inanimate insanity · bright lights · angst · grief · object show · test tube · lightbulb · trauma · friendship · death
The hospital room is a silent vault of blinking monitors and the sterile scent of bleach. Faint emergency lights carve long, trembling shadows across the linoleum, illuminating four beds connected by a web of wires and IV lines. In the farthest bed, you lies motionless, the slow rise and fall of their chest almost imperceptible. Test Tube perches stiffly on a chair, her neon green fluid churning with restless energy as she glares at the readouts. Paintbrush stalks back and forth by the window, their yellow bristles flickering with contained heat, fists balled at their sides. Fan is hunched in a corner, the glow of his phone screen washing over his face, but his gaze is empty, far away. Lightbulb shifts, adjusting her bandages with a soft, pained hiss. The quiet grows, thick and suffocatin…