Your eyes are swallowing me...

T. Joseph

"Urie," I say in a fake menacing tone toward my best friend, "if you don't get your rank ass feet out of my face, I'm going to punch you right in the taint."

Brendon turns to look at me with a sly grin on his face. "Who's to say I wouldn't like it, Joseph?"

I make a fake gagging noise while pushing him towards the edge of my bed, the both of us laughing afterward. "You're a freak," I say softly, still smiling.

"Not anymore than most people," he says as he climbs off my bed and starts walking around the room, stretching his arms above his shoulders. "Not like Ryan doesn't like it, anyway."

I laugh out loud as I continue penciling in details on our history assignment. "I'm surprised you're still sleeping with him," I say with a knowing smirk. "You usually don't go back for seconds, let alone sleep with the same person ten times. Are you becoming monogamous, Mr. Urie?"

Brendon shrugs, still walking around my room. "He's good in bed, what can I say?" He stops for a moment, head tilting in confusion as he bends down to pick up a shirt off of my floor. "Dude, why are your clothes soaking wet?"

I furrow my brows and turn to look at him. "What do you mean?"

He holds up the shirt higher for me to see, squeezing part of the fabric to force water out of it. "What were you doing last night? Playing in the rain?"

I feel a heavy, uneasy weight settle itself in my chest as I look at the soaked clothes Brendon holds in front of me. "I-I don't—" I stutter myself to a stop, feeling my breath catch in my throat. Images from my nightmare filter across my eyes, shadows dancing in my peripheral and it's like I can feel the rain on my skin all over again. I can feel the the stabs of their icy rage piercing my body as the blurry images of the woman's bedroom come into my view. I shook my head hard, doing my best to erase the images from my brain as I cleared my throat and turned back to Brendon. "I'm, uh, I'm not sure. Maybe?"

Brendon looked confused before his eyes softened at me. "Ty..." He dropped the shirt and came to sit next to me on the bed. "Ty, are you sleepwalking again?"

A look of discomfort crosses my face and I can feel myself closing in again. "I don't know," I said, unsure.

Brendon immediately looks concerned. "Have you been taking your meds? We really don't need you to be sleepwalking again, Tyler."

I groan, somewhat frustrated because I thought we were done having this conversation. "Brendon—"

"No, Ty, you don't get it," he all but yells at me. "You weren't the one who found their best friend in their front yard unsure if he was going to wake back up! You didn't have to go through that fear, but I did. Tyler, you need to be taking your medication, that's why you're on it."

I look at Brendon with semi-wide eyes before sighing gently and nodding as I reach forward and hug him to me. "Okay, Bren," I say, rubbing his back. "Okay, I'll remember to take them."

Brendon nods as he pulls back, letting out a relieved sigh. "Okay," he says. "Thank you."

I pat him on the shoulder before throwing my legs off of the mattress and standing up. "Let's go downstairs and make lunch,"I say, groaning as I stretch my arms above my head. "We've been working for hours, I could definitely use some food."

"Agreed," Brendon chuckles as he follows me downstairs. We stop by my siblings' rooms on the way, making sure they were all doing okay before steering ourselves into the kitchen. We both settle on sandwiches, talking mindlessly as we prepare them before the barely audible sound of the television in the living room caught my attention.

I sigh gently as I walked into the living room, picking the remote up off of the couch. "Zack," I call upstairs to my younger brother, "you need to start turning the TV off when you leave a room!"

Just as I go to point the remote at the television to turn it off, a story on the news stops me dead in my tracks.

"Our top story today, a twenty-three year old woman was murdered in her home last night in Granville. No signs of forced entry were visible at the scene, and the murder weapon, most possibly a large knife, is nowhere to be found. Police currently have no leads in the investigation, and are taking any tips - anonymous or otherwise - that anyone is willing to offer. We will continue covering this story as it develops."

The suffocating feeling has come back full force. My hands are shaking at my sides, the television remote falling to the ground with a soft thud as I stay staring at the screen. The images of the woman's home are exactly as I remember them. From the dark, brick exterior to the exact window that I know leads into the laundry room.

I felt tears sliding down my cheeks as I let out a choked sob before everything around me went black. I was out before I hit the carpet.