The house was still and quiet when Sarah awoke. Absolutely nothing was bothering her as she slowly rose from sleep.

Her room wasn't as dark as it was in the middle of the night, even the best blackout curtains still let a bit of diffuse light into a room when the sun was shining outside, but the diffuse sunlight wasn't enough to disturb her. There was something indescribable in the air that told Sarah that her mom was up, that the house was awake, and that the neighborhood outside was moving around, but no actual noise from any of it was catching her attention. Her bladder wasn't even bothering her, her alarm hadn't told her to get started with her day. She woke up exactly when her body wanted it to.

Sarah stretched out in her bed, flexing her arms and legs in turn. She was particularly delighted when her blanket shifted along with her, keeping her legs covered without actually tangling with her clothes as she shifted. She reached out to a little lamp on her desk, resting her hands on the switch. Then she smiled to herself and opened the drawer instead of switching on her reading light.

The dead fly took off and hovered above her desk. She then had it zip over to her curtain where it landed on the edge of the cloth. The buzz of the fly suddenly got louder as it pushed hard against the cloth. Sarah thought that she had for sure seen a twitch of the cloth as the bug strained, but the heavy curtain was clearly too much for the little body to shift. After a moment she sent it to the light switch instead, but again it simply buzzed loudly and failed to turn on her lights.

Sarah sat up, concentrating on the fly. It had managed the switch fine last night. The buzzing of its wings spiked a bit louder again and the light finally flipped on. Licking her lips, she brought the fly back over to herself for a closer look. It was hard to tell, but the fly had lost some of its blue light. Sarah glanced down at her bed at her blanket, it was still bright, and an indefinable sense told her the blanket was still full to the brim with blue light.

Without hesitation, Sarah reached out and gathered some of the white fog in her room, only taking a smallish handful. She was careful to reach toward the center of the room, well away from her walls. She held the blue light for a moment, feeling the warmth grow on her fingertips. Before it could heat into pain she reached out and touched her hovering fly with a finger.

The light flowed into the bug, and it brightened back up. As it took in the power, the buzz of its wings got quieter, and Sarah could feel how it flew more easily.

So, more light meant more power.

The fly darted back to the light switch, and with a loud buzz, it switched the lights off. Then on, then off again, then finally on. She left the lights on and called the fly back. It hadn't lost any light and it was still flying fast and easily. With a flicking motion, she sent the little bug back to her curtains.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

It landed again on the curtains and she made it push, to push as hard as it could. This time she was sure she saw the curtain twitch, just a little bit, though the fly didn’t actually move it along the rod. She left the fly there, pushing. She could hear the whine of its buzzing wings, and even if she couldn't really see the bug she knew it had landed on the side and was using its wings to push down against the thick black polyester. After just a moment, she could hear the buzz start to soften, and she could tell that the fly wasn't pushing as hard as it had before. Sarah let it stay, pushing as hard as it could while the noise faded.

Sarah glanced around, realizing that she didn't have any sort of clock in her room. Her mom probably still had her phone, since Sarah hadn't ever gotten it back since she'd gone to the hospital. She wished she had some way to time her bug, or the fog flowing back into her room. Something else for the future, she figured.

The buzzing stopped completely and Sarah looked up. She tried to call the fly back but got nothing. She couldn't see its glow either from her side of the little room. Sarah got up from her bed and walked over. After a moment of looking, she found the dead fly on the carpet under the window. No blue in it, nothing. It had totally emptied out in just a minute or two. Sarah looked around the room, considering how much light she could gather without letting the yellow hollow she left behind touch the walls.

Her room was still bathed in a yellow tint, it hadn't had a chance to fade at all yet. There was still some pure white mist near the wall opposite her bed, but not a lot of it. Probably not enough to do anything with the fly again. But she reached out anyways, this time extending just her index finger to graze through the room. Blue fog gathered, drawn in to warm her finger as it collected and spun around. She was moving slowly, trying to limit how much she took, and the warmth grew slowly too. She still touched her finger to the inert fly before the warmth could start to burn.

A knock sounded at her door, and Sarah yelped and dropped the fly. She spun to face the door, while the fly crawled across the floor and under the door to her closet.

"Sarah?" said her mom's soft voice at the door. "Are you up?"

"Just a sec!" she shouted in a high pitch. Sarah moved fast to open the door before her mom could come in. She cracked it and stuck her head out, seeing her mom in sweats.

"Good morning?" her mom asked. Her mom cocked her head and said, "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," said Sarah. "Sorry, you just scared me, that's all."

"Scared?" her mom smiled.

"Well, you made me jump."

"Sorry, I'm sure. Do you want some breakfast?"

"Um, yeah. I'll come down in a bit," said Sarah.

"Good, I'm making waffles." Her mom continued, "By the way, one of your friends came over early this morning. Alexa? I've never met her before she came by the hospital, but she seems worried. I wish you’d tell me about your friends."

Sarah's eyes widened at the news that Alexa was downstairs, and she ducked back into her room.

Her mom studiously ignored her reaction and went on, "So maybe don't make her wait too long. I’ll be downstairs, come down quick, please."

Sarah just sat on her bed, listening to her heart thundering in her ears.