𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞. | "oh, how you ache for gentle hands and the smooth waves of calming voices. i am no messiah of these things but perhaps my warmth will be the soothing medicine you have yearned for in the illusions of familiar faces."
一 in which...
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04 | four
OF COURSE, IT HAD TO BE THAT particular night Aurora lost her final thread of normalcy. Of course. Because that's how her entire life worked. After the glint of silver, the surfacing of the file, and the faces of two strangers, it would be almost humiliating to the cycle of circumstances to get away with peace that evening. But despite that, she cared enough to hang on to the stillness for far longer than she should have. Feeling her palms sweat and insides churn, the situation followed through with all of the cliche and none of the care.
The room was dim, no light illuminated the space save for the minute glimmer of the electronic clock that lay on the bedside table. There was a gentle glow of the night falling lightly from the two windows that lined the walls of the only bedroom in the apartment, and Aurora couldn't take her eyes off of the silver ribbons of the moon outside. She didn't dare stir, almost terrified of breathing too hard, as if the simple motion of moving would catapult her completely over the edge of wakefulness and into a state she couldn't return from. Instead, her gaze flickered slightly in the dim space, darting around the room so many times she could visualize every detail if she closed her eyes. It was another restless night that housed a prospect of sleep as a shy, untouchable myth.
And she tried. She tried so hard to shut her eyelids and find some sort of pull that would drag her into a place where nothing existed and her head wasn't flooded to the point she felt like drowning. But the exhaustion she held in her bones was locked away in a place she couldn't reach, and despite the heaviness that she felt in her entire body, it refused to settle over her completely and wrap her in a cocoon.
The digits on the clock changed, and Aurora's eyes found that god-forsaken machine.
2:38 a.m.
She'd been laying there for three hours.
The moon bled through her curtains and she had been laying there for three hours.
She told herself that night that she was going to go to bed early and dream only of soft waves. But now it was close to three in the morning and she was just so terribly awake. It wasn't supposed to be filled with her thoughts, and especially not that ghost down the hall, but she had been laying there for three hours and somehow those were the only things that settled over her like a blanket. There was no gentle sleep, the only blue she saw was not the kind she wanted.
Ghosts. With metal appendages.
Some people had nightmares and she had nights where she couldn't even fathom of what sleep felt like. This kind of sleepless restlessness was somehow worse than any gut-wrenching dream she had ever had, and Aurora felt like she was going insane. There was nothing for her except for changing numbers and thoughts. She had so, many, thoughts.
