@byanyan asked:
‘ WAKE UP. ’ - [ my ] muse shakes [ yours ] awake. || ouch.jpeg ( accepting! )
TW for alcohol/self medication
Lena had been good.
Or at least, she had been trying to be good. Hell, she had been following their instructions, doing the right things at the right time. Lena had a job that required her to socialize five days a week, with time spent volunteering on the weekends. She had a flat, hell, she had an adopted sibling that liked to break into said flat, and steal her food.
Things should have been good.
Why weren't they good??
It had started two weeks prior, a sickening nightmare of the accident that landed her there. Cockpit spinning in the sky, joystick jerking and twisting out of her hands as the engines screamed. That damn red light, a warning on the dash, that blinked in and out of existence as if it was counting down the seconds to her doom. It had ended, just as the ones previously, seconds before she crashed in the cruel landscape.
Lena had woken up, then, sitting straight up in bed before donning her running shows and heading toward the riverfront to clear her mind.
The little stuff followed. The smell of cooking meat that turned her stomach. An accidental cut in her hand, that looked so similar to her reflection hanging upside-down in the craft.
The bloody Christmas lights.
It wasn't even the holidays, why were they out? Lena couldn't remember asking herself that as she drove home that Friday night. Hell, she didn't remember much of the drive, besides checking the mirrors and trying to avoid those damn twinkling lights.
She had been doing so well.
A few hours elapsed, Lena sinking deeper and deeper into the mania triggered by the lights. As much as she warned herself that this was normal, she's endured this and worse before, and that if she could only bring it around, maybe call a friend from the veteran's office, she'd be okay. But the phone felt radioactive, and so did the walls, and everything was crushing her.
The actions didn't help, runs to nowhere, lifting weights that just added to the crush on her chest - she was trapped, somewhere between the hard memory of being wholly alone and the real world equivalent of no sleep.
She didn't remember when the self-medicating began, nor where it ended. The next conscious thought she had was of Byan's cold hands, dragging her out of the alcohol-induced stupor that Lena had finally submerged herself into, if only to keep the world from spinning.
The room was dark, with everything that emitted a small light, red or not, covered haphazardly with blanket or towels. Lena had finally landed on the couch, empty bottles painting a picture of exactly what she had done the hours, or was it the night?, prior.
Lena dragged, eyelids sliding open and closed. Her breath reeked of the alcohol that remained heavy in her stomach. Dimly, she was awar of Byan's voice, calling her to surface the tidal waves that had dragged her under. They wanted her awake, out of the warm stifling feeling that the alcohol induced, and Lena resisted that.
"-g'away." For once, it was her turn to be selfish, to demand that they leave her there for the elements to consume. "Leave me alone."
