Page 100 of Sweet Venom
Clean.
Sterile.
The oppressive color coats the walls, the ceiling, and the sheets tangled around my legs like restraints I don’t remember getting trapped in.
My breathing is too shallow, too controlled, as if my body is relearning how to function.
I try to blink away the fog, but my lashes are heavy, my lids sluggish.
My muscles ache in places I don’t even recognize, deep inside my bones, like they’ve been frozen solid and only now decided to thaw.
Where…am I?
My fingers twitch against the stiff sheets; my limbs feel like two slabs of stone I can no longer control. I’m so disoriented, I feel disconnected from my own body, like I’m animposter in someone else’s skin. The air smells like linen and faint cedar laced with emptiness and everything that’s…wrong.
I try to sit up.
Pain punches through my ribs, the ache spreading to my shoulders, my legs,everywhere. My stomach clenches, nausea clawing at my throat with every sharp inhale.
Is this a nightmare?
A different type of nightmare?
My arms tremble as I push myself upright, breathing through the sharp, electric pulses overflowing my nerves.
I move like I haven’t moved in a long time, and that’s when the first spark of recognition hits me.
Memories of the attack, Julian, and his stupid Nietzsche book slam through me. That was hours ago, right?
Swinging my legs off the bed is an effort. Cold air bites at my bare feet and zaps through my bones, and I press a hand against the wall as I push myself up, my legs shaking like they might buckle at any second.
Like I’m learning how to walk all over again.
Still grabbing onto the wall, I walk out of the room, and the farther I go, the tighter my chest gets.
Everything about this place feels wrong.
The house is small, painfully neat, like a picture someone arranged for the sake of appearances. A single untouched gray couch sits in the living room. A fireplace stands cold and empty. Through the large glass window, the outside world is coated with snow, the sky a vast, unforgiving gray that stretches endlessly.
I swallow hard. My heartbeat pounds in an erratic, stuttering rhythm.
Snow?
It’s…September. Why is there snow?
The outside world feels out of sync with my internal one. Like I’m playing catch-up with reality, but something isn’t adding up.
I nearly fall, and I hold on to the sofa for balance. My gaze flicks to a small stack of newspapers on the sleek black coffee table.
I don’t realize I’m reaching for them until my fingers skim the top one. The pages feel thin and strange under my fingertips, new, even?—
My hand clenches around the paper when I read the date.
Late December.
No.
It was September. Fall.
