in some places where the sharp branches had caught on to it and shredded it to pieces. Of course his father had imagines the worst thing there could possibly happen to his son when he saw him lying unconscious on the ground.

Someone had touched my son.

He had tried to call Louis' cellphone endlessly through the night to get a hold of him, of course he hadn't picked up. The phone was somewhere in the forest. Lost and forgotten from the traumatising escape.

So it wasn't actually shocking news to Louis when he'd found himself slowly waking up in a hospital bed, hooked up to all sorts of weird stuff. His father was sleeping on a small chair bedside the bed. The heart monitor beeping loudly and steady. It was quite annoying and didn't help Louis' headache one bit.

He just wanted some silence for once in his life.

"Dad?" Louis whispered, throat dry. He smacked his chapped and dry lips together trying to get some salvia in his mouth, he could really go for some water right there. "Dad?" He tried to say louder.

With a heaving gasp his dad straighten up on the chair, eyes flickering around the room as he was searching for danger, protecting his already hurt son. His eyes found Louis' and quickly raced over to the bed where his bruised son was lying.

"Jesus, Louis" he took Louis' hands there was covered in bandages in his and held on to it for dear life. "Are you okay? What happened? Do you need a nurse?", question after question left his mouth and before the blue eyed bloke could answer any of them his dad had already pushed the small button so a nurse was rushing in.

"Water?" Louis croaked and not even a second later a cup was in his hands. The nurse checked up on everything Louis was hooked up to, looking through some papers he had in hands afterwards. Writing things down. Louis was curious what there was actually written on those papers about him.

"Good to see you finally awake, Louis. You father has been worried" he said with a gentle smile. "Wouldn't move from the chair and kept on asking when you'll wake up"

Louis nodded as he sipped on the water, he was so tired and felt like he could sleep for a week and then some. But whatever the doctors had given him had made his body stop hurting. It also made him a bit dizzy and feeling a bit fuzzy all. There was no doubt that he was a tiny bit high.

Nothing he hadn't tried before.

Mark sighed. "Louis, you scared the ever living soul out of me. What the hell happened to you?" he asked as he took the now empty cup out of his hands, places on the small bedside table. "I found you knocked out in our backyard looking like someone who had fought with a dog, covered in puke"

More like a monster.

Images and memories filled Louis mind, clear pictures of the beast that had haunted him down yesterday. Brown fur and a pair of glassy eyes to match, it almost felt like an out-of-body experience looking back at it there. The smell of blood there'd followed it like a shadow. Its big paws pounding against the ground, breaking everything on its way. Hurling itself towards Louis in such a high speed that it was unimaginable.

He'd hoped he had made it all up by himself.

A loud whine tumbled out of Louis' mouth before he could stop himself and keep it inside, he was shaking again. He could feel his father's worried gaze upon him. He couldn't tell them the truth.