Something is wrong. My eyes were blinking asynchronously, trying to deal with the brightness. I tried to remember, to identify. I was in my house. My house? A house. This feeling laid deep in my chest, beating alongside with my heart. Something is missing. Something is wrong. Something is missing. Something is wrong.

For someone who had supposedly just woken up my breathing was accelerated, chest rising and falling with the weight of that suffocating oscillation. I laid there for a while, trying to gather my thoughts and to calm myself. But I just drew blanks, spiralling back into what pulsated in my very core.

I had to distance myself from that, I sat up, feeling the softness of the bed and the sheets, I grasped the material world to flee from my thoughts. Looking around and still seeing nothing beyond the blurriness of the light I noticed a faint but all-consuming ticking of a clock. I don’t know if it was there from the start but it made its presence unquestionable now.

It was bothering me. I was out of sync with it. Speeding up again: breathing, beating, and thinking; not that anything was getting any clearer though, the fog was still there but instead of walking through it I was now jogging. 

This place maybe wasn’t mine but it was familiar in a way, everything was a blurry mess not just because of the harsh sunlight creeping through the window but also because I needed my glasses.

Well, that was also missing, but it wasn’t it… tick, tock. Fuck… So much was going on in my head: house, missing, glasses, wrong, clock, tick, WHY, tock, HOW, tick, WHEN, tock, WHAT WAS MISSING!?

I came back to myself and I was hyperventilating, my throat hurt as though I might’ve just shouted that last part, I couldn’t be sure. It could also be something else, I could feel it constricting and drying up as something was welling up inside of me. I got up, grunting and groaning, hugging myself, thrashing around trying to relieve some of this pressure and growing discomfort.

As my hoarse throat let out a particularly long wail a sense of realisation started creeping up on me. I was wrong. I was missing something, and it hurt so much. No, not something, someone, the vague idea of a face came to mind, completely indiscernible, but I knew that if I saw it I would recognize it.

That angst from before subsided, giving space to my genuine feelings: the pressure in my eyes started flowing as tears blurred reality even more, i felt hollow both in body, as I wished for that someone to come in and complete me, and in mind as my other thoughts vanished, letting this yearning grow in their absence.

It felt as if I was out of my body, IT was moving, acting, IT was seeing (as well as it could), but I wasn’t; stuck there with that vacuum. I wanted to wander, to run away, to cower, and all I could do was drown in this feeling, I was alone, distant even from myself.

It stumbled onto something, something like itself, I hugged it, still crying, closing my eyes hoping that it would return the favor. It felt like a long time, standing there, embracing whatever it was, whatever it COULD be, in the silence of my sobbing.

In truth, I don’t know if it was actually quiet, that was another sense that had abandoned me. I only knew I was making noise because the croaks crawled up my throat as they convulsed my core.

But thinking about it brought it back slowly, first a long and continuous *beeeeeeeep* that dissipated and gave place to a ticking… No, a beating, not mine, at least not now. “Is it better?” I could hear a smooth voice say.

It hurt again, I knew that voice, it was familiar, I wanted it to be the answer, but I couldn’t afford it if it wasn’t. It was warm, I could feel it now, logically it was probably someone, but how would I know if it was who I needed?

“Hey shhhh, you’re not alone… You wanna find what you’ve been missing right? Why not open those beautiful eyes?” As much as I was scared that this all was going to lead to nothing I was also curious, hoping that it wouldn’t as I took a leap of faith.

I was in a corridor apparently, tightly hugging someone, resting my head on its chest, our beating one. Slowly pulling away from that shirt wet with my tears I looked up reluctantly.

Through the watery curtains of my eyes I could see the vague aspects of a face, THE face, THEIR face. Relief surged through me, all the tension left my limbs as they slacked a bit before I pulled them even closer, burying my face again in a tighter embrace.

This time though they did return the favor, with a hand landing in my head, playing with my hair. “You woke up a bit sooner than expected, and…” I was listening attentively, their voice now carried a bit of uncertainty and guilt. “We also might… have boggled it a bit…”

As much as I was thankful for being with them I also felt that this couldn’t be my doing at all. And either they realised what they said or I shifted slightly in the embrace and they noticed, because they followed it up: “Alright, I fucked it.” That was more like it.

“I think we should leave this idea for some other day and just watch a movie together.” That last word brought heat and animosity all over my body; YES, I wanted to be together, as close as we could, so I nodded, face scratching against their shirt. “Alright, we’ll… I’ll just have to fix that first. Would you sleep for me…