Fictional Reality.

Blaze POV.
I was suspended in a world of fog and pain. My whole body felt like it was on fire, burning from the inside out. Sometimes the pain would abate for a time, the fire cooling, reducing to a simmer deep down inside. Sometimes I would try to reach for the fog, its cooling touch dancing on the edge of my fingertips. But I couldn’t move. Always the agony came roaring back. Setting every nerve ending on fire and burning, burning, always burning. I would open my mouth to scream from the agony of it all, but no sound came out. What was happening to me? When would this end? God I wanted it to end. I wanted to crawl into that cooling fog and let it take me away to whatever world of peace waited, but every time I reached out towards it, a voice called. Summoning me back to fire and torture. Let me go. Let this end. I screamed at the voice. But no sound came out.
~*~
Distant voices broke through the fog, dragging me from the blazing grip of pain. Who was I? Where was I? Why were the voices shouting? Why were they so far away? Who were they? Their voices faded in and out of the fog, only leaving me with snippets.
“…supposed to be here!”
“You gave her your blood! … should have waited … Look at her!! … isn’t strong enough.”
“I … as long as I could. … died if I hadn’t …”
“… only gone a few hours!”
“… BEEN GONE FOR FIVE DAYS!”
“…HAD NO RIGHT!”
“I HAD NO CHOICE … WEREN’T HERE…”
Why were they so angry? Was it to do with me? Did I do something wrong? Panic started to lace through me. What had I done? What had I caused? I had to fix it. I had to get them to stop. A third, more melodic voice cut through the shouting.
“Enough. … isn’t helping her… Look. …needs rest.” The angry voices stopped, but the panic was still there. I tried to fight through the clinging embrace of pain and fog. I had to get to those voices. I was why they were shouting. I had to… A cool touch brushed across my forehead and a soft, familiar, voice spoke clearly.
“Sleep Blair. Rest. Recover. Sleep.” It commanded. I could feel myself slipping back down into that foggy world of fire and blazing agony. No. Did the voice not know where it was sending me? Did it not know that this wasn’t sleep? It was torture. It was condemning me to hell. NO…

~*~
You know they say that waking up suddenly means you don’t feel the hurt as much? Yeah, I could confirm that it was bullshit. I came roaring back to consciousness, my entire body one big ouch. Every muscle ached and strained. I felt like I had run a marathon. Then been set on fire. Then someone had danced on the ashes just for giggles. I groaned, trying to push myself upright. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Nope, no that hurt too much. My arms may as well have been jelly for all the good they did me. Right ok. Fine. Let’s just settle for opening your eyes. I slowly cracked an eye open, expecting to be blinded by bright light. Instead I was greeted by a dim room, the only source of light a small lamp. I opened my eye a bit more, taking in the room around me. I was in my bedroom. In my bed. In my PJ’s. That was weird, I could have sworn I was in the gym. There was a figure at the bottom of my bed. I opened my other eye and looked up at Zacky. He cracked a small smile, unable to hide the relief that was in his eyes.
“Hey you. About time you joined the land of the living.” I tried to smile back, but found that my mouth felt weird. What was that? Why did my teeth feel weird? I moved my jaw around. Why did my teeth feel too big for my mouth? “Yeah, they take some getting used to.” Commented Zacky, smiling a little more. What was he … Oh. Shit. The realisation dawned on me that my mouth felt weird because it had to two giant fangs sitting in it. Fangs. I lay there, letting the implication of that thought sink in for a moment.
“You ok there little wolf? Or should I call you The Littlest Vampire now?” Danger’s soft voice came from the same direction Zacky was in. I lifted my head, to see her stood slightly behind Zacky, smiling at me.
“Oh pleash god no.” I muttered, startling myself with the lisp. “Whaa?” How on earth did anyone manage to talk with these giant monstrosities in their mouth?
“It may take you a while to adjust to that. Give it a day or two and you should be able to figure out how to retract them.” I clearly looked startled as Danger chuckled. Zacky, at least, had the decency to try not to laugh. A snort sounded from next to me, making me jump slightly, then wince from the sudden movement. Slowly I turned my head to the left, fighting the urge to jump with surprise again when I found Synyster sitting in an armchair next to my bed, one leg crossed over the other, looking for all the world like he owned the damn place. I frowned.
“Yoo movd my chair.” He snorted again.
“Good to know you have your priorities straight.” He mumbled, yawning. He looked exhausted, there were dark bags under his eyes and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Now that my brain was over the initial shock of waking up and finding that I had changed, it had decided that I very much didn’t want to be horizontal anymore. I tried to push myself upright again, my arms wobbling and screaming in protest. Zacky and Synyster both darted forwards to stop me. Zacky glared at Gates until he slowly sank back into my chair.
“Easy there sis. Take it steady, you’ve been through a hell of a lot. Here, let me help.” I let Zacky help me into a sitting position, wincing a little as the pain in my muscles flared up again. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Synyster’s eyes narrow and dart up and down me as if assessing where I was hurting.
“Thso, huu’s gunma ell me whaa appened?” I scowled at my inability to speak properly, I sounded ridiculous. Thankfully my gathered audience seemed to understand what I was asking.
“You changed.” Replied Zacky earning a punch in the shoulder from Danger. He winced and glanced at her reproachfully as he stepped out of her reach.
“Very helpful oh font of all knowledge.” Snapped Danger, glaring at him. He winced again and took another step away from her. I’d never seen the two of them anything but close. What had happened to make Danger so pissed? She turned to me, her glare disappearing as she sat on the end of my bed. “What was the last thing you remember?” I frowned and opened my mouth to reply, but remembering my inability to speak properly, promptly shut it again. Danger smiled. “You remember being in the gym?” I nodded. I remembered running and watching her fight Synyster and feeling weird and … nothing after that. “Ok, you collapsed in the gym.” I blushed. For the love of Christ, I passed out after basic exercise? In front of Synyster? Great. I wasn’t going be living that down any time soon. “You passed out because the Vampire Change started.” Clarified Danger. “I imagine you’d been having subtle symptoms for days before, but hadn’t realised.” I could feel myself getting redder. I had been feeling a little off, but I thought it was just me being unfit. The look on Zacky’s face said we were going to be having a conversation about that later. “The later a change hits, the worse it can be. It hit you pretty hard chick. You went through a hell of a lot in a short space of time. We had to make a couple of judgement calls when things didn’t exactly go to plan.” Next to me Synyster snorted again and glared at Zacky.
“You can say that again.” He muttered as Zacky glared right back at him.
“Can I talk to you outside for a moment?” At the bottom of my bed, Danger rolled her eyes at me and mouthed men with an exasperated look. I didn’t miss the concerned look at that Synyster gave me before he got to his feet. Zacky pinned me with a firm look before I could ask what that look was for. “I’m going to be right outside the door Blair. If you feel anything, anything weird, or painful, or odd at all, you call me. Ok?” I frowned at him. I could cope without him in the room and opened my mouth to say as much before he interrupted me. “Ok?” He repeatedly firmly. I just nodded silently and watched as the two men stepped outside the door and shut it. I could hear them start to whisper at each other .Danger sighed.
“So I, the non-vampire in the room, shall explain the ins and outs of her change then shall I?” There was no answer from the hall, but the whispered conversation paused for a moment before resuming. She rolled her eyes again. “Right, so I’ll cover a few important things you need to know since apparently no-one else will.” Again the conversation in the hall paused for a guilty second. “First, the vampire change can be tricky. It’s not as straight forward as the Wolf change where if you make it through the shift, the worst is over. It’s like a sickness.” I nodded, remembering that Zacky had said as much when he was talking me through some of what to expect. “Ok, like most sicknesses, the first week is the worst – that’s when most of the physical changes happen.” She waved a hand vaguely towards my newly acquired fangs. “It hurts like hell to start, but slowly it fades to something like a bad case of the flu. Trouble is, it’s very easy to regress. For the change to start to reverse itself. The presence of a full blooded vamp being nearby helps to prevent that. It kind of grounds you in the present and reminds the change to keep pushing. So, for the next few weeks you better get used to having company, because one – or both – of those two is going to be loitering pretty close by to keep an eye on you.” Eh? Zacky never mentioned that during his “prep” talks. I clearly looked pretty confused as Danger smiled. “You’re gunna have to have one of them either in the room or just outside for at least the next month. Sorry Little Wolf, but you’re going to have to get used to it.”
“I gee Thacky, buu hyy thiiniser?” I protested, wincing at my mangled English. Synyster scared me, he was always moody and I was fairly certain he hated me. Why was he even here? The smile slowly disappeared from Danger’s face. “Wah ‘apenne?”
“Like I said earlier, some things didn’t go to plan. Your change was happening too fast. Matt dragged Zacky out on a big recon mission. Things…went a little wrong.” The way she said that made me think there was more to the story than she was giving me. “The First Hunger hit before we could get him back. Zacky had always planned to anchor your change, but we had to make some decision calls when you took a turn for the worse. Gates was the only vampire here, he had to step in instead.” I leaned back against the bed and let that sink in. I had a feeling that she was downplaying the whole scenario. I had more questions than I knew what to do with. My head felt fuzzy from it all. I squinted, trying to focus on Danger. Why was she all blurry? Was she saying something? It looked like she was shouting. But that couldn’t be right, because I couldn’t hear her. I shook my head, blinking, as I tried to focus. Across the room the door slammed open and two figures raced in, both charging towards the bed. Zacky came into focus next to me. He was speaking to me, reaching towards me. Why couldn’t I hear him? My vision started to get black spots dancing around in it. My head was spinning. Then a voice cut through the haze, sounding as though it was being shouted down a tube at a distance – all distorted and far away. I didn’t know whose it was.
“Blair! Blair!! Look at me! LOOK AT ME!” My vision started to darken again. All I could remember was turning my head and staring into two pools of deep chocolate. Eyes, they were someone’s eyes. They were beautiful. They looked scared. So scared. That wasn’t right. They shouldn’t be scared. I couldn’t look away from those eyes. Everything was darkening around them, until all I could see was those two beautiful eyes. And then, it all went black.

Notes