OOM: Week Gone By
Nightmares crash over Billy, filling his mind with chaos and making him cry out in his sleep.
Almost a week has passed since he ascended to his room and he has been sick most of that time. Sick and getting sicker. Fever dreams grip him and he tosses and turns.
Old memories and new reach out to grip him in their hands, hands that feel papery thin, and dry, raspy. Claws scratch and tug and hands pull, and teeth bite, and Billy screams, deep in his dreams, his fevers, his nightmares.
Visions swarm his mind...
...of Stephanie and Zuko laying so still, and so very not alive...
flit to visions of a darker version of him, filled with hate and anger, roaring triumphantly...
flit to visions of his mother and father dying in Egypt...
flit to the man who died at his hands during the crisis...
flit to darker and darker visions...
He shudders as sweat pours off of him and he cries out , murmuring, or screaming, or groaning, as hours and days fly in his dark corner of time.
And time passes...
He doesn't see the person who treats him, who cares for him and bathes him, who changes his sheets and makes sure he gets medicine and food, as much as he can keep down... He doesn't see them, but that doesn't mean they aren't real.
And eventually, as all things do, this too passes, ad he finds himself resting in clean sheets, sleeping as deep and real sleep.
And, eventually, he wakes up.
Alive, refreshed, and ready....
...for what, he could not say.
Almost a week has passed since he ascended to his room and he has been sick most of that time. Sick and getting sicker. Fever dreams grip him and he tosses and turns.
Old memories and new reach out to grip him in their hands, hands that feel papery thin, and dry, raspy. Claws scratch and tug and hands pull, and teeth bite, and Billy screams, deep in his dreams, his fevers, his nightmares.
Visions swarm his mind...
...of Stephanie and Zuko laying so still, and so very not alive...
flit to visions of a darker version of him, filled with hate and anger, roaring triumphantly...
flit to visions of his mother and father dying in Egypt...
flit to the man who died at his hands during the crisis...
flit to darker and darker visions...
He shudders as sweat pours off of him and he cries out , murmuring, or screaming, or groaning, as hours and days fly in his dark corner of time.
And time passes...
He doesn't see the person who treats him, who cares for him and bathes him, who changes his sheets and makes sure he gets medicine and food, as much as he can keep down... He doesn't see them, but that doesn't mean they aren't real.
And eventually, as all things do, this too passes, ad he finds himself resting in clean sheets, sleeping as deep and real sleep.
And, eventually, he wakes up.
Alive, refreshed, and ready....
...for what, he could not say.