word count: 306

NEOVERSE: COMET ANDROMEDA, GWENDOLYN OSCURO, CELIA STARLING

in which in the wake of the hospitalisation of one of the closest people to comet, and the arrival of someone else in her partner's hospital room, she feels even closer the clutch of something supernatural around the town of normal.

contains themes of death, hospitals, illness/injury and the supernatural. author's notes at the end.

Comet has fallen asleep in the plastic chair next to Gwendolyn's hospital bed more times than she can count. It isn't fair—no one should be here as often as they are, so often they basically have a dedicated room; no one should be so cursed, haunted, by things beyond their control.

The sad thing is, Gwendolyn seems used to it, barely batting an eye, the one comforting their girlfriend when Comet breaks down next to their bed, not the other way around as it should be. A chronic haunting, they say, and smile like it's possible to joke about something like this.

And then there's Celia, affected by whatever Gwendolyn is, it seems—in the ever-tight grip of something bigger than herself, a scrap of a girl in the bed opposite Gwendolyn's, always awake with only two frequent visitors. And that makes Comet cry too, though she knows Celia doesn't want pity.

There's something dark hanging around this room in particular, the room without windows. Something terrible curled in the shadowy corners, a fist wrapping itself around its residents; and when Comet stays long enough, she feels it more intensely, a weight lying like a crown of thorns on her scalp. It carves itself into the notches in Gwendolyn's skin, under their eyes, deep and mournful; it tucks itself in next to Celia, exacerbating her injuries, making her sharp face scrunch with pain for hours at a time. And still Comet can't do anything about it. It's something cruel the universe has placed upon her—though she can't feel too sorry for herself.

She visits every day and watches as they're given endless painkillers, sits on her plastic chair and holds her partner's hand and prays, silently, for a reprieve for either of them. The ghost of something remains, and relief never seems to come.

i hope you enjoyed this one! comet is one of my favourite characters to write about so i had a lot of fun with this one—it sticks better to the prompt than some of my other ones and is canon-accurate. see you on day six! <3