A soft yellow coated the room as the light clicked on. The blanket of warm glow fell across an empty bed with powder blue bed sheets messied on top, and the image sparked familiarity but Carson couldn’t figure out why. A curtain, the same color as the sheets, loose and flapping over an empty window, was the only other thing in the empty room. Carson hesitantly took two steps into the room through the open door.
“H-hello?” His voice caught in his throat and faltered. Taking a second to let his eyes scan quickly across the room, Carson realized he was still alone. He wracked his brain, searching for anything, but it set in that there was no reason he was here. He had no memory of arriving in the doorway.
Carson moved over to the window, exhaling as he put his hands on the sill. Slowly, he leaned his head out and over the window. Looking back, his hands seemed miles away as they gripped the window sill. His body detached from his mind.
A sudden rushing sensation filled Carson’s entire body, his lungs and head felt heavy, and he was surrounded by water, drowning, crashing, falling and failing as air rushed out of his dry mouth. Fear set in, or, rather, terror did. Nothing would help. Alone, cold, scared, he was falling and there was nothing to grab onto. Nothing to support himself, no air he could breathe in to fill is gasping lungs.
He was drowning. He was drowning.
Throwing himself back into the window, Carson wrenched his hands away with such force that he tripped over the foot of the pale bed, stumbled backwards through the lit room, slammed his body into the door he entered from, and his weight pushed it open as he began falling again, falling through the doorway, the feeling of drowning started to return until--
Carson was sitting in a hard wooden chair. His mother’s concerned and wrinkled face came into view. Eyes blinking fast, Carson strained his ears to focus on what she was saying.
“--Carson, Carson, honey can you hear me?”
Carson’s voice felt rough, almost like he’d been crying. “What.. happened?”
His mother sighed and cupped his cheek softly, her eyes wet and bright, “Sweetie, did you hear what I said?”
“I can’t remember,” Carson mumbled, shaking his head.
“Honey, your sister died in a car crash two hours ago.”