The lights were a little too bright. Indented in the roof, they shone down on her as she laid lazily on the couch, her legs thrown over the armrest and her arms covering her exhausted. She squinted, trying to prevent the dangerous shine from getting into her eyes, but it was no use, they pervaded throughout the room without any cease, continued to bathe her in an enlightened aura until she was allowed to leave the god-forsaken room.

Except she was stuck in here.

Not truly stuck, she thought, furrowing her brow. The door was right over there, the glass giving visage to the bland corridor decorated with bright green flyers announcing Tabletop Club and white sheets covered with spreadsheets and schedules. She could stand up, cross the room and leave without any immediate trouble, but with her counselor sitting in the adjacent couch, clipboard and pen in hand, an understanding expression adorning her face, Felix chose to stay, lest her father hound her out when she got home.

She shouldn't have come in anyways. Ever since she returned from school, she didn't feel well. Already, her stomach felt like it turned over on its side, unable to get up. Her mind furiously pounded against its walls, banging on her forehead until she winced and cradled it in her hands. Her whole body felt longer than they should've been, as though she'd grown accustomed to its length.

Being called down to travel through the halls and enter a place which she truly despised didn't seem like the best course of action, though it was in the end. In fact, she could've taken a detour at the divergence where the hallway towards the guidance office and the entrance nurse's office split off into separate directions, strolled into the disinfectant-smelling hovel and told the sweet, plump lady behind her desk she had a fever brewing. Mrs. Schule always gave Felix time to lie on one of the beds and rest her head against their hard pillows when she wasn't feeling well. Coming down during core classes despite the chagrin of her professors and spending the bulk of her time aching and consumed by stressful headaches, it wouldn't be a shock if Felix needed to relax, to recollect herself. And she was sure she could get away with it if she was stealthy and willing enough.

However, today she floated through school mindlessly. It was only fifth period, three more to go, and she hadn't done any work, rather staring at her blank notebook with her thoughts going off into space and discovering things she'd rather forget about.

"What's her name?" started Miss Roxanne.

Her throat disagreed with her for a moment. "Tegmark. Jennifer Tegmark."

"How did the two of you meet?"

"We both woke up in a cold chamber. I was up first."

"Can you describe her for me?"

"Pale skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. She looks sort of like a valley girl, y'know, one of them people on reality shows. I thought she wasn't real at first."

"And now you do?"

"I'm certain," she said matter-of-factly. "I experienced her memories, and she did the same for mine. There was something there that connected the two of us."

"Why do you think the two of you were paired together?"

Felix swallowed, a nervous sweat developing on the edge of her forehead. She reached up and wiped away the revealing wetness. Miss Roxanne noticed the action, and Felix could hear quickened scribbling as she tried to find the words to speak. "I'm not really sure why, it could be so many things, y'know?"

"Of course," she replied automatically.

Felix continued with a nod. "But I think it happened because we both did something."

"What did the two of you do?"

Felix didn't want to tell her.

It was hard enough admitting it to Tegmark, but Tegmark was the only one who understood. There was no way that Miss Roxanne would know how it felt to see someone die right in front of your own eyes, to watch as their life was immediately ended because of something you had done, or inadvertently causing someone's death because of your own selfish desires and wants.

There was a reason why she continued to be adamant. Solace and light could be found in the memories she had created with the blonde teenager. Living through Tegmark's most vulnerable and exposing moments, learning that she had done the same with Felix's memories and realizing for the first time that she wasn't blamed for her actions was life-changing. She had found her other half, she believed. Undergoing that emotional investment only to have everything stripped away from her, disregarded because of a semblance of madness, offered her the epiphany that this reality, without the reassurance of the girl she'd grown to love stronger than she'd ever loved anyone else, without the knowledge that everything was going to be okay and Tegmark was going to be there with her throughout the all the turmoil, was hollow and near empty.

Tegmark was the only one who understood, she repeated internally. Tegmark made her feel as though she belonged. Tegmark gave her hope. She promised she would come back, that she would leave her home in order to find Felix, that after everything was over, the two of them would be together.

Felix wasn't at home.

"I ... I don't know," Felix answered lamely.

Miss Roxanne shifted in her chair. "Why did you have to leave? Did someone make you do so, or did the two of you actively escape?"

"Well. . . ." Felix considered this a moment. "We didn't leave ourselves."

"No?"

She shook her head. "It was more like we were forced. I remember falling asleep, thinking to myself that the next day, we'd figure out how to get out of the chamber together. The two of us had . . . y'know, been the other for quite a time. We knew we could handle the situation -- well, we thought we could, but then, we couldn't. We didn't have the chanve. Out of nowhere --" She paused, sucking in a sudden breath, bombarded by unbidden thoughts.

It wasn't out of nowhere, the bomb went off, I was burned alive, she was, too, our time together was cut short by whoever controlled the horrid thing, we never had a chance to say goodbye, don't cry, not now, you can't right now --

Her throat cleared itself, and the words spilled out. "I just woke up in my bed. In my room. I wasn't cold anymore. Tegmark wasn't there. She was gone."

"Interesting," intoned Roxanne. Scribbles. The scratching of her pen. Then: "Do you think if you were given the chance, you could've left?"

She had thought about it every night. Repeating in her mind, over and over. How would things have gone differently?

There were the fantasies of outsmarting those who housed them in that strange, claustrophobic place, crawling out of it, being blinded by the sunlight, towed along by Tegmark's ambition, running off to create a life anew. Perhaps they would even get their revenge, teach them a lesson of some sort. That always made Felix smile, but soon reality wiped it away, washed all semblance of happiness from her face, forced her to remember that it was all in her head.

Of course they weren't real. Hell, she wasn't even sure it what she had experienced was truly real. It felt real, the emotions she had were real, she seriously believed that Jennifer Tegmark was real, but the possibility that, after everything she'd gone through, it wasn't? She shook her head. Not now. Not right now.

Still, the question of their escape still rested in the back of her head, refusing to leave despite Felix's attempts to remove it. She had come to the very same conclusion each time it cropped up, revealing to her the truth of it all. She wanted to deny it, to believe otherwise, but it would never be any use. Every inch of the unpolished walls was covered in that eternally frigid metal, devoid of embellishment, of indentation. She had run her hands across them. No way in, no way out.

"No," she answered solemnly. "I don't think we were supposed to."

.

Her medication came in little orange bottles. Her father, trusting that she wouldn't abuse them like her mother had, left them inside the bathroom, right behind the mirror. They were marked with her name, the bold lettering instructing her to take them regularly during certain intervals of the day. Magnesium oxide for her headaches, Prozac for her anxiety, antidepressants for her compounding depression -- all of them laid there, waiting for her to open their lids and take them as prescribed.

Occasionally, she ignored the instructions. She'd take more than a tablet of magnesium oxide in the morning when her headaches reached peaks that rivaled Mt. Everest. Another Prozac came with her to school when she felt that distinct wave of nerves wash over her, though she'd conceal its consumption by visiting the girl's restroom. And her antidepressants laid basically unused, their goading presence within the medicine cabinet pressuring her into taking them, but she knew what they'd truly do to her psyche if she took them, and preferred not to spend more time in the hospital and clinic and nurse's office than she already did.

Ever since her most recent visit to the doctor's, however, she found herself opening the cabinet to three more orange bottles. The abundance of available prescription drugs at her disposal made her feel weak and dependent, as though her functionality was succinctly embedded within the small tablets. She looked at them every morning, every impulse in her body urging her to flush them down the toilet. Each tablet was a morsel ready to extinguish and eliminate her independence, every bottle a society of individuals ready to destroy her very disposition. But Felix never took it upon herself to wreak such havoc on her father's expenses, since he'd spent countless checks attempting to rescue her waning emotional security from negative hostage, so she left them to rot and experience disuse as she regarded her other medication with reluctant stupor.

Every time a new bottle of medication came in from the doctor, Felix scrounged up the old ones from the cabinet and hid them in her room, keeping them underneath the boundless t-shirts and denim jeans in her dresser. She'd forget about them for the longest time, their existence just as meaningless and meager as the present ones plaguing the bathroom, and would only be reminded of their presence once she dropped the new ones in.

Her father never noticed how she wasted his precious funds on ignorance and disinterest of her doctor's earnest suggestions. Rather he congratulated her, though crudely, on her loyalty to taking the dreaded medication. If he suspected any dissension from the awkward smile his daughter gave him, he didn't voice it, which made Felix relieved. He wouldn't dive into her dresser to discover her waste, surely. In the passing weeks, this turned out to be effective, since he'd never gone through anything of hers beforehand.

But Emily seemed suspicious of Felix's undoing. In the mornings when Felix wandered from her room towards the bathroom, Emily stood right outside the door, arms crossed, gaze sharpened. She'd never say anything, though, keeping her mouth shut and her lips thinly sealed. But she did glance down at Felix's long sleeves. Her eyes had stayed there, as though she could see through the fabric and expose Felix's perceived sin. She might not have been truly worried about Felix's current condition and its negative connotations, but she sought telltale signs of depression and self-harm, and could scout them out faster than a squirrel finding their acorn after the winter snow melts and the greens show up beneath the encompassing white.

And though Felix had never taken anything to her skin in an attempt at futile control, it wasn't impossible for her to grasp a razor, staring at the gleaming object as the blade, small and sharp and deadly, glinted in bathroom light. She could easily do so, perhaps draw out her internal, ephemeral agony into physically burning sensations drawing scars across her skin, but Emily didn't have to worry. Felix dared never to see a drop of blood again, since the way Gordy's leg gushed with the sticky liquid and how plainly she could see the snapped portion of Dylan's neck from the top of the slide, the broken bone slicing through his skin and covering it with a crimson coat, exposed her to its unfortunate effectiveness to cause more trouble than it's ever truly worth.

Thankfully, Emily didn't feel as though her sister was going to do something rash, or simply trusted her that incriminating information wouldn't be relinquished, because she never asked any pressing questions. Rather, she allowed her younger sibling to live her life for a small moment in time without interruptions or compromising "girl stuff." She still acted and pursued the role of bigger sister, messing with Felix whenever she seemed in the mood, or teasing her about how an inherently uninteresting life suddenly became unpredictable ever since she started talking more about the elusive Tegmark and their surreal experience within the metallic chamber.

She entertained the belief of the recollection being true for Felix's sake. Emily didn't want to be apart of the group which constantly belittled Felix. She listened when Felix explained their bodyswapping, and understood when Felix broke down speaking on Harvey's unprecedented manslaughter, and comforted her sister when she divulged about Tegmark's overall effect on her. She sat through the blabbering sessions even though Felix spoke with a mush-mouth, sometimes struggling to get the melancholic words out of her throat since they choked her up and prevented escape.

"I never wanted to go through any of that," Felix said one night as she was cradled within Emily's arms, her shoulder soaked in Felix's stray, unbidden tears.

"No one wanted you to either, Barb," Emily replied, shushing her. She pet her sister's hair, letting her skinny fingers flow through the short strands surrounding Felix's face. "There's no reason you had to go through any of that."

"It wasn't a dream," she said, sniffing.

"I know it wasn't, girl."

"No one else wants to believe me."

"No one ever wants to listen. They have the ability to believe you, but they're preoccupied."

"With what?"

"Their lives," she said simply. "Dad does everything he can for us. There's always something he's helping us with, whether it be important to him or not. He's, more often than not, swamped with things. The teachers and people at school? They've got their own stressful situations to deal with."

Fair enough, thought Felix.

She knew that problems beyond her own existed. Her senses keenly picked up on them when she relocated after every passing period. There were the couples standing at lockers, running their hands through their hair and breathing loudly for passersby to hear. There were the kids furiously stuffing their unfinished homework back into their backpacks when the five-minute bell echoed within the cavernous corridor. There were students scrounging amid their bookbags to discover their headphones or cell phone was left at home, leading to a grueling day without the comfort of music and background noise.

These common ailments were maddeningly prevalent amid the school's environment, shining in the dim sea of commonality and mundanity due to its scarce disposition. With each case Felix had witnessed in her three years of high school, watching every pained facial expression, listening to every strained voice, all of the terrible came together like a horrible, omnipotent monster, the abhorrent admixture surely affecting each and every student which travelled the halls. It appeared to have shrouded it holistically in a depressive cowl.

But she wore blinders whenever the memories, shockingly real and vivid within the realm of her imagination, arrived in her conscience. It was as though she walked down the hallway, unbeknownst to the existence of her peers to either side, staring forward and unable to look anywhere else except there. She didn't know anything else except the pain and agony and emotions which were associated with the transpired events. She hadn't a clue why her classmates were struggling with their schoolwork, or why most of her teachers were having issues at home considering their children and those altercations which happened in their work environment, because she was focused on her own. The horrible monster had felt as though it infected her, and her alone, leaving her nothing but a husk of a woman, changing her from something which had once felt burning passion and emotion to something unenthusiastic, bemused and uninterested in anything except how empty and numb her chest felt.

She was focused on Tegmark, on how she truly existed, even beyond her own bountiful imagination. And she was sure now that others had their own Tegmarks: things which kept them up at night, pervading their mind until all other thoughts were singled out and isolated, keeping them from truly moving on until they got answers, I swear I need these answers before I scream, I'll scream as loud as I can so they can hear me, I'll -- I'll --

"Why do you choose to listen to me?" asked Felix, curious. "You never did it before."

Emily paused a moment. What Felix stated was true. Hitherto Felix's return to her bedroom from that accursed box, her sister rarely supported her. Usually, she'd laugh when Felix had gone through her struggles, leaving her alone to suffer.

Emily was only out for Emily, and if anyone asked for help, or even appeared as though they needed it, she would merely consider it for a single second before rejecting to offer any assistance. When they were younger, Emily would never reply to Felix whenever a math problem was too hard for her to comprehend its solution, or a word in a chapter book was difficult to pronounce and define using context clues. She would stare from the other side of the room, a juice box or soda in one hand and a piece of food in her other, watching as her sister learned by herself.

Now, years later, after Felix had wholly developed without the willing or even reluctant aid of her only sibling, had grown accustomed to the fact that in her family, she was an outcast and rarely seen as noticeable by any of them, had understood without anyone having to tell her the world was a cruel and unforgiving place for all knowing its ins and outs, Emily wanted to give her compassion. Emily, of all people. Her sister who had treated Felix with negligence and spite without proper reason. If anything, the short-haired teenager was skeptical of Emily's apparent change in attitude. Because Emily's transformation had taken a severely short amount of time to develop, she found a very hard time believing that it was truly something trustworthy but she had gone with it anyways, letting the bad thoughts and feelings leave her mind and allowing her instincts to bring themselves into fruition. Now it was time for answers.

But Emily didn't provide any. She rested there on the edge of Felix's bed, her head hanging. "I just wanted to," she said. And though this was't much of a substantial reply, given that the vagueness of it shrouded any semblance of actual information, it was all that Felix had received, because Emily stood, her longer black hair falling down her shoulders in uneven strands, her hands straightening out her crinkled clothes. "I'll be back, okay?" she said.

Felix nodded.

And Emily left the room. She never came back in that day, in fact. She left Felix with tears fresh on her cheeks. The short-haired teenager fell back into her bed after a few minutes after realizing that her sister, someone she shouldn't've trusted from the start, wasn't returning to the depressive room, and relaxed in the comforters, resting her head against the fluffy pillows and feeling disconnected from the enveloping sensations tickling her skin, rustling her hair, rubbing her face.

Eventually, the tendrils of sleep caught themselves onto the exhausted teenager, taking her underneath the waves of exasperation which plagued her during the day.

The nightmare started normally enough. At first, Felix assumed that it was a usual dream, where she'd find herself consumed with paranormal and queer occurrences which were more wondrous and fascinating than they were unsettling and strange. She stood in the middle of the forest, the setting sun covered in the haze of grey clouds. The branches hung low, their rickety sticks sharp and curling. Her feet didn't dare move, and she didn't urge them forward either, rather remaining in place. Crickets croaked and sung from the folds of the foliage, their eerie harmonies filling the darkened atmosphere. Her skin crawled with goosebumps as the hot summer wind brushed against her barren arms, but the chills hadn't come yet.

Then there was the snapping of a branch behind her. Sluggishly, as though she was moving through molasses, she turned her head over her shoulder. There was a tree with a forking trunk, the bifurcating wood giving visage to a disheveled Tegmark. She looked very similar to how she had when they met each other in the box: pale skin as white as parchment, her eyes as cold as ice water, her lips thinner than a piece of paper, hair as long as stalks of corn. Through the divide, she stared straight at Felix, and her eyebrows arched inward, an angry expression plaguing her features.

Felix's voice was caught in her throat. She had seen Tegmark in her dreams more often than she truthfully would've liked (because who wants to see the person who promised they'd be there forever taken away from them, only to be seen through intangible means?) but, just as it did every time, it felt real. Tegmark's confident presence, despite her disparaged appearance in the midst of the grotesque forest, radiated from where she stood. A burning sensation flamed inside Felix's chest, starting from her stomach and moving out to her hands, her feet, her head, and she felt alive again, something about that small, fiery girl that she only spent a couple hours with (although it had felt like weeks, considering how the memories flew in her mind, how the events correlated with one another and blended together into a visceral experience which wholly changed her perspective) made her feel inherently wondrous.

Scared for a moment, she hesitantly approached the small girl, as though Tegmark planned to bite and attack her if she came any closer. But with each resounding step, each berry crushed beneath her boots, every miniature stick that died in her onward journey, the confidence flowing in her veins pumped harder and faster, and her strides became longer, her legs finally feeling as though they belonged to her again, and she reached forward with her long arms, like she was trying to hold onto something that wasn't there, and then --

Tegmark's face morphed, the odd mixtures of features on her face contorted by the controller of this peculiar reality. It changed to Gordon's innocent face, the one Felix first saw once Tegmark decidedly disqualified his best-friend status. He seemed sad and dissatisfied. "This has to be a joke, right?"

Then he was gone. Disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

From behind her: "Why did you let me get shot?"

Felix turned around to face the ghastly voice, and as she flexed her neck, she vividly saw through blue eyes instead of brown, wore a scalp of blonde instead of locks of black. Gordon's shocked face in front of his mother burned straight into hers. "Why did you let him shoot me, Jennifer?" he asked impatiently. His brows came together. "Why didn't he shoot you first?"

Felix stumbled backwards and landed on the ground. Her legs remained in the air despite her feet striking the disgusting dirt. A began to run through the sky of the dreamscape world. The darkness which accompanied Gordon slunk closer, his mouth growing wider, and he spoke into her ear, asking: "Is it even your body? Who are you?" He withdrew his face, looking at her with his pale complexion and bloodshot eyes. Then his hands went to his head, and his fingers went through his hair, and he collapsed to his knees, clutching his cranium before it could burst open. "Why do you keep hurting me?" he questioned.

Felix crawled on her hands and feet to back away from the apparition. As she looked at him, watching as he stumbled and fell over his feet, toppling to the floor, complaining about agony and pain, she still didn't understand how this operated. Gordon soon turned to dust, disintegrating into the wind. His ashes fell to the ground and blew into the air, and he was gone.

When the wind howled and the crickets sung and no one else came forth from the thicket to disturb her, Felix shut her eyes, trying to force herself out of her dream, but she hadn't much control in this place, despite the whole of it consisting in her mind. And she hadn't died either (she felt herself burn alive, the licking tendrils rushing forward and opening its maw, it blew into the box after the Odomo monster's last, death-entrancing click, engulfing her so suddenly that she had burned along in Tegmark's sleeping arms, and shrapnel, sharp and deadly, had been making quick work of her cranium, but apparently it wasn't real, all that pain; it's only a dream, Barabra, they've said over and over, though she knows, at least sometimes, that the vision had a purpose, an ephemeral collision of emotional trauma, because she died at the end, it was all over), so she remained in the hellish dreamscape, inescapable.

It was late in the night when she finally awakened, her mouth dry, her eyes slick with fresh tears. She wiped them away when she sat up, swinging her legs across the edge of the bed, stumbled towards the dresser and tossed open the middle drawer. Rummaging through the mess of clothes, she found the pill bottles, looking at them with trepidation. The orange of the bottles was illuminated by the moon dwelling outside her window, shining onto them and enlightening them with wondrous qualities.

She thought about untwisting the caps and shoving all of them into her mouth. That would help everything and everybody. Nobody would have to listen to her ramblings. No one would have to suffer through the meaningless stories about a girl who probably didn't exist. She'd be gone, and nobody would have to worry if she needed help, if the imagination which kept chugging at full speed in her mind would eventually turn off, if she was wholly sane whilst speaking relentlessly about a claustrophobic metallic box and memory devices and an Odomo-94 charge strapped to a clicking timer and abounding fear. It would all die with her.

The more she stared straight at them, shifting in her uneasy hands, her tremulous fingers, the notion grew within her mind. It started in the back, nagging and complaining with the lowest voice capable. Small and undisturbed, it had lain there for months, waiting for the right moment to awaken and strike. Its opportunity finally arrived, she assumed, since now it journeyed to the forefront, where, eventually, its incessant whining and puling would be heard, volume cranked up to max. As its noise increased, she heard it. Its words were hard not to listen to, however, because the truth, blunt and unbidden, came through with clarity.

But she waited. The pills would slip from between her fingers, and she would have to pick up every individual capsule if she didn't take some time to calm. So, presuming that she wouldn't make her mind without discouraging thoughts coming into view, her legs travelled of their own accord, and she passed through the dark threshold of her doorway, entering the rickety hallway and going into the bathroom.

The door creaked and moaned behind her as she shut it, the towels and clothes on its back shaking and trembling. Hesitant feet approached the sink, and a depressed face reflected in the glass of the mirror, and eyes stared at the bundle of orange, resting in her arms. "There you are," she said to herself. Then she laughed. "Welcome back, guys."

Each bottle made its way onto the edge of the sink, and every cap slowly came off, the lethargy of Felix's movements noted and deliberate. She watched every open bottle with careful eyes, and made sure that none of them fell. With all the caps removed and capsules ready to be consumed, Felix filled up a cup of water, sloshing the liquid around a few times when she withdrew the mug from the faucet. "That'll be enough." She paused, looking at all the bottles. Nine of them stood silently upright. "And if it's not," she continued, "I'll get more. It won't be a problem. I won't be a problem." Another short, amused breath escaped Felix's nose.

Her hand gripped the first bottle, and she breathed deeply. "Here goes nothing," she said, rather not looking at the abounding amount of medication found within the bottle, instead focusing on overturning it into her mouth and swallowing all of them with the assistance of the water. She felt the capsules sliding down her throat, some of them resting in her cheeks until she could get enough water to wash the rest of them down.

The bottle container fell to the floor with a few clacks once it was finished and done with. Felix didn't wait for the dosage to kick in. She simply collected another into her hand and repeated the process. Her stomach began to hurt after number three, and she collapsed fully onto the ground after five, finally buckling underneath her legs and convulsing in wild motions on the uncomfortable roughness of the bathroom tile.

Emily, awakened from the noise emanating in the household, barged through the bathroom door, and found her younger sister nearly unconscious on the floor.

"Let me go in peace," she rasped desperately. Short strands of hair caught in her face. A tip was lodged in her mouth, the whole collection of hairs remaining in position as she shook her head and protested. Emily tried bringing her into her arms, to help her out, but Felix fought, although it was a small conflict and she'd barely any control over her limbs or thoughts.

"No one's letting you go, dummy."

She stared blankly at her sister, unknowing who it was. Her glazed eyes were half-lidded and she looked as though she was on the edge of living. Her tan skin had turned pale in the last few minutes, accentuating her malicious health. "Please let me go," she uttered.

Emily struggled to keep her sister upright. "Dad!" she yelled through the open door. "Dad!" She turned to Felix, who moaned and whined. "You're not gonna die, Barb. We're gonna get you through this, and Dad's gonna help, I promise. Hey, look at me." Felix couldn't look at her, so Emily moved her face herself, cupping Felix's jaw between her index finger and thumb. "You don't deserve this."

"I --" She groaned. "I don't want to be here anymore." She pushed weakly against her sister, but it was futile. Emily was too strong. Too strong. Felix was weak -- she was, is, and will always be too weak. She could never go out on her own. They always had to stop her. "No one wants me here. Jenny's not here. You -- you listen but you never fucking say anything. No one's gonna stop me from going. You're not gonna stop me, you had -- you had the chance but now you don't. Let go of me."

Emily now took notice of the pill bottles on the ground. She took one into her hands and thrust it at Felix's face. She stared listlessly at the object. "Weren't these supposed to help with all them things that done happened?" she asked. "That's what they was gonna do. Why haven't you been takin em?"

"They ain't good. They don't help me at all."

"Have you even tried them before?" questioned Emily irritably.

Felix smiled deliriously, then coughed, and retched, almost throwing up all over Emily's thin blouse. "Five bottles of em," she said between coughs. "I was gonna -- gonna take all of them right now."

Emily paled. "Oh gods," she murmured. She turned back to the door, her movements frenetic now. "Dad, hurry up please!"

Cunningham rounded the corner after a few seconds. "Hey, chill out, kid, stop ya damn screaming for a second. I just got outta bed and my head's already pounding. Now what's all this hullabaloo about?" he asked irately, his brows scrunched together. He still wore his pajamas, and his slippers were haphazardly thrown onto his feet, so he'd just gotten out of bed. The lens of his glasses were steadily being cleaned as he stood there. When he reapplied them and straightened, his eyes widened. "Oh fuck me," he muttered. He dropped to his knees. "Let her go, Emily. We're takin her to the hospital."

The word had power beyond conception. The cause of the maligned thoughts coursing through her head: the hospital's shadow imprinted on her soul, an innate trepidation. "No-o-o, I don't wanna go there, Dad," Felix complained, thrashing around. Her arms flew this to and fro, and her legs kicked, and Emily let go of her sister, letting her sit up on the bathroom floor. Her glazed eyes looked up, afraid and insecure. "I wanna stay here. Don't make me go there. You know -- I hate it, please, don't make me go, I swear I'll be good, I --" Her thoughts slipped from her lips, suddenly incomprehensible. They'd gotten into her system, and she wasn't prepared for the repercussions. All the overwhelming notions had nothing against the real thing, she thought as she fell back to the ground, her unsupported skull meeting the ground in a high-five. A hollow groan escaped throat. Her vision was now a blur of shades of white and black, the only clarity the ominous shadows of her family which moved against the darkness.

"You've got no choice, young lady," Cunningham said. "We're going anyways."

She hummed in response, not understanding the already slurring words. She didn't recognize the large, laboring man carrying her away from the bathroom, away from the array of medication waiting to bring her to a nonexistence of peace and tranquility, but she did, at the moment, experience the resounding warmth which emanated from his body, and cuddled into his chest to get more of it. Cunningham bounced up and down as he and Emily made their way down the stairs, and Emily opened the front door for her father and sister, watching as Cunningham passed the threshold into the cold December night.

The family ventured towards the car (he would never take the truck, Felix thought hotly, it's not worth tearing up his precious baby, right?), their breath turned to visible frost, their lungs consuming freezing air. Cunningham trembled from the frigid air as he opened the backseat door and gently placed Felix against the felt fabric. The teenager lazily sat there, her stomach rumbling and her head pounding and her eyes bleary and blurred and unbeknownst the surrounding world of quickened movement. She saw the shadows enter the car. Cunningham said something to Emily, and it sounded like a question of sorts, but it was beyond her comprehension, since she was already heading into unconsciousness, her brain barely staying awake amid all the assaulting medication broiling in her bile. She closed her eyes, and waited for the nightmare to be over.