Pain surged through my head as I came to.  It wasn’t any sort of unfamiliar pain.  It was more like when you wake up with a pounding headache.  I’d made a grunt and immediately reached my hand up to place it over my forehead.  Pulse, Pulse.  Every time my heart beat, the stinging of a headache pulsed.  I was used to this feeling, but it certainly wasn’t ever welcome when it decided to rear its ugly head.  I let out a yawn and tried to get myself into an upright position. 

I yawned several times, a strong feeling of sleepiness coming over me at the same time as this headache.  As a result, it was hard to keep my eyes open.  With them shut, I just sat where I was for a few moments.  I still wasn’t sure I was even awake at the time.  Everything around me was filtered with that tired, sleepy feeling when you’re partially awake and partially asleep still.  All my mind could focus on was going back and forth between the pain of this headache and just wanting to collapse and go back to sleep. 

I tried laying back down, but the pulsing kept getting more and more apparent.  This happened every time I woke in the middle of the night with a pounding headache.  I felt it, and didn’t care.  I would try to go back to sleep until it got so bad that I couldn’t concentrate on sleeping and would be forced to push myself out of bed and to the bathroom to get some painkillers.  I was so sleepy that I didn’t realize the same would happen to me right then and there.  I kept trying to sleep until I got a searing pain in my head and I started to whimper at the pain. 

At that point, I knew it was time to get up and go get some medicine, sleepy or not.  As I pushed myself up, I did my usual and covered my eyes for the most part with my hand.  If I got too used to walking around, I would just wake up and never be able to get back to sleep.  The goal was to reach the bathroom, get the painkillers, and get back without hitting anything on the way to hurt myself and really wake me up.  I’d done it a million times before, so one more wouldn’t really hurt. 

As I slowly walked, I tried to concentrate on maintaining my sleepiness, despite being partially awake and walking around.  How tired I was made itself known as I just hugged and drug myself against the all on the way to the bathroom, feeling every crease and board of the wooden walls from the bedroom to the next door-frame.  If it weren’t for the headache, I probably could have just fallen asleep right there, sitting against the wall.  What an embarrassing thought and scene that would be. 

I eventually found a doorway that led to the bathroom.  I knew because the wooden floor changed to white tiles.  ‘Almost there’ I thought.  Just a little bit longer and I would be able to get some painkillers and go back to bed.  As soon as I entered the room, though, my headache suddenly got worse.  Stinging, pounding pain force itself through my forehead and my nose and I panicked, rushing myself forward, only to bash my head on something, completely knocking me to the floor in a loud whimper-filled thud.  I don’t know what I hit but it made my head feel that much worse.  I just laid on the floor, both hands holding onto my forehead, trying to ease the pain with pressure. 

A moment later, I heard more thuds, but these were more distant.  They almost felt like they were coming from the floor itself.  Not part of my headache.  As they got a little louder, I could tell they were footsteps and they were very rapid.  Someone running across the house, maybe?  If so, why was anyone else awake?  Before I could even ask myself these things, I felt my body slowly being lifted off the floor and into a sitting motion. 

“Are you okay, sweetheart?!  What’s wrong?”  The voice was very feminine and familiar.  With all the pain from my headache as well as whatever I ran into, I didn’t care who it was.  I just held my hands over my head and said “Headache.  Trying to get Ibuprofen.”  I squinted my eyes under my hand’s shadow as the pain got worse.  I just sat there and waited as I heard her start rummaging through the cabinets and getting out a bottle of pills.  Before long, she’d come back and handed me a couple pills. 

Still woozy, I downed the pills and was guided back to the bedroom by her hand in mine.  My eyes were shut the entire time but I could tell her hand elt very warm to me.  Very warm.  Very strong, too.  Almost like a motherly grip of not wanting to lose a child.  She even tucked me back into bed and kissed my forehead, telling me to go to sleep.  “I’ll see you in the morning, sweetheart.  Then, we can have a nice chat about yesterday.  Just don’t go bashing your head against the sink again.”  She slowly left the room, at least I thought so.  I still wanted to just go back to sleep. 

As I slowly drifted off, I thought about what she said.  Bashing my head against the sink.  That didn’t make much sense, did it?  But before I could care about the confusion of the words, I was off in dreamland, completely unaware of the situation I was in…