Lost In Purple
Chapter 36: Laughing Lupus
Melanie's POV
Confusion overwhelms me when I wake up and find myself within a huge room that I'm not used to being in. It takes me a couple seconds of critical thinking and analysis to remember that I moved into the ROR house a few days ago. Johnny and I had to use all of our strength to get this room to be clean & organized, as well as decorated. This also reminds me that school starts in a couple of days, and I can't decide if I'm ready for it or not. I'm supposedly taking classes that are too advanced for first year students, and shouldn't be taken until either semester of sophomore year, so I can't tell if that's something to be happy about. I'd rather have fun with the RORs at this point instead of learning; I just feel like I've hit that phase of my life where learning has become dull and unfulfilling.
I'm able to quickly throw myself off my bed and onto my feet, throwing my new ROR cardigan on as if I've had it my entire life. I haven't had it for very long but it's already become my new favorite thing to wear, probably because it makes me feel like someone important or maybe it's because I match with Johnny…I don't know. I open the door and see the beautiful living room that's slightly lit up by the four chandeliers that glow a subtle yellow, along with the fire graciously flickering. I don't think I'll ever get used to waking up like this since it always felt like I could only experience this in a dream. Everything is so vastly different to how I grew up that it feels almost alien.
With a fast trot downstairs I find myself in the kitchen where I come into Javier, Chip, and Bruiser's sight, making all of them suddenly perk up. "Buenos días dama de la luna," Javier greets just after taking a big gulp of coffee.
"Hey, how are you all doing?" I respond.
Chip and Bruiser are both eating, so they give me a thumbs up. Javier on the other hand takes another sip from his morning coffee. "Doing fine. Just dreading the day we all have to sell our souls to the school," Javier sighs.
Yeah he's not wrong. A couple grand for information from a couple classes that we might never use in our future…sounds about right. "Me too," I chuckle, "But at least you Johnny, and Chip are almost done."
I walk up to one of the cabinets and grab a large bowl out of it, then reach up above the tall fridge to grab a box of Fear Loops. It's kind of weird that I'm eating after waking up. The last time I did that was before my sophomore year of high school because I always slept in too late. I also never feel that hungry in the morning which makes me feel like something's a little off today.
"Miss Everett?" Javier asks before I start pouring the Fear Loops into the bowl.
I look at Javier, seeing a somewhat concerned look on his face…or is it confusion? I can't tell anymore since he usually either looks like he hates the world or is sadistically smiling. However, his face confirms that there is something wrong. "Yeah?" I respond.
With a little shift, and quick look off to the side, he finally spits out his question. "Have you seen Señor Johnny this morning?"
"W-what? What does that mean? Has he not been down here with you? I thought he always woke up super early?" I interrogate.
Javier shrugs and looks over to Chip and Bruiser. "We've all been up for a couple hours and haven't seen him," Chip explains, "We figured he was with you."
"No. Is something like…wrong? You guys seem worried which scares me," I state.
Chip starts scratching the back of his head. "Uh…no not really. It's just weird that we haven't seen him," He elucidates.
"Yeah he usually reads the newspaper at the dinner table in the mornings," Bruiser chimes in.
They've got me all worried now. Johnny isn't the type of person to just sleep in without any reason. He's always finding some way to be productive in terms of his Scaring or fixing something with the fraternity, so it's probably best to find him. "I'm going to go check his room, I'll be right back," I croak.
I set down everything in my hands and stomp out of the kitchen. I fly through the hallways, and jog up the staircase, finding myself in front of Johnny's door. I reach for the handle but stop myself. It might be better to simply knock because I don't want to wake him up abruptly if he's sleeping or walking in on him while he's in the bathroom or something. I tap on his door a couple of times before calling out his name. However, I don't hear an answer. I knock a couple times more and don't hear anything, which forces me twist the doorknob and open the door. None of the lights are turned on, the dark red curtains are draped over the windows to block out every photon that passes through the windows, and his ceiling fan is on full blast. With a quick look to his bed, it's obvious that Johnny is still dreaming away.
"John?" I whisper while hanging onto the doorframe.
Still no answer. Something is definitely wrong.
"John?" I say a bit louder.
I wait for any kind of response, and receive it when a small but sudden movement is made underneath the blankets, relieving me because I was about to assume that he died in his sleep. I discreetly walk up to the side of the bed, finding that he's placed all of his pillows over his head, and has curled up into a ball. For me, this implies that he's cold even though his blankets are wrapped snuggly around him. I say his name one more time before reaching out to lift up one of the pillows blocking his left eye. That's when he suddenly and aggressively grasps onto my forearm with a grip of steel. I yelp when I feel the force start closing my blood vessels, causing him to push himself up and his grip to instantly falter.
He stares at me with a painful glare, large bags underneath his eyes, and shaky breathing. "S-sorry Mel…you…you scared me," He stutters. It's obvious that he's lost his voice as well. I would have figured that his voice would have just been croaky, but it has an entirely new tone.
I grab my forearm and rub it for a few seconds while saying, "It's ok. I just wanted to check on you because we're all worried about you."
Johnny turns over to his side and puts his right hand on the side of his head. "W-worried?" He questions.
I place his pillow back towards the headboard. "Yeah…John it's almost 10:30 in the morning. I slept in like I usually do, but the boys told me they haven't seen you at all this morning and thought that something was wrong. Apparently they were right," I explain.
He closes his eyes for a few seconds only to open them again. "I-I-I'm sorry. I woke up at…um… the time th-that I usually do and I had this pounding headache."
I put the back of my hand on his forehead and feel an immense amount of heat, an amount that is noticeably abnormal. "You have a crazy high fever too," I gasp.
"I do?" He says with a crack in his voice. Wow his voice sounds awful. It's even worse than the time that my Mom had laryngitis.
"Mm-hmm. I hope it's not the Flu. You'll end up missing the first week of school if it is" I worry.
"It had… better not be, I h-have to b-" He says before jerking his head to the side in terror, terrifying me and sending chills down my spine. He places the both of his hands on his head and asks, "Did you hear laughter?"
I gasp, finally figuring out what's been afflicting him, and feeling terrible about how he might have caught it. "Oh John, you have the Violet Fatigue."
He gives me confused look, probably thinking I'm crazy. "What? What is that?"
I take a quick deep breath in order to calm myself down a little. "It's a rare mammalian virus that acts similarly to the Flu, but it also causes auditory hallucinations and a huge sensitivity to light. Where my family is from, it's called the Laughing Lupus because the people who catch it are almost always claim to hear laughter from the people they know," I explain while fluffing Johnny's pillows and helping him get a bit more comfortable.
"I-it's mammalian?" He asks weakly.
I nod my head. "Yes, it has only ever afflicted monsters of mammalian backgrounds. I think Juno might have passed it to you. I remember hearing my Mom talking to my Aunt a couple weeks ago about it, saying that she had it."
Johnny growls with a straight face. "Oh well. Either way, it was worth it in the end because I got to meet her. Did you ever have it?"
"When I was 8. I had to be pulled out of school for about a month because of school policy," I reply.
"Shit. I'm in trouble then aren't I?" Johnny questions while sinking into the bed feeling defeated.
"No, you'll be fine by the time school starts. I have to go get medicine for it, but you should be cured in two days. It's also one of those diseases like the Monsterpox or Hydratitis A, where you can only get it once," I answer.
Johnny sighs. "Well that's nice and all, but I'm not excited to sterilize everything in here."
I chuckle and put my claws through the fur on his head. "I know it'll be annoying, but that's probably for the best. Even though nobody else in the house can get it, since their all reptilian, we wouldn't want to accidentally spread it to someone who doesn't know what it is."
Johnny shuts his eyes again, slightly twisting his head to his left. He probably heard some more hallucinatory laughter. "Yeah. How long will it take to get the medicine?"
"Probably twenty minutes or so, depends on how busy the nearest pharmacy is," I reply.
"Ok…would you go get some for me? Please?" He asks.
I nod my head and tuck him in further. "Just hang in there for me," I whisper with a smile.
Johnny's POV
After Melanie leaves, I see the room start to glow a little bit brighter from the morning sun. My eyes start burning at the sight of the blinding glow seeping through the windows, forcing me to throw my pillows over my head again. The tenebrosity created by it seems to make the hallucinations more prominent. The incessant cackling pierces into my eardrums every couple of seconds, and then seems to stop as if it's purposefully oscillating.
I'm able to close my eyes and find enough tranquility to fall asleep to, seeing a somewhat mysterious landscape in front of me. The sky emits a dark purple even though it's covered in clouds. The trees on the landscape shake with the wind, blowing off a few individual leaves every few seconds as if they were cherry blossoms. After looking down I see I'm sitting on the edge of a cliff, feet dangling and presenting a 300 foot drop to an open meadow below. Next to me sits Melanie who looks troubled; Not an angry kind of trouble but a sad kind of troubled. As I reach out to grab her left hand, thunder rumbles above taking my attention away from her for a brief second. There's a lightning strike in the distance, igniting a small brush fire about a mile away from us. When I look back over, Melanie's gone, and a couple of raindrops begin cascading onto the ground she sat on.
Everything suddenly vanishes, and I find myself opening my eyes once more, revealing Melanie who is gently shaking me in order to wake me up.
"Jooooohn," She whispers.
I feel a throbbing pain behind my eyes, and so I push my hand into my forehead when I lift my torso into the air.
"Here," Melanie says presenting a spoonful of a blue liquid, "It's going to taste really really bad, but it will stop the hallucinations and the light sensitivity within an hour."
I grab the spoon and down the liquid. It's incredibly sour and tastes like black licorice. I nearly gag, and spit it the last few drops out involuntarily as it coats the back of my throat and gradually runs down into my esophagus.
"I went out and got you some bear claw pastries too because I know how bad that tastes," Melanie says before I desperately scarf down two of them.
"Holy fuck that was…that medicine was the worst thing I've ever ingested," I mumble while still shaking out of disgust.
"Yeah, it took my parents almost two hours to get me to take it," Melanie laughs, "But you did good. I didn't think you'd power through it like that." She jumps onto my bed and lays down next to me after putting the box of bear claws on the right side end-table. I fall back down onto my face, already feeling the burning of my eyes beginning to dissipate.
"I told the boys what's happening too, and to not talk to you until everything's better," Melanie mentions.
I grunt in approval and try to breath slowly and calmly so that I can fall back asleep for the remainder of the day. I turn back over onto my chest, and exhale out of pain when I feel an ache pull on my optic nerves. Melanie counteracts that when she comforts me by sliding on top of me to run her claws up and down my back, and taking my scruff with her hands.
"Hey John?" Melanie asks quietly.
"Hmm?" I muffle into my pillow.
I feel her scratch the sides of my body, forcing me to start purring, especially when her claws wrap around to my spine. "I love you," She whispers.
My heart rate rises, and I can feel all the soreness and stress leave my body. "I l-love you too," I reply feeling myself blush. Thankfully the pillow hides it.
With every bit of pressure exerted onto me, I fall further and further into another deep sleep. It's probably one of the best bits of sleep I've had in a long time, and it's all because of the woman who's amazing enough to be there for me during the most unfortunate of times. But before I fall back into another deep slumber, I start thinking about that dream I had. Why was Melanie sad, and why was the atmosphere so...heavy? While it might be unsettling, it was just a dream. Luckily, dreams don't really mean anything.
