The tips of her fingers twitched as her mind woke itself up by the sound of eyeshadow tins clashing against one another. She wasn't a deep sleeper and a flutter of a moth's wing would be enough to wake her up, a trait which caused her to never get the required eight hours of sleep. Karsen's fingers subconsciously began moving, hoping to be alive as her lashes flickered and the luminous sunshine greeted her tiresome eyes with pleasure.

Her eyes examined where she was for a moment, hoping it wasn't in purgatory, though it would have been better than the Hell she'd had to endure alive on Earth. The brunette's head turned over to the opened bathroom door, watching through blurry eyes as Shay groaned in frustration while swiping the edges of her lips with the tip of her ring finger.

The blonde felt the pair of eyes burning dangerously through her silk robe, turning her head over to the half-asleep brunette. A small smile appeared on her face, sauntering over to Karsen and taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

"Hey," Shay said, her tone mildly hushed. "How are you feeling?" Her hands pushed the strands of brunette hairs out of her face, flashing her a reassuring grin.

"A bit better I guess." Karsen responded, feeling highly embarrassed for causing such a scene last night.

She could remember everything from the night before, up until when Derek had sprayed the oral nitroglycerin medication in her mouth.

"By the way," Shay got up, retrieving a wooden box from her bed and walking over to Karsen, a slight look of disappointment upon her face. "Derek got you the cigarettes, but if I'm being honest I think you should stop smoking in general."

The topic irked Karsen, having been told the same advice by literally everybody she'd come into contact with. Even people who didn't know she was a smoker would take a glance at her white lighter and go off on a tangent about how a distant relative had passed away due to smoking fourteen packs in one day for years. However, right now, Karsen wasn't able to concentrate when she'd noticed the tips of her ten fingers had a blue stain to them.

"I know you hate everyone telling you and that it clearly says that smoking cause's major health risks on the packet but-" The blonde stopped rambling, looking at Karsen's blank stare towards her fingers.

"Why are my fingers blue?" Her tone was reminiscent of a curious child who'd been desperate to intervene in the matters that they weren't mentally capable to understand at such a young age.

Though it irritated Shay, it wasn't the right time to be bitchy towards Karsen who'd literally almost suffered a stroke thirteen hours ago.

"Not sure. I think he may have called a doctor to check up on you and he must have taken fingerprints or something." She nervously chuckled, hoping her pathetic excuse came across as believable.

However, her heart sank to the bottom of her stomach when the evident skepticism was coating Karsen's pale face. The same exact facial expression the brunette would have before Shay had put her in her place when it came to asking questions to and about Derek.

"That's a weird practice...why would they need my fingerprints?" Karsen questioned, attempting to sit up straight, sighing at the pain her lower half brought her.

Shay could do nothing but panic and shrug her shoulders, letting out an airy chuckle.

"You should get freshened up." Shay added, hoping to divert the topic of the conversation. She lifted the covers off of Karsen's warm body, helping her to stand on both her feet.

Once the brunette was able to familiarize her body with taking one step at a time, she reached the bathroom, her body beginning to shiver at the abnormal temperature. It was oddly chilly in the small space, though Karsen was determined to freshen herself up, feeling even worse if she had just lied in bed the entire day.

She took out her toothbrush that had been sitting in the acrylic toothbrush holder. Karsen took off its lid, wetting the bristles before she applied the paste. The woman began to brush her teeth, starting from between the upper and lower molars, humming a soothing tune as she did so. Her brushing technique was highly discouraged by every dentist she saw, but the brunette considered herself a perfectionist, rubbing strenuously until she was satisfied that the plaque had been rubbed off. If she didn't see a pinky red tint to her spit in the end – she was going to brush again.

Karsen continued, reaching mid-way. Her lower teeth began shaking in a weird way, as if she had loosened veneers that weren't able to handle her aggressive ritual.

The only problem was – she'd never gotten veneers.

She stopped, brushing them a little slowly to see whether it was just her mind playing tricks or if brushing strenuously for the past nineteen years had caused the twenty-three old's teeth to become scared of the bristles, threatening to disassociate themselves from her gums.

But the feeling was much more different than brushing across a tooth that had decayed. It wasn't the root that was attempting to wiggle itself away from the toothbrush, but instead the enamel that was shaking. The brunette stopped, rinsing her mouth and spitting out into the sink below her, disappointed that the rosy pink tint was nowhere in sight.

She held her mouth open, lightly grazing the tips of her blue stained fingers across her lower tooth. It was definitely moving – but she didn't know why. Karsen placed her finger on top of the tooth, faintly pulling whatever it was forward, perhaps just the enamel decaying due to her intense use of cigarettes.

A clicking sound emitted from the back of her left molars, snapping off. Her brows knitted, immediately regretting her lack of care when it came to smoking. She gulped, holding her bottom lip down tautly. Her heart raced with both adrenaline and mild curiosity. Her fingers snaked to the back of her molars, holding onto the end of the piece that had snapped off. Karsen held onto it, slowly pulling it towards the other side of her mouth. The white strip peeled off, revealing tar black teeth beneath them, mixed in with a hint of yellow. Although she was panicked, the brunette continued – practically pulling off the strip of white teeth that was supposedly attached onto her lower teeth.

Her fingers began shaking, her body heating up despite the chilly environment she was in.

"Hey, by the way Derek-" Shay strolled towards the opened bathroom door, leaning against it casually until she saw what Karsen was doing.

It was weird seeing someone hold their mouth open while saliva dripped down their arm. Her eyes narrowed at Karsen's odd behavior, her face gradually plastering a grimace upon her mask of curiosity.

"What are you doing...?" The blonde trailed off, her tone resembling those of the mean girls you'd have the displeasure of being bullied by in high school.

The brunette snapped out of her delusion, seeing the partial plaque stuck between the other half of her teeth. Her heart began to calm down, swallowing the lump of embarrassment as it lodged itself between her windpipes.

"N-Nothing..." She muttered, ashamed she'd been caught in the hallucinogenic act of peeling off the imaginary strip of her lower teeth. "What's up?" The brunette turned over to the blonde, leaning against the sink as her fingers gripped the edge tightly, still a little shaky over what she saw.

"He said you don't have to do anything today, it's a paid day off." Shay added, flashing her a soft smile. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," She nodded, "Everything is just fine."