The black sky ran away.
Orange showed up for a second before it was replaced by a pleasant light blue.
Wonderful weather.
...
Clayton was still asleep.
...
A beautiful summer day,
smooth green grass, smooth blue sky.
Puffy white clouds far away.
The leaves on the trees rustled in the wind.
Not too hot or too cold, just perfect.
...
It's a new day now,
said the sun,
beaming light through the windows of Clayton's green millionaire house.
It would always turn his floors and walls white in unexplainable patterns
and when he stepped into a beam, he would always feel its comforting warm glow
and maybe smile.
...
Clayton was still asleep.
...
All the people with jobs started driving to work.
School bells rang and clocks ticked,
far away from the green can of sparkling water on Clayton's bedside table
next to his... phone.
The phone was ready to display the pings once it was turned on.
The window in his room was missing a protective film.
Birds chirped outside.
...
His body decided that he had been resting for long enough.
It opened his eyes.
...
The next second, the world got less blurry
and he was staring at a white power outlet on a light-gray wall,
just like the day before.
Yes,
just like yesterday.
And he knew that tomorrow had to be the same, of course.
Clayton turned over in his bed and faced the light green drink sitting on his table.
His eyes shifted to his phone, lying upside down,
within grasp.
He reached for it.
...
Empty head.
All was fine, all was neutral.
...
He picked the phone up off the table,
pulled it close to him,
and pressed the power button.
Click.
The screen turned on.
And then he blinked a couple of times with sleepy eyes.
The messages on the screen waited patiently for him to process them.
...
The birds outside were chirping, always chirping.
Too loud. Far too loud up in the nests, in the trees.
Chicks begging for food non-stop, high-pitched tones bouncing around inside tiny skulls.
Bouncing, bouncing, not caring that the nearest human was struggling to breathe.
Not caring that the click felt like the trigger of a gun,
not caring that the human had put a cold hand on his throat
and let out a little choke which could be barely heard but not seen.
...
Something in his stomach was rearranged,
very unsettled, very wrong.
That can't have happened.
His head felt too heavy, eyes too wide
as he gripped his phone and scrolled through the messages,
realizing slowly that it wouldn't change, that there would be no new message saying haha, that was all a joke.
His throat felt smashed in. Maybe a sledgehammer.
...
Clayton assumed he was dreaming.
But breathing faster did not wake him up.
Widening his eyes more and more did not wake him up.
I was supposed to talk to him
tomorrow.
Shock. Shock more than anything else, a shock to which he had never had the chance to become desensitized.
A shock that drowned out emotions with an electrical current, somehow.
He remembered a fanfiction he had read a long time ago,
all his online friends going about their adventures in a typical high school.
In the story, Dream and Technoblade looked out for each other, helping each other with homework.
Technoblade was in thousands of stories and millions of minds.
People like that don't
just
leave.
...
The leaves kept rustling outside and the birds kept chirping and
oh why
couldn't they just stop chirping for a second?
Drowning in hot water.
Yes,
that was what it felt like.
And for the first time in his life, he realized
that if he stopped breathing, he would
die.
...
Sweating in hot water.
His throat was too tight.
The air was missing. He needed nice, fresh air.
Don't throw up, don't throw up.
...
Yes, air. He forgot what it felt like. Couldn't remember where to get it. Couldn't focus.
Dizzy.
He stumbled over to his window,
his phone in his pocket.
Gripped the window frame to steady himself.
He slid the window open, desperately. Blinked.
He realized there was no protective film on the window. No barrier.
...
He let go of the window frame.
He noticed that his hands were shaking. Couldn't remember it ever happening before. Couldn't think.
Strained breaths.
...
A beam of sunshine hit him straight in the face
and his eyes started to hurt.
Need... more air.
He stepped through the window
onto the flat part of the
roof.