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❝ a night angel makes a day devil❞
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HE IS DROWNING.

Oxygen is escaping his lungs in a hindering mass of bubbles, water flooding in. It's cold and dark, the only light streaming from above blinding his sight. His limbs are draining of energy, a familiar ache spreading throughout his weakening body. Kaede reaches his fingertips upwards.

Something sharp stabs through his ankle.

A strangled cry rips from his throat, a horde of bubbles capturing the space before him. He hears nothing of his pain, his world a silent void. Looking down, he sees but a long, needle-like object buried into his skin, connected to a tube filled with crimson. It anchors him down, chaining him to a pulsating weight in the depths below.

Terror seizes him when he notices that the tube is straightening out, as though it's being reeled in. It's going to pull him down, the darkness swallowing him up into whatever is down there. He doesn't want to know what is there. He doesn't want to see what is there. His eyes snap up to the surface once more.

He has to get there before he's dragged down.

The cage in his chest tightens painfully, lunging for air only for freezing water to flow in instead. Panicked, Kaede kicks his tiring legs and surges through the light towards the ceiling.

He crashes straight into a wall, knocking him back.

Choking, Kaede screams into the void and slams his hands against the barrier. His vision is blurry, his senses faded as he's unable to make out what is on the other side. He can only trash violently, weak, delicate bone and adamantine surface colliding, nails digging and scratching desperately against the impenetrable barrier. He feels a force on his ankle and looks down, through dark lashes faintly showing that the tube is only seconds away from tugging him down into his demise. The realisation seizes him.

He's going to die.

He can't even scream, only muster a suffocated noise of pure horror and anger. Horror at the countless more needle-tipped tubes swimming towards him like snakes. Anger at the unfairness of all this—everything.

He's going to die, deprived of every chance to live.

It's not fair.

Has it not been for the water, then his sobs then would be heard, and his tears seen apart from his world. Kaede feels his hope shatter and crumble, helplessness siphoning his energy. He looks back at the wall, desperate for something—anything—to save him from this cruel fate.

A shadow—a hand—presses against it.

The shock is only momentary, because, within seconds, his own hand is already slicing through the water. As skin and ice collide, shadow upon shadow, a crack pierces into his ears before the wall shatters before his eyes. Shards of mirror-like ice capture his vision as fingers weave through his hands, before he feels himself turn and lift, the side of his body crashing through the surface first. Bubbles cloud his vision, lashes descending.

And like a clockwise switch, he ascends into the light, airy space, just as the figure before him descends into the dark water.

And as their worlds become separate once more, the border in between them seals itself back up, leaving but a trembling hand to slam against ice. Shreds of pale skin and a mess of dark hair can be glimpsed beneath, but it's none of that which makes his heart stop, the last of his oxygen knocked out of his lungs.

For it's the last thing he sees before the figure is stabbed by tens of needles, their hands ripped from the ice as they're dragged violently down.

A pair of dark, oceanic-blue eyes.

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Kaede wakes with a start.

Sweat layers his skin, his breaths fast and quick. He calms down, realising that he's still in his room. His new room, he quickly reminds himself too, his heart rate spiking up briefly when he, at first, doesn't recognise the foreign interior. Glancing out his window, he still sees the apartment buildings before, only with less window lit. He checks the clock; it's late, only minutes from going past 12 p.m.

I should go back to sleep.

Once he's positive he's safe, Kaede shuts his eyes, traces of the dream still lingering in his head. He attempts to erase them, specifically the last image. Through the darkness of his closed eyelids, he clutches his bolster and waits for sleep suffocate him.

And wakes up.

He can't sleep, not with the dream he just had. Instead of counting sheep, all his mind can think of is every aspect of the nightmare—the water, the ice, the eyes—

Especially the eyes.

A blue so alike to oceans within her eyes.

Sitting up, Kaede rubs the drowsiness from his own pair and pulls his legs in, propping his chin against his knees. Oddly enough, he can still recall every bit of the dream, but even with as much thought as he can muster, there's nothing about it that he can understand. Like all dreams, all it does is give him questions without answers.

Specifically as to what was about to drag him down. And why those eyes remind him of someone else's so much.

What did it all mean?

Kaede heaves out a sigh. At this rate, he's not going to fall back asleep any time soon. He bets Quentin is probably sleeping peacefully at this time, and with school tomorrow, he, too, needs exactly that.

But it's most certainly not going to come to him anytime soon.

He looks around his room, still unable to accept the fact that he's actually moved. It's so strange, being someplace else, but nonetheless, it will all sink in eventually. His gaze wanders to the boxes at the side, mostly unopened, with only essentials like soap taken out and ones with clothes opened. Kaede cocks his head, an idea coming to mind.

Usually, if one can't sleep, passing the time tends to help.

And perhaps a bit of exploring would do just that.