☆ kian.
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The nightmare seemed to have Kian in its clutches even after he woke up. A heavy, suffocating weight on his chest, even though there was nothing visibly there. And a voice from within, not without, speaking to him. But he wasn't listening, because his bones had turned to immovable lead and he wanted to get away, but he was trapped and nothing would lift, not even his own chest. Even his breath was trapped within him, while empty air pushed down on his chest outside; two mountains rammed against each other, neither willing to give.
It was an angry voice. It grew louder sometimes and faded other times, into a distant tunnel in his head. It was always angry, the voice, trying to get him to pay attention, but he didn’t have the energy to listen. Sometimes it pulsed through him and pushed outward, as though it wanted to leave his head, but the oppressive weight on his chest unfailingly clamped down harder at these times. The voice would abate then, while his breath felt like it was momentarily extinguished, but once the voice retreated back into his head, Kian’s breath ballooned back into his lungs.
Occasionally, he was aware of other things. Like light behind his eyelids, sometimes bright and sometimes dim, and faraway voices, outside his head. Like the memory of a time when his suffocating, impenetrable sleep was quiet. Without a voice in his head constantly trying to pierce through. Like the memory of a time before that, when he wore sleep comfortably, like a fluffy blanket; when his eyes were open, welcoming the light; when his breath flew out of him and flew back in again, when he walked and ran and fell and laughed and cried and listened and spoke- without particularly noticing his own body most of the time, without thinking of the ponderous mechanisms that somehow, in split seconds, had it do his bidding.
Kian suffered sleep. For many, many months, before waking up one day, as suddenly as he had fallen into the burdensome sleep. His eyes were wet and gummy. The light hurt him, so he kept his eyes shut. The noises outside had sharpened until he could pay attention to them and make them out: beeping machines, clashing female voices. He ignored the voice in his head in favour of listening to them.
He tried to sit up, and a couple of people rushed to his aid, lifting his pillows against the headboard and maneuvering him by the shoulders. Kian sighed, blinking until his eyes agreed to stay open and accept the light. Blearily, he could see someone leaning towards him.
“Hello, Kian, I’m glad you’ve woken up,” said the women, who looked too bright. Belatedly, Kian realised that it was the light interacting with her white, white coat. “I’m Dr. Yi, I attended to you,” she added.
“...Water…” he gurgled, and they miraculously understood what he was trying to say. The other woman who was in a nurse’s uniform (also too bright) held a glass to his lips. He had to stop after a few sips and collapse back against the pillows, even though he still wanted water. It hurt going down his throat.
“We didn’t expect this day would ever come,” said the nurse. “Your mother is going to be so happy. She isn’t here right now. Working night and day to pay for your hospital bills, poor thing. But we’ve called her, and she’s overjoyed. She’ll come see you soon.”
“How are you feeling?” interrupted Dr. Yi.
“...Okay?” tried Kian. His voice gurgled and scratched its way up its throat, and his body felt limp and achy, but this was miles better than the sleep.
“Any pain or discomfort?”
“...I feel kind of icky… and weak… and my head hurts… throat too.”
Dr. Yi nodded. “Of course there’s going to be a period of recuperation. We won’t discharge you just yet.”
Later his mother came, and when she held his head against her, petting his hair, Kian found he’d missed her. He’d never thought about it in his sleep, in fact he’d never thought- he’d just been a bundle of sensations and impressions- but still, he’d missed her. His mother cried into his hair, and he cried into her embrace.
The rest of the afternoon passed with them doing various tests on him, that were tedious but thankfully didn't take too long. The nurse asked him if he wanted to try eating, but he didn't feel like he could stomach anything just yet. Anyway, there was the IV drip.
After night fell, his mother fell asleep by his bedside, but Kian did not want to sleep no matter how his body groaned. That was when the voice in his head decided to surface again.
“Your name is Kian? Interesting. It’s rare that a given name is fitting.”
Kian was startled. He’d thought the voice in his head had only been a sort of dream, present throughout his sleep for no other reason but that it was a dream. Not real.
“I’m real.” A sharp jab through his sternum. Kian shuddered, easily winded in his weakened state. “See? I’m just sharing your body is all. It’s not something to get worried or worked up about.”
Kian’s breath became shallower. How was it not something to get worked up about? He was hearing a voice clearly in his head, and it was not made up, or in his control. He couldn’t predict what it would say. It was like another person, a stranger in his head.
“As long as you cooperate with me, I won’t make things difficult for you. You can go about your everyday life as usual. Nobody can hear me but you, you know.”
“Get out of me,” whimpered Kian. “Get out of my head!”
“You don’t need to talk to me, you’d look like a lunatic to other people and anyway I can hear your thoughts.”
Kian’s throat constricted. He wondered if he was going crazy.
“You’re not. This is just a… co-living situation. You know? Your eyes are windows to your soul because your body is actually a house. For your soul. With windows. I’m just sharing your house.”
He was definitely fucking crazy.
“You’re not! Look, I can prove to you that I’m real, look-” Kian’s hand lifted and he touched the top of his mother’s head, but it wasn’t by Kian’s will that his hand moved. Kian actually couldn’t feel his hand at all. As though momentarily, his hand wasn’t his. He couldn’t even feel his mother’s hair beneath his palm.
A scream nearly tore out of him, but his voice was forcefully lobbed back down his throat before it could truly leave it. He gagged.
“That proof enough for you?”
“Leave me alone,” croaked Kian. “Move on from this world... or haunt someone else… please.”
“I’m not a ghost. I’m a God.”
Kian couldn’t believe it. Gods didn’t exist. At least, even if they did exist, Gods didn’t behave like ghosts. Gods had better things to do than to inflict themselves on a human in this way for a lark. Surely.
“I’m not doing this for a lark, boy.”
Resentfully, Kian wondered why the hell this God was sitting in his head and examining everything in it, then. “As a God, don’t you have a responsibility not to be a voyeuristic pervert? Set a better example for your devotees, geez.”
“...You’ve been through a lot, so I’m going to excuse your impertinence, just this once.”
“Isn’t this a major violation of my human rights?” whined Kian, taking no notice.
“I’M YOUR GOD,” the voice boomed suddenly. Kian wondered whether his eardrums could burst from the inside. “I DECIDE WHAT YOUR FUCKING RIGHTS ARE. I CAN ROAST YOU IN ETERNAL HELLFIRE IF I WANT, WITHOUT A TRIAL OR AN APPEAL. JUST CAUSE I FEEL LIKE.”
“...Fucking dictator,” muttered Kian.
The voice said, “Shut up. And stop thinking of me as ‘the voice’, that’s The Presiding God of Death, Magnificent and Terrible, Zarai the First to you.”
“Your name’s Zarai,” deadpanned Kian.
“...If you’re too much of a lazybones to address me by my full title, at least call me God,” whined Zarai.
“Are all the Gods this fucking creepy?” asked Kian.
“Go to sleep,” muttered Zarai. To his horror, Kian found his body stretching out on the bed and his eyes closing against his wishes.
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