Sleeper

For a moment, as he opened his eyes to absolute darkness, he wondered if he was still dreaming. It would certainly explain the utter heaviness of his limbs, as though gravity was ten times normal sea level, and the strong scent of lavender. He let his eyes close again and drifted, half-asleep still and unwilling to let go of the rest.

But even in the middle of the night there should have been some light in his room. Some kind of noise beyond his own breath. If nothing else his computer was a constant background hum of fans, power and blinking lights - but there was nothing. No fans, no electricity humming down the wires, no coloured lights throwing weird shadows across the walls and ceiling. Nothing at all, in fact, but the still-strong lavender scent and the increasing tempo of his heartbeat.

It's just a dream, he comforted himself, curling up under the blankets and snuggling into the pillow. None of this is real, and chances are when I wake up I won't even remember it. Go back to sleep.

Lavender and the exploding patterns behind his eyelids lulled him back to sleep.


~*~*~*~*~

The next time he woke up it was with an inexplicable sense of dread. He didn't open his eyes, didn't move, just breathed long and slow and listened, hard.

Breathing - his. Heartbeat - his, incredibly loud and thumping. Sheets - moving slightly as he breathed, the crisp sound was nothing like the well-worn cotton of his own bed. Now that he noticed, it wasn't his pillow either, still smotheringly soft with none of the shaped lumps that came from use. It was all new. And still there was the overpowering smell of lavender.

Well, it didn't sound like there was anyone else nearby, and the urge to look and find out where he was opened his eyes before he could manage a more conscious thought.

It didn't help.

He sat bolt upright, hands flying to his face to check that he wasn't blindfolded, and even directly in front of his face he could see nothing. His eyes were open wide, trying desperately to take in as much light as possible so he could see...but there was nothing. No noise but his hitching breaths and rustling sheets, no light at all.

Was he blind? Was this what being blind was like? He needed to find a light switch, a door, anything that might give him light - hell, he'd settle for a glow-in-the-dark sticker (like the ones on his ceiling fan at home - never bright but always there, points to focus on when everything else was shadows and white noise).

Throwing back the covers - a quilt and sheet he noticed absently, noting the hint of bite in the cool air - he patted his way to the edge of the mattress, swinging his legs over the side and carefully inching forward until his feet touched ground. It felt like carpet but shifted under his feet as he stood and took a hesitant step, arms stretched out like a cartoon zombie. He felt ridiculous, but it was all he could do to keep from stumbling face first into a wall.

Tentatively, he shuffled along, wary of bedside tables or other knee-height obstacles that he wouldn't find with his hands. Sure enough he soon plowed into an object, smacking his shin into the hard-but-soft surface and stumbling forward with a muttered swearword of pained surprise. His hands met rumpled sheets as he caught himself and he blinked rapidly in the darkness. He'd only just stepped away from the bed, surely he couldn't have gotten turned around quite that fast? He felt along the edge and found the pillow; with luck, the head would be up against a wall and he'd have something more solid to follow.

Sure enough the mattress butted up against the cool smoothness of painted plaster, and he almost hugged the wall. Thank God, now if only he could find the light switch...

He set off, keeping contact with the wall with one hand and waving the other in front of him, occasionally ducking to sweep for objects below knee height and he was gratified to find another low-slung object before running into it.

This, too, was a bed. There were definitely at least two beds in this room, and the other one had been used.

"Hello?" he called tentatively, still keeping one hand on the wall like it was his lifeline. "Is someone there? Hello?"

He waited for an answer for a long time, eventually admitting defeat when the silence was ringing loudly in his ears. "Guess I'm on my own..."

He trailed a hand along the bed, following the edge to the foot and then back up to the head where it contacted the wall, and continued to make his way around the room. He kept a careful mental map of what he had explored, including little objects that he found along the way, like a sock he tied around his ankle for lack of any pockets, and a stuffed animal - he thought it was a teddy bear - that he picked up and hugged with the hand that wasn't constantly connected to the wall. Near those places he ran his hands all over the walls, trying to find why there was something else there, but all he ever found was smooth painted plaster.

And then he turned the fourth corner and found a bed again. The same bed as last time - the one he hadn't woken up in. He was almost 100% certain it was the same bed, but better to be safe - he edged his way around it and the next bed, and then found another corner. He was back at the beginning. Frantically he searched again, sweeping every inch of the wall the could reach, and then the floor, and then just flailing through the air in the hopes of hitting something, but there was nothing.

There was no door.

There was no light switch.

There was nothing in this room except two beds and a sock and a teddy bear and no one else.

He made his way back to the bed he had woken up in, curled up around the teddy bear of his vanished roommate, and desperately hoped to wake up.