He expected to see his mother leaning over him as the back of his head hit the floor, but instead, he came face to face with Pachua.
Brenley knew he should have been apologizing, but the words wouldn't come. He bit back a scream instead as the pain finally overtook him, poisonous claws digging through his spine into his lungs. In truth, he felt nothing more than the agony of his death. He wasn't sorry. He cared more for his dromaiusaurus than the boil he had killed. He was a heartless monster. He deserved to be put down.
The reaper lay in silence, without even the beating of his own heart to soothe him. Even in his addled state he had to admit that he probably wouldn't have needed soothing had any of that been true, but recognizing that didn't help. Eventually the steady thuds returned, and with them came an overwhelming urge to cough. He gave in to it, his wet wheezes quieting in time as his irritated throat closed. By all rights, he should have woken up, but his nightmares held him captive and his fever warped those disturbing fantasies until he was paralyzed with fear. He drank a rainbow. He was blinded by his mother. He was a god. Nothing was real.
The boil awoke in time, cold and dry on unfamiliar, unyielding ground. He had expected rock, but this surface was man-made. Tile. Or linoleum. The room was still silent. The lack of sound left him with no excuse not to think. To remember instead of relive. He's killed someone. Killed him. Brutally and seemingly without remorse. Because a Fracs had told him to. How could he have done such a thing? While it was true that none of his mother's life lessons had included such helpful missives as 'don't murder people, no matter what,' it had always seemed like pretty much of a given as far as rules to live by went. Only it wasn't. When he had been backed into a corner, he had proven that he couldn't be trusted. Given the chance to get out of a stressful situation, it didn't matter who he was with. He would leave them behind... he would put them in danger to save his own skin.
Brenley changed his mind. He wanted no part of this. For the first time in his life, the threat of being left alone with his thoughts for even a moment more caused him to react violently. He levered himself up off of the floor, lurching out of the teacher's office and back toward the reaper dorms in a muddled haze, not caring or even really registering that his door was unlocked and his room was in minor disarray. All he wanted to do was sleep, but when he reached his bed, shaking and sweating, something was already occupying it.
The boil backed away with a soft whine until his vision cleared and he realized the animal wasn't a Fracs at all. Where the talking minipet had been pale, this one was vibrant and blessedly silent. It was curled in a ball at the center of his mattress, and even though it didn't belong there, even though he wanted to shoo it away, he was too exhausted to even consider it. Instead, he crawled under the covers beside the animal, hair and clothing stiff with salt, and fell into a fitful slumber.
This time neither his mother nor Pachua were anywhere to be found. Piper waited for him, and Ruth and Hel and Ignatius, their pale, lifeless eyes pleading as he dashed them out. Serafina arrived on their tail, peeling back her mask to reveal a gaping maw full of sharpened teeth. Her voice was a series of piercing clicks, but for reasons that he couldn't make sense of, he understood her completely.
We will all die.
Leave us be or face the consequences.
You are responsible.
And that was the truth of it. All he had to do to protect the ones he cared for was cut all ties and they would be safe. From him. Brenley shifted in his sleep, the pygmy wish curling into his feverish side. Doing so would also mean he would return to the sad existence he had known before Piper had sent him her first handwritten letter, months before school had begun. The thought was physically painful, or maybe that was just his bruised skin. He would vastly prefer them all to die thinking favorably of him than to live with him forgotten. If that made him a despicable person, he was poised to embrace being despicable.