Event Prompt
Event Prompt 3 of ??? As it grows closer to Halloween, you find your sleep to be practically non-existent. If you’re lucky, you manage to get 1-3 hours of rest at best and the nightmares grow worse, almost to the point where the memories of them haunt you during your waking hours. You can’t seem to satisfy your ever-growing hunger and any meat you manage to scarf down ends up being more raw than not. Your skin starts to itch, any scratching causes sores over your body or hair loss at your scalp. What skin hasn't been scratched is turning a sickly pale, almost green shade. Maybe you've caught some sort of virus or bug that's going around?
Okay, so whatever this grumpiness was, it was not only unnatural, it was caused by something that was frankly really gross. Owen had never been a particularly heavy meat-eater, but lately he'd been hungry enough that it didn't matter - if it was there, he had to try and eat it. His mom had definitely noticed the kitchen getting emptier, and more than that he was sleeping so little that she'd noticed that too despite how many hours she worked. She had even started talking about talking to a sleep doctor. And if he had any hope that something like that would help, Owen would have agreed to it.
But he didn't. Not when things were getting so weird, so instead he had ended up shouting at her, having the first real argument he'd gotten into with his mother in years, then proceeded to lock himself in his room for the rest of the day, only creeping back out once he heard his mother go to bed and start snoring. Even then, it was only to raid the fridge for leftovers from dinner. (There weren't enough; there couldn't be enough.)
He woke up screaming four or five times that night, finally giving up on even trying. Instead, he curled up on his bed with a notebook, documenting his symptoms and trying to figure out what was going on with him. Some kind of reverse sleeping-sickness, maybe? No, that was dumber than his earlier contemplation about seasonal depression. And was it just him, or did his skin color look a little... off, somehow? Grumbling to himself, Owen scratched at an itchy spot at his elbow that had been bothering him off and on throughout the day, then frowned.
...Had those sores always been there? He didn't think so, but that meant - oh, ugh, were they popping up from where he had been scratching? Was this like... like leprosy or something? Was this some kind of contagious disease? Was his mom going to get sick, too? Ew. Ew, ugh, ugh he didn't like this, he didn't like this one bit, and if it wasn't in the middle of the night he'd call Daniel or Bailey and start freaking out on them a little bit, but it was late and he couldn't, and as angry as he felt he'd... probably just end up fighting with them, anyway. And he didn't want to fight with them. Not now, not over something like this.
So he didn't pick up the phone, and he definitely didn't go near his mom. If this was something contagious, he'd already exposed her too much, and he didn't want to make it worse. Besides, he was still mad at her, and the odds were high it would turn into another fight; especially if she poked him about the nightmares that were only getting worse. Another fight might get him grounded, and no thank you he did not want to deal with a grounding on top of being sick and irritable and sleepless.
Ugh, why was this so - so - stupid?!? Grabbing his pillow, he screamed into it, then punched it a few times and threw it across the room before faceplanting in his mattress. Sick and angry and sleepless and itchy. With weird sores at his elbow.
What was going on? And how did he make it stop? Could he even make it stop? Was he doomed to be gross and itchy and cranky and tired and hungry forever?!? (Please. Please no. Wasn't being a teenager already enough?) Ughhh.... this was just - this was all so gross and awful and he hated everything.
Word Count: 621
