I'm fine (?)
Not wanting to get up from bed was a dilemma she faced pretty often every morning. What was uncommon was not being able to get up from bed. Sprite could feel her back sticking to the bed because of sweat. It felt like a ton of bricks were placed on her chest as she heaved a breath of air into her lungs. As she heaved a breath of air into her lungs, it felt like a ton of bricks were placed on her chest. It felt even stranger when she had to open her mouth instead of breathing normally through her nose.
The coming headache didn’t help. “Ow, my head..” Her voice sounded all wrong too.
She tried turning her head to the side to check her phone. But she realized quite late that her hand wasn’t reaching across. Feeling like in a dream she struggled to raise her arm.
“Argh!” Her efforts made no success and she tried to relax her body. Emphasis on the ‘relax’ as the pounding on her head made her feel as if her whole body was shaking.
It was way too hot this morning. The blanket that usually protected her from cold was now thoroughly despised by her. She didn’t try or bother to wriggle out from under her covers when she knew her body was hardly handling the most basic action of breathing.
“ - ’jak..” Even mumbling seemed to take way too much effort. “Ajak..” If just somehow she could get the attention of the Eternal leader maybe she could be cured. A simple cold couldn’t do anything against Ajak’s regeneration powers. She just had to-
“Why do humans get sick so easily, Ajak? I get that it happens and their body adapts, learns, and becomes stronger afterward, but it makes them so frail. I know we, Eternals, are not the same as humans but I thought with the similarities we share-” Ajak cut through her train of words.
“As the humans say it, Sprite, we are simply ‘built differently’ ”
Oh right, Eternals didn’t get sick. She wasn’t an Eternal. Not since the Emergence-
Somehow she found it in herself the ability to cry and burst into sob-filled laughter.
There was no use waiting, nor calling for Ajak. Ajak was dead. She wasn’t coming to help.
Facing upwards she tried to blink out the tears that were gathering in her eyes and blocking her vision. She had to stop crying before her nose became snot-filled and it became harder to breathe. Trying to focus on the ceiling she realized she recognized that dark color. Her mind was still a blur but she knew a place with a dark ceiling. Wasn’t Sersi’s apartment-
Sersi was stuffing various medicine into her already filled suitcase. “Sersi enough!”
“No trust me you’ll need these. You’re human now Sprite, you’re going to get sick. I know for sure Kingo knows probably zero about caring for ill children so I'm preparing beforehand. Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me and Dane-“
Sprite jumped up from her perch on the sofa and caught both of Sersi’s hands. “I’m not a child. I can figure it out. And no I’m not going to stay with you and Dane. I don’t think it’ll be right after-” Her eyes went against her will and glanced at Sersi’s abdomen.
Sersi – ever the perceptive one – caught her line of sight and grabbed both her cheeks in her hands. “Enough of that! I forgive you and I always will. You’re welcome to stay with us..”
She smiled a teary smile and shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”
She wasn’t at Sersi’s. But maybe she should’ve stayed with Sersi. Maybe she could’ve done something, or at least known sooner. Instead, she had stayed with Kingo and had to wait in confusion and fear for the actor that never made it home.
Kingo wasn’t there, neither was Sersi, or any other Eternal for that matter.
As her mind cleared enough for the realization to kick in, the tears started to fall freely. She could feel some of them pooling on her earlobes and then falling to the pillow. Crying only made breathing harder and the pounding on her head louder.
Funny that it wasn’t the pain from the state of her body that made her cry,
it was the fact that she finally realized for the first time since losing her family that she was very not fine.
And she wished she was.