a\n: I'm hosting a Writing group after school with three of my friends, and this was written for the first prompt I gave my group. I have all the angst writers, and the prompt was: Closing your eyes doesn't mean you can no longer see. I'm leaving this as a one-shot, and I hope you all enjoy!
He still felt it; he felt the needle. The cancer was spreading, and his body was turning against him. He rested his head back against his pillow: the little comforts gave him happiness now; just the little ones. He peeked from under his eyelids at the nurse. She wore a concentrated face as she slid the needle into his skin, began the chemo drip, and stood. To her, this was an everyday job, but to him, this was one more day he could live. It wasn't normal, and it didn't need a concentrated face…He simply needed to forget just for a second that he was dying. If he could do that, he knew that he would be able to release the animosity he held towards this disease; towards people. The nurse gave him a squeeze on the shoulder and left wordlessly, thinking he had fallen asleep. But who could fall asleep during a chemo treatment? What teenage boy could sit idly by while there life was on the line? He couldn't, and he knew that closing his eyes to it didn't mean he would no longer see it; live it…
In a moment's time, the remnants of the memories he held deep in his heart of being diagnosed, his mother being diagnosed, her dying, and of his first treatment fell into his mind in a scattered mess of broken dreams and worry. Confused as to why he would be thinking all of these morbid thoughts all of a sudden, he tried desperately to shake them off- but he couldn't. He remembered the phone calls, he remembered holding her hand, he remembered the burning, itching, aching. He ached all the time now, and he was just tired of it: tired of aching, and of being sick. Keith laughed at the irony that was a memory of his ten year old self telling his father that a sore throat was the worst sickness, ever! Little did Keith know, it wasn't the worst sickness ever, and it wasn't the worst he would endure.
Foolishly, he tried hard to will himself to sleep, but the thoughts of his mom were there still; the thoughts of him being diagnosed, were there. They were there, flashing before his mind: her last words, his first words after the diagnosis, his father's breakdowns in the middle of the night. He couldn't forget them; there was simply too much to forget. Against his will, Keith closed his eyes, and endured the painful memories- sleep could help, even though closing his eyes didn't mean he could no longer see.