There was a sort of familiarity in it. It hadn’t happened in awhile. He had been trying so hard to take care of himself. But he must have failed somewhere down the line. His eyes opened to reveal.... Nothing. A dark room. The roof was plain, he could tell that. White ceiling. The shades on the window were closed, they were blackout curtains. Only a small sliver of light from the outside drifted in. It was not sunlight. Maybe a neon sign or something. Either way, he could tell it was night time.
His head felt like it had been crushed, or cut open and tossed into a blender. It wasn’t like a hangover... It was the same familiar ache. Worse was the feeling of waking up with no memory of the area around him. He tried to force himself to remember. The last memory that came to mind was driving during the day. What had happened?
The anxiety he felt was much less than some certainly would. Though it was worse than it used to be. It had become less common for this to happen to him. Even more so when he realized there was something hard and cold in his hand. He hardly even had to look to know what it was. That damn mask...
He raised it up to look at it. He hated looking at it. There was something so surreal about knowing what it meant... Well, he wasn’t sure about what.... he had been doing. But there was something more pressing that pushed its way through his mind.
This time, he felt his pulse quicken. Jay. Where was he? Upon sitting up, he noticed how sore he was. He quickly reached for the silhouette of a lamp on the nightstand. He turned it on and looked at himself. He was fully dressed. His jeans were dirty, he was probably in the woods. His shoes were still on, caked in mud which had made quite a mess in the sheets. His muscles burned. Had he been running a lot? Climbing? Whatever it was, it had physically worn him out. He tried to push it out of his mind.
He needed to find Jay. Take his pills. Which first? He looked around his room but didn’t see his bag. That was... Not good. It made him ignore all his pain and discomfort and start searching through everything.
When he found nothing, he looked up to the door. Not the door to the hallway or the door to the bathroom. The room was joined with another. He hurried over to it and frantically started knocking. Maybe Jay was in there... Maybe his things were in there...
