Glowing.

In an ethereal kind of way, with a faint blue light seeping out from under the doors, and the equally faint blue numbers ticking on the machines around the room, beeping slowly.

Like in the books his little sister would insist he read to her every single night of her childhood, with the fairies with colored auras around them.

The books had annoyed him, their covers being made of what he thought to be faux leather, as if to give the impression they were made in a woodland and "magical" fairy factory, rather than mass-produced on a bleak gray conveyor belt by minimum wage immigrant workers, their chapters labeled "adventures," the glossytwo-page illustrations of said fairy adventures randomly placed throughout the book...

But Laguna adored it.

Laguna, his sister...she dragged it everywhere with her even if she didn't have the opportunity to read it. She slept with it every night, and used it as her show and tell project everytime at school.

What was it called?

Oh. Yes. Minx's Spritely Adventures In Lilyland, by Minx Lockhart as told to Mary Soisei.

This was much better. Before he'd been trying to take in the gravity of his current situation: Where was he? In the hospital, he guessed by the beeping machines, and glowing outside with the constant tapping of heeled women's shoes. But...why was he in the hospital?

When he tried to think of answer to that, a wave of pain went through his head, and figured that was something he could ask the nurses later.

And then he thought of Laguna.

And how she would insist he do all different voices for Minx and her fairy friends, as she happily shoved the volume into his hands and scrambled into her bed.

How did it begin?

Like any other fairytale: Once upon a time, there was a cheery little fairy named Minx. Minx was new to Lilyland, the land of the fairies.

So poor Minx sat in her flower-house all day, pouting that no one wanted to be her friend.

But one day she heard a knock at her door. And outside was another cheery little fairy with flowing golden locks.

"Hi!" she greeted with a huge smile. "I heard you just moved in here. I'm Layla. Want to be friends?"

"Mr. Doyle? Are-are you...awake?"

So he'd been saying it outloud by accident.

He quickly turned to see the source of the voice, and immediately clamped his eyes shut at the bright lights of the hallway seeping into the room, only blocked mildly by the astonished nurse standing in the doorway.

Or, at least, he tried to shut his eyes.

It appeared his left one had a rather large amount of gauze and medical tape positioned over it, wrapping around his head, and nearly covering his right as well.

"Yeah...sure..." he mumbled, trying to find out a way to get the bandage around his right eye off.

"No-no please don't touch those!" She stammered nervously, suddenly dashing into the room and checking all of the machines.

"Why? What happened?" He asked, trying to not show his apprehension.

As the lighting in the room was sort of wonky, he couldn't tell for sure, but he thought he caught her blush at the asking of his question.

"Uhrr....g-gang..." She swallowed, wondering if she should finish her sentence or not. "Gang accident, from what I can recall from the report..."

With those last words, she seemed to nearly jump a foot in the air, and quickly dashed back out of the room quicker than she'd come in, muttering a little reassuring, "I-I'll be back in a little bit. With Dr. Soisei..."

"Soisei--?" he tried to inquired, irked at the notion of his doctor possibly being the author of cheap children's fairytales.

However, Nurse Skittish cut him off and added, "And there are some other kids in the waiting room for you, if you're up later..."

"WAIT wait wait what kids?"

Nurse Skittish shuddered again, and turned around, a few feet away from the door, and yelled back at him, "I-I don't know. A girl and a boy your age with a pair of twins, I think..."

---

Her fingers were raw and bleeding.

She huffed and panted, but the voice who'd pulled her out of half-madness urged her on.

Keep going. Once more. Once more. One more line. Just write one more line.

"THERE'S NO MORE GODDAMN INK LEFT!!" she howled in despair, flinging herself onto the floor next to the pile of cans.

The ink ran out long ago. What do you think you've been writing with all this time?

"What...?"

Your marker wasn't red, dear. It was blue.

"My marker wasn't...red..." she at once agreed, and forced herself up from the floor, knocking the cans aside.

She leaned up against the concrete, digging her nails (or rather the stubs that were once nails) into it, half for physical support, half for the sake of her blasphemous ink.

"Once more...once more...once more..." She repeatedly methodically.

"Write one more time...one more line..."