The blanket would just wiggle around against the side of the basket, but the edge of it just wouldn't reach up. At best it would fold back over itself and get some height that way. Sarah even had the blanket scrunch up in the middle to see if she could lift it up that way, but it just collapsed back in on itself. She spent a few minutes watching her blanket, seeing if she could come up with a way to get it higher when she noticed that the blue color was finally starting to fade.
As the blue light within the blanket got fainter, it started moving slower and started to seem less responsive to Sarah's thoughts. It had originally been moving without Sarah even forming a command in her mind, now it would only move when expressed a clear desire in her mind.
Sarah called the blanket over, and it crept across her floor until it was puddled around her feet, feebly pushing up at her ankles. Smiling, she bent down and picked it up, gathering it up and clutching it against her chest. The faded blue was holding steady again, but then she wasn't having it do anything.
Glancing around, Sarah considered her room. A twin bed in the corner, with a brown comforter pulled tight atop the mattress, the single pillow causing a bulge in the folds at the head. The pale cool walls were bare, and no posters or pictures were hung up anywhere. She had a desk next to her bed that doubled as a nightstand and a few shelves on the wall above it. No knickknacks, although the shelves were filled with paperbacks. One window opposite her door, with blinds and a heavy black curtain covering it. The hamper by her closet was the only thing on the floor.
But more importantly, the glowing mists were thick in her room. Sarah reached out, and she could feel a heat of sorts against her palm, and see blue light thicken against it, leaving a yellow trail behind. Before the heat could turn to pain, she brought it against the cotton hospital blanket, watching the blue power snap into the fabric. She hadn't gathered much, and the cloth wasn't as bright as it had been before.
So she reached out again, swiping her hand along to draw even more power to herself. This time it flowed more slowly into the blanket, and somehow Sarah recognized that she'd quite literally filled the fibers up to the brim. There was still blue on her hand, and she recognized the warmth as it slowly got more intense, again turning into a burning sensation that spread up her arm. Sarah instinctively wiped her hand off against her desk chair, letting the blue leave her skin and fill up the fake leather backing. The pain vanished as soon as the blue light got sucked away from her skin.
Ok... the chair took a bunch of light from her hand, but it ended up barely bluish to Sarah's eyes, while the blanket gleamed brightly. The chair was bigger, so perhaps it just took more. Sarah giggled as it rolled itself slowly under her desk. She almost started to reach out for more light to put into her chair, but she noticed that almost all of the mists in her room were already yellow. She knew there was more within reach, but glancing at her curtained window Sarah worried that taking more would make it obvious from outside that someone was pulling blue from the air.
It probably wouldn't take long for the fog in her room to turn white again, so instead of pushing more into her chair, she let her blanket crawl out of her arms back to the floor. She was delighted to see it moving much faster than it had previously. The blanket was actually able to push the hamper a few inches across the floor. Even better, the corners of the blanket could actually reach up from the floor into the air. Still nowhere near high enough or stiff enough to get into her hamper by itself, but clearly more blue meant the blanket moved faster and with more strength.
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She watched the blanket struggle against the basket for a while longer, enjoying the way the blue-infused cloth tirelessly rearranged itself to try to do what she wanted. But as fun as it was, Sarah was getting hungry. It hadn't been that long since she'd eaten at the hospital, but her stomach was demanding attention. So Sarah lifted her blanket back onto her bed where it folded up to wait for her.
Out in the hallway, Sarah glanced at her mom's room. The door was cracked open, showing a dark room. Without turning any lights on, Sarah padded down the stairs to the kitchen. Despite the way the white mist seemed to glow in her sight, the stuff didn't actually reveal anything in the dark. Sarah could still make her way by memory though, and while her mom wasn't as neat as Sarah, neither of them was likely to leave anything on the floor to trip over.
The fog was thicker in the kitchen, like it usually was. Feeling around on the wall, Sarah accidentally turned on the disposal in the sink for a moment before getting the switch that turned on the lights over the counter. The kitchen wasn't quite as tidy as the rest of the house, probably because Sarah's mom had left mid-meal when Sarah had gone to the hospital. There was a dirty plate on the table and more dishes in the sink. Sarah took a moment to move everything into the dishwasher, resolving to run it before she went back upstairs. She'd wipe the crumbs off the table too.
That done, she checked the fridge for something to eat. Some tin foil on a casserole dish revealed the meatloaf they'd had a few days ago. Not great, but with some ketchup, it would be fine cold, and somehow it sounded way better than toast or yogurt. Putting a lump of it on a plate, she carried it to the table along with a squeezy bottle of ketchup.
The meatloaf did taste good, even without warming it up. She munched happily, waving her fork in the air as she chewed, the chorus from some song echoing in her head. Looking at her fork, she could see the fog actually swishing around her fork as she marked the beat. As she watched it, she could see it starting to gather up blue light. It actually gathered up more blue light than she'd taken with her hand - she basically turned the entire kitchen yellow, and she only stopped when she saw the yellow fog had reached the wall. She'd held it a long time too, gathered up near the tines.
She finally had a chance to watch the blue power as it swirled gently. It moved, almost like it was orbiting Sarah's fork. It was spreading back out too, getting less focused as it seemed to mix back into the room. At least it was getting less focused until the ball was big enough that it touched Sarah's fingers where she was holding the fork. Immediately it started to burn, and she could feel it spreading fast again. Her eyes widened, head swiveling to look for something to dump the light into, but she hadn't planned anything and nothing stood out to her. As much as it hurt, she had to put the blue into something she could keep in her room. Her eyes were starting to burn when she noticed that the mess on the table wasn't just crumbs. There were a few dead flies as well, black houseflies that had fallen near the windowsill.
They were little, and probably couldn't hold much, but they were better than nothing. Or at least better than a dirty plate. Gritting her teeth, Sarah reached out a finger to touch the nearest fly. The burning stopped immediately as the blue light vanished into the dead bug.