Passing out. 

Mmm, what else was new, right?

Be it from exhaustion, or pain, physical, mental, take your pick… or sometimes even death.

I realized that gradually it was starting to become a sort of monthly tradition for my head to somehow hit the curb… to my dismay.

Frankly, it was something that you never get used to, but I learned to live with it. 

To abruptly snap awake, not knowing your day from your night, those long, agonizing few seconds of disorientation and panic… and that brief numbness. I hated that numbness. 

It always loved to lie, to deceive. First lulling you into a false sense of peace, before pulling away, revealing the sham, and making you realize just how much pain you were really in all along… and this time was no different – just worse.

Much worse.

It was a crushing sort of pain ravaging through my entire body. 

Like hands. Invisible hands, gripping what they can, every limb, every joint, every surface they could hold, all at once just clamping hard down on me. 

That’s when my eyes fluttered open, and I tried to move, desperately trying to wriggle loose from their grasp.

Except I couldn’t, my body refused to listen. I couldn’t even lift a muscle. All I could do was breathe and see, and all around me, I saw only faint blurs in a pitch darkness.

I blinked, trying to clear my visions, but to no avail, still just smudges and splotches…

And one of them moved.

“Oh shit, shit, wait – you’re awake! you’re alive! You -” In a whizzing blur, that murky outline drew closer. “Y-You hear me? Can you see me? Blink! Right, blink if you can!”

I blinked.

“Oh, thank God… thank God! You… you…” there was a noise, the sound of a chair leg scraping back, and a long weary sigh. “I hate you. Oh, I hate you so much… you don’t even know, like… God – why do you have to be such an idiot?!”

From that distinct grating whine, to those loud harsh reprimands. I didn’t need eyes to see that Sammy was currently staring daggers at me…and fake daggers at that.

Could haven’t been more blunt with her happiness and relief even if she tried.

I tried to talk, but even my voice was failing me. As much as I tried, I couldn’t fully muster the strength to.

To her, it must surely sound like I was choking on a bone. In any case, she was quick to hush me, rushing to cover my mouth with what I assumed was her hand.

“No talking, no moving, and no insisting,” Sammy said, removing her hand, and speaking out like a nagging mother. “You’re healing, you’re getting better, and you damn well better let yourself get better, or so help me God…”

Right, speaking of Mothers and Gods…

“M… Mom…” I somehow managed to feebly breathe out, much to her annoyance.

“You took down the barrier-thing, and so as promised, she’s fulfilling her end of the deal,” She explained, a heavy layer of resentment lingering in her tone. “Heading to the barn right now probably, and ugh – look, just let her deal with it, will you? Worry about yourself right now! From what I heard when I got back, you were so close to…”

Dying was probably the word she was looking for but her silence didn’t want to find. And I won’t lie, for a moment there, I really believed it too.

The only reason I managed to hold out was because of faith, the hope everyone had in me, even when I didn’t, even when I fell, they were all there to catch me, especially…

“Ash…” I croaked again, feeling her name leave me weightless. “Ash…”

“You call for her first? So you do play favorites, huh?” Sammy said, snorting and probably rolling her eyes loose from their sockets. “Don’t think Amanda would be happy to know where she ranks on the tier list.”

No reply to that. No strength to. But if I could, I’d say that they’re all S tier to me. 

Speaking of which, Amanda. I need to – 

“I called her for you already, don’t worry,” Sammy said, as if reading my mind. “Or more like she called me – twenty times already in the last hour, checking up on you. If my calculations are right, give or take another ten minutes – she’ll call again.”

Twenty times in the last hour. Amanda, huh? I’m not looking forward to that phone call when it comes. I hear ignoring your girlfriend’s call can be hazardous to your health. 

For now, putting that aside…

“Where?” I asked again, feeling most of my voice stuck squeezed in my throat. “Ash… Tell me…”

“Stop talking, she’s there. Can’t you feel that pressure on your hand? Don’t turn your neck – she’s been beside your bed this whole time.”

My bed, my bedroom… should have figured. But pressure, what pressure? I couldn’t feel a thing, and I can’t hear…

“She’s asleep, upright on the chair, don’t know how she does that,” Sammy said before I could finish the thought. “Apparently, keeping you from killing yourself is an exhausting job, who knew?”

If I focus just enough, in the corner of my eyes, vaguely I think I could see her outline. A faint murky white hovering close by. I like to think that I could.

“Oh, and the vampire’s with Mom in case you care to know,” and in the other corner of my eye, Sammy’s outline lazed in place. “Awfully clingy, she is… outright refusing to let go of you until you were somewhat stable… and that was when I got back, when the rain stopped… and when I saw you, I…  Mom was there too… well… it was quite a mess…”

And that I can agree with wholeheartedly, but not exactly for the same reasons. I could still remember the feeling, that excruciating sensation, that overwhelming pain, and what gave them to me.

That… that thing…

I could still hear its flesh squelching, a mass of blood and meat sloshing, bleeding in my grip. Those eyes, everywhere, every inch, blinking, writhing, staring at me. I still feel them staring at me… and its scream, that horrifying, piercing sound… in this quiet, in this calm, I could hear it lingering. 

When I hear the word ‘barrier’, I don’t usually picture a grotesque wall of flesh-eye muscles, and more than anything else, I don’t expect it to be so… alive.

Which then begs the question – what exactly did I just take down?

For some reason, my eyes drifted over to Sammy again as if she was the keeper to all my answers. 

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t see anything, but what I did notice, however, was my vision gradually returning back to me, only slightly… just enough for me to notice the sullenness swimming in her piercing blue eyes.

“I snapped at Mom again,” She said wearily, her sigh echoing with exasperation. “Don’t you dare tell me I shouldn’t have, don’t dare say I shouldn’t have gotten angry… for all I knew my big brother just died in front of me.” 

Didn’t say a word. Not like I could anyway…

“It was in the heat of the moment. I don’t even remember half the things I said. I just remembered the feeling. How I felt towards her. At that moment, for a good long while there – she wasn’t my mother. I didn’t see her that way any longer, and so I stopped treating her as such. So when I shouted at her, said the things I said to her… it wasn’t the things an angry daughter would say to a mother… you know?” 

I think I do. I’ve been there before. Back when this whole fantasy fiasco began. Knowing that I was in the dark about it my whole life, and being kept there – it had me seething some nights, and the things I would think… I’d rather not let them surface it. I’m over it. 

Sammy on the other hand…

“Funny thing is – usually after shouting at her, immediately right after I’d regret it. Deep down, I know I don’t mean what I say. This time, though, I don’t feel a single thing. I don’t regret it. Deep down, I know she deserves it. Because you know what? She’s still lying to us, even now…  acting like she loves us, cares for us, speaking in that same gentle tone she always uses, smiling when she passes me, us – almost had us convinced.” 

She shifted in place again, her gaze drawing nearer towards me, and my eyes focused on her expression, strained, pained – staring right at me.

“How do you call this love? How do you justify something as cruel as this? Nearly getting you killed, for what? Just so she can prove a point? Just so you can? Is that really worth more than your life? If she really cared, she would have stopped you the moment you tried.”

Then she looked away, leaned back into her seat again.

“I said this to her, all of this, and always, always, she’d come up with a valid reason to defend her actions,” She said, veering her stare. “And even though I hated it, even though it pisses me off to hear it… a small part of me could agree with her… at least with that… in a way, in a messed up way, inside I could still think that she could be right… but…” 

But?

“But she said nothing,” Sammy said quietly, a vague hint of disappointment in her voice.. “This time… she said absolutely nothing.”