Can you hear it?
Can you hear it? It's the sound of urgency, of desperation, of love. But most of all it's the sound of fear. Of utter terror.
He hears it. For a while he absently wonders why she's screaming at him like that before his brain catches up with what's happening, and he can feel the fear stabbing at his own heart and catching in his throat. He turns slowly and it seems to take forever before he sees her, but she doesn't appear to be in any danger. She's a lot closer than he thought she was, in fact she's running towards him, running as though her life depends on it. Considering the situation they were in, he thinks, it probably does. But it puzzles him. If she's not in any danger why was she screaming? And then it hits him.
He feels her hand on his shoulder just before he's pushed off his feet and onto cold stone, hitting his head as he hits the floor. The light blinds him, he struggles to focus; the images instead dance and blur in front of his eyes as though they're wrapped in a thick mist. For a while his brain prevents him from thinking about anything other than the blinding pain that has itself wrapped tightly around him. When the dizziness begins to wear off and the world finally begins to clear the first thing he notices is that he's not dead, as he first thought, although he can still feel a tiny, warm trickle on his forehead. He tries to lift himself up but it only results in the heaving and then emptying of his stomach onto the floor next to him. Moving his still throbbing head he's shocked to find the hand that only seconds before had been resting on his shoulder, only now it's resting a few feet away from him. It's not moving.
This gets him up and he crawls as fast as his body will let him toward her. It's not until he reaches her that he realises, to his relief, that she is still breathing. He lets out the breath he didn't realise he was holding only to suck it back in when another burst of light bounces of the stone next to him. Frantically he searches for his wand but he can't even remember dropping it. He doesn't know where to look; his eyes flick quickly from one place to another desperately searching for his wand, or anything that could help.
There's a cloaked figure standing above him, staring at him with a mad glint in his eyes. The figure carefully pulls out a wand and points it at him. He doesn't know what to do; his mind comes up with ideas only to throw them back out again. He can see the figure beginning to form the words that he knows he doesn't want to hear so he stops thinking and instead kicks out his leg hard hoping that it finds its mark. He knows it does when he hears the figure yell in pain and surprise. He feels a split second of triumph before the sound of figure struggling to get up brings him back. He kicks out again and his eyes fall on what he'd been searching for: a wand. Reaching out he grabs it, only vaguely noticing that it's not his but not caring anyway. The figure has rolled away before getting up this time but doesn't expect to find the roles reversed. He points the wand and yells the first spell that comes to him.
He feels that hand again, it covers his own and he looks down to see her staring back at him. She's gasping for breath and he realises so is he. She smiles at him and he grins back. There's a sudden crash and another figure walks into view, he grips the wand tightly before spotting the familiar face. He loosens his grip.
'Did you hear something?' he asks.