Chapter 5
The nurse had sent Abby straight back to her dorm. One look at her told her it was absolutely out of the question for her to even attempt another lesson that day. She and Lynn walked in, heading up the stairs to the dorm room as Abby fumbled for the key and handed it to her, not trusting herself with it. As they were walking, Abby noticed that Lynn suddenly wasn't with her. She looked round to see her by the bulletin board, looking over one of the notices. Whatever it was it clearly had her intrigued. She decided to lean against the wall and wait for her to finish.
"Hey Abby, check this out!" she called over, pointing to a flyer. Abby really wasn't in the mood on account of how terrible she was feeling, but wanted to try and make an effort to humour her since she was obviously just trying to take her mind off things.
"What is it?" she asked, trying to make an effort but knowing she probably wouldn't make it over to her. Having to keep her eye covered up since it was hurting again was bad enough. Right then she just wanted to get into the room and collapse onto the bed. It was reaching the point of desperation by now after tackling the stairs.
"There's a girls' movie night here!" Lynn called back. "The next one's on Halloween and it's Corpse Bride! I've been wanting to see that forever! If you're feeling better by then, we are so doing this!" As much as she loved Lynn and as much as she knew her words were supposed to be encouraging, for Abby it only had the opposite effect.
"Lynn, if I'm not feeling better in a month then I'm getting this fucking eye removed!" she snapped. Instantly, she saw Lynn's expression shift and knew she'd remembered the reason for them being there. Hurriedly, she made her way over and unlocked it, ushering her through and shutting the door behind them. Abby instantly threw herself down on the bed, burying her face in the cool pillow and breathing a sigh of relief as all the tension evaporated from her body. Beside her, she was dimly aware of Lynn shrugging her shirt off and untying her hair before lying down with her and pressing in close.
As Abby lay there, she didn't know how much time was passing. She just stayed where she was, hoping that the pain ended soon. Unfortunately, it wasn't happening. Far from it, each of the pounding sensations in her temples were rapidly turning into thunderclaps in her head. The needling sensation in her eye quickly spread to her entire body before becoming a lashing torrent of horizontal raindrops. Suddenly, she was falling. The drop seemed eternal as she plummeted from seemingly out of thin air and down onto the cliffs of Arcadia Bay, the lighthouse rushing up to meet her.
She landed with a sickening crunch as pain erupted in her lower back and the feeling in her legs vanished instantly. She looked up to see a figure looming over her. Definitely male, it looked very familiar somehow. But she just couldn't place him. The voice was also just beyond the boundaries of recognition, too. She knew she'd heard that voice before. Recently, too. But the howling wind and booming thunder made him impossible to identify, the light at just the right angle that he was completely in shadow.
"Who is this, you stupid dyke?" He was holding something in her face, but just like him it was totally in shadow. She couldn't see what it was. Considering that he was holding a piece of paper, she guessed it was possibly a photo. The voice sounded desperate and incredibly aggressive. She had no doubt that she was in danger, but she couldn't get up to fight. Her legs wouldn't obey her. Everything below her waistline was numb and there was a cold sensation trickling down from her stomach. She didn't even have to guess. She'd had quite a lot of injuries as a result of an adventurous childhood with her parents. She knew when she was bleeding. The figure above her didn't seem to care. With the way he was acting it wasn't a stretch to guess he was the one who'd injured her. "Who the fuck is this?" he yelled again, looming over her even more menacingly.
"It's-"
"Abby!" Abby was jolted back to reality as she woke up. She tried to move as she felt the sensation rapidly return to her legs and molten pain arced through her lower back But what disturbed her most was the fact that the bedsheets were absolutely soaked. Lynn had abandoned ship, jumping from the bed and standing off to the side as she'd desperately tried to wake Abby, who gingerly got up from the bed while moving very carefully so as not to put her back out again. She stood up groggily and Lynn held onto her as the movement threatened to trigger an attack of vertigo.
"That felt weirder than my usual nightmares." Abby observed, noting that the pain in her eye was now gone. As she closed her right eye to check, she realised her vision was now back to one-hundred percent.
"You're concerned about the nightmare?" Lynn looked at her disbelievingly. "Abby, you just started pouring sweat! I've never seen anything like it!" With that, she gestured to the bed. Abby looked and had to do a double-take. Sure enough, the bedsheets were absolutely saturated. But something about it was off. It took her a second to realise what it actually was, but once she realised it, she couldn't look away.
"That's not sweat." Her voice sounded distant and far away as she bent down and pressed two of her fingers against the wet fabric. Still unsure, she brought her fingertips to her lips, her tongue flicking out to graze over them.
"Oh god! That's disgusting!" Lynn screamed. "What are you even doing?"
"It's not sweat." Abby repeated, pointing back to the bed. "Look at it. Really look at it. The place where I was lying is the only dry patch. And if it was sweat, it would be salty. That's fresh water." Lynn looked again. Abby knew she could see it too.
"But that's impossible!" she protested, scratching her head. "I just watched it happen! It all poured out of you!" Abby had no doubt. To her knowledge, Lynn had never lied to her. If that was what she saw, then that was what she saw. But she surely would have been thirsty after losing that much water, wouldn't she? She felt fine. Still, Abby knew from experience that there was only one thing in the world that could saturate a surrounding area to such a degree yet leave space occupied by any solid object untouched: A rainstorm.
Author's Note: Okay, so it feels like a while since I last updated. In truth I've lost track of when it last was but it feels like a while so here's a new chapter. Hope you all enjoyed. Work has been manic to say the least, but I've been slowly adjusting to the change of pace. Big thanks to everyone who's been supporting me thus far. You guys are amazing.
