The sweet, sweet balance between adrenaline and whatever it is that makes people feel pain starts to tip over to the pain side, to the point that I could actually feel the stabbing, pressing and pulls on muscles and bones that aren't in the right state to do so instead of the uncomfortable pulse throughout parts of my body.
A muscle spasms in a weird way in my left leg when I try to step over the snow instead of dragging my feet and pain shoots up my leg, weakening my knees. Arms flailing in the attempt to hold on one of the trees that surrounded me and body twisting trying to not hurt myself in the fall.
I had never seen snow before I got here, wherever - here- actually is. My opinion of it changed as the days went by, at first it was a bad thing, the first of many clues that signaled that something was wrong. Even though the temperature dropped the last few days, winter was still near its end a few days before the end of August. But here I found myself facing a snow covered field with nothing but my travel bag with me.
At that moment as I'm falling, the wind rushing against my face, only one word passed on my mind.
Bliss.
A healthy layer of snow reduces my fall enough that I feel more the sting of cold snow against the open gash on my arm than the impact.
I turn myself over to look at the sky, my chest rising and falling, pain pulsating in rhythm. They disappeared when I killed them.Logic and memory arguing about what I had seen.
I look down as best as I could, a sharp stab of pain shooting through my torso as I do so, tallying the damages, fighting through the haze to figure out how to fix it.
I could feel the warm blood running down one of my arms, damping the sleeve of both shirt and sweater and tinging the white snow. The left still holding the knife even broken as it was, my knuckles white against the purple and red, blood deprived skin.
My leg wasn't much better, the dark jeans even darker around the gash that was ripped open on my calf, blood spreading on the white snow.
My chest hurt as I try to move, the air feeling like it is being squeezed out of my lungs. Static fills my mind, jumbling my thoughts.
My back is against the snow again, fatigue showing its signs, burning limbs appearing to weigh too much. One deep breath, at least one as long as I could, preparing myself for the agony as muscles move, press and pull bones and flesh.
Static fills my mind once again, as pain reverberates through my body. The leather jacket slips down my shoulders easily enough, shirt and sweater I wear underneath are quickly cut, resulting in crude bandages. One more time I take a deep breath and use the strips of cloth to stanch the blood, wrapping them around my arm and leg.
Growls and barking that I have grown familiar with drive my attention deeper into the woods, I steel myself for the pain as I try to get up, broken knife still in hand. A small miracle.
I don't take even one step forward. My vision goes dark almost instantly as I try to call out. The ground seems to shift and earth and sky switch places. A rush of air, this time without the flailing and twisting, my body suddenly aches too much from fatigue. And then darkness.
The warmth I feel around my body quickly fades as a low rumble wakes me up, - engine? -. Another sounds accompanies it, short, muffled and too jumbled to make any sense. The first one speeds up, the animalistic trait of the sound more apparent now. Luci.
I reach out to the growl that develops into barking, an almost thunderous noise. The pressure of the snow moving the only thing I register, I bump on something and the growl stops.
When I open my eyes everything is blurry, masses of colors and shapes without any traits. There's agitation and the second sound returns, this time lows and highs quickly alternating - a discussion?- Whatever it is the high tone wins and one of the blurs, the one that was mostly black - there's dark green too, not just black - approaches.
The rumble starts again, the gray blob closer to the ground, -Doggie- gets even lower. I don't know what kind of understanding happened, a green tendril tipped black stretches out towards Luci that approaches slowly, and then the rumble slows down. The green and black form then gets closer and gently wipes away some white from me, the pale pink stands out surrounded by the green, one of the black tips moves and is replaced by the same pale pink, - gloves, should've thought of that.
I only notice how cold I was when the hand touches me on the neck. I almost craved the warmth, I appreciated, savoring each second of contact until the hand gets back.
Even without understanding what they are talking, the sounds still too jumbled to make any sense, I could understand the tone. Hers, the sound was too high pitched to be a man's voice, is a worried one while she talks to someone I can't see, almost rushed, no pauses in between words. No, no, no, NO.
I feel my heart picking up the pace as I realize what's happening, the drum within my chest getting faster and faster against my will.
Not now.
Not here.
Home.
But it is useless as my arms and legs refuse to move. An attempt to look around quickly results into the hands, and this time I see them as such, tenderly holding my head still, my heart beats even faster at that despite the comforting warmth one of those provided.
Dry, cold air enters my lungs in quick and short bursts despite the pain that radiates from my chest. "Help-" the words get stuck in my throat, it feels dry and rough when I try to speak.
The grip on my head tightens, my heart beating so fast that I couldn't tell the intervals in-between. A pale pink face entering into focus, green eyes staring at mine. "You'll be fine."
The soothing and almost comforting voice pierces through the panic. "It's going to be okay." And she smiles, a tentative one, lips crinkling ever so slightly.
"Incoming!" a man's voice shouts and the growl comes back, the smile becoming more strained before she shouts something I don't understand.
From the corner of my eye, I see a flow of red and bronze turning in our direction followed by a figure in a bright yellow jacket much taller than the first, I see a black form seemingly dissolving into nothing. A woman, -girl, - my brain corrects -she can't be older than me,- carrying a spear as if she was accustomed to it, on her back something was peeking over her shoulder. Yellowish gauntlets enveloped the man's arms, small, rectangular bulk resting on each part of the armor. -That's... brass?
The green and black figure stands up, warmth lingering on my face, and she turns to the red and bronze. "Hold his head still, would you dear?" there's something with her tone, at the same time that it sounds reassuring like this was something she grew used to, it sounds rushed as if the words are fighting something that's pushing them out. All it takes is a flick, and the red spear shrinks into itself and rests on the girl's back.
She disappears from my line of sight going above my head, hands gently holding my head in place, her head peeks over, eyes, an emerald green a lot like the other woman's, locked onto mine. "Y- You'll be fine." the girl stutters in a convincing imitation of the first woman, the hope that the stammer was from the cold is betrayed by the way her eyebrows stick together and up, despite the less than genuine smile.
"How long?" I hear Green and Black say, she turns to the man, lifting her head to look at Yellow.
"On its way, around twenty minutes." the man glances at me and then deeper into the woods. "Think we could move him, Euros? There's better defense in the middle of the clearing."
She shakes her head and whatever it is she speaks next sounds cluttered, my vision blurs and I shut my eyes, when I open them again darkness starts to creep around my field of vision. A cold grip on my guts as the realization dawns on me again. Focus. I try to move my limbs again, the muscles tremble but are too weak to respond. Stay awake. I try to blink the darkness away. STAY. I'm almost screaming in my head now. AWAKE. The noises I hear sound muffled, as if I'm underwater, a high whistle that descends into a low hum draws my attention, a mass of white and gray against the orange.
Darkness takes over once again.
And then there's warmth. One hand touching my face gently, almost hesitant. Another touching my chest.
Then there were words. Above the high whistle, above everything else even though it was nothing more than a whisper. The first words sound tangled together and the warmth starts to spread. The next few are clearer, the meaning of them almost reaching me. "...death," I hear the voice say, the words resonating within me "I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."
I fall.
Who knows for how long but I fall.
It's pitch black, to the point I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed. There's no rush of wind as I fall but there's no ground to stand on either, the landscape - could this even be called that? - is barren.
I feel the touch of something, it's warm and comforting and familiar, like the hug of a parent. It envelops my being, and then there is light.
When I wake up is to something carefully lifting my wrist and a slight pressure on my index.
The act of pulling my arm towards me is instinctive and quick, even before my eyes were open the arm was already halfway through its course, my feet kicking up and pushing myself away whatever it was trying to get a hold of me, a small but hurtful pinch on my arm as I do so.
In front of me, a few steps back stands an understandably startled person wearing a white top, slightly loose, decorated with small flower drawings. Tall and looking fit, Asian descent, she has her hands in front of her in the posture to try to calm someone down. But that's not what draws my attention, what draws my eye towards it is the pair of ears on her head.
An extra pair of ears, not human and incredibly life like. Cat ears?
I stare at it wide eyed as it goes from ramrod straight and starts to move, my eyes widening even more.
Beeps fill the room for a moment and when she speaks it's in a quiet way. Calm, composed.
"Are you okay?" the words are drawn out in a small accent as if giving me time to think. I look around, a clear bag hanging on a pole, some liquid dripping and flowing into my veins. A monitor on the other side, -heart monitor?-, green line going up and down in a frequency that slowly descended, a row of beds on the opposite wall, one of the curtains that isolated each bed was drawn. Heart monitor, hospital. Nurse.
I close my mouth and breathe in. English, I notice. "Yes," I have to slog through, though awake, my head feels slow. The voice comes out rough, my throat stinging for the effort. "I'm… I'm okay." I settle down on the bed into a half sitting position.
A cast covers my right forearm almost completely stretching over in a way that I couldn't move my wrist. My calf is covered in bandages too, I notice the lack of feeling under the sheets covering again a good part of the limb.
"I'll go get a doctor." She says in a rushed tone and quickly paces out of the room. No tail.
Maybe I did something rude.
Just maybe.
I look to the window to my right, the curtains are pulled open and reveal the landscape under the bright sun. They were the majority of the ones I could see, orthodox-looking, box-shaped buildings of varying colors and sizes. Something that reminded me of ancient Greek architecture - maybe it was the, in my opinion, overly designed columns and façades - were present in some of the buildings, that seemed to be the whimsical dream of a really weird architect, even from afar I could tell it was a weird mixture of Greek - or were those Roman? - columns sustaining Asian styled roofs, the almost white contrasting with the dark tiles.
A paper cup edges its way into my field of view. I turn my head and move back slightly, finding blue scrubs, a white lab coat on top of it and a stethoscope. I empty it easily, the water goes down and soothes some of that burning dryness on the back of my throat.
"Would you like some more?" She offers, a pitcher of water in her hand.
I shake my head. "Do you mind if I ask a few questions?" She asks after settling the pitcher on an empty chair.
"No." My voice still sounds rough, but there's no burning on the back of my throat anymore. I try to wipe some of the water from the corners of my mouth and I feel the combination of the rough, short hairs and bare, smoother skin. Three? Maybe four days?
The thoughts are interrupted as I hear metal sliding against metal when she draws the curtains around my bed, giving us a semblance of privacy. "Do you know where you are?" There's an edge of… something in her voice, it's barely there. Annoyance?
The map I saw a few days ago pops into my head, the weird dragon shaped continents mostly. Eastern one, the one that curiously enough is shaped like an eastern dragon. I was closer to its paw than the middle of the first curve of its neck. Two thoughts, almost at the same time Windpath. I don't know. "I.. I don't know." I would like to say that I had to force the doubt into my voice, but that wasn't even necessary.
"You are in the Saint Ryllis Hospital, in Mistral." That's… more south than I thought, though it does explain the extra few days. I must show the thoughts on my face because she continues. "You have been in and out of consciousness for four days, Mr. … " she pauses and looks at me, eyebrows twitching upwards in question. "Aoki." I hear the scratching as she writes on the chart.
Even back home my name was a different one, but there's something in the way she looks after I say my name. Curiosity, amusement? Whatever it is, dies quickly when she asks the next question.
"Where are you from?"
That's a loaded question.
Once again two thoughts appear almost at the same time. Tell her the truth. Lie. The truth would be 'I'm probably from a different universe, because I don't recognize any of the landmasses on the map that I found in a store in a mostly destroyed village that I stole from because I wanted food. Either that or I'm going crazy.' I would really like to avoid any kind of asylums.
I had chosen to lie. Almost from the moment that I had seen the moon.
"From the west. Small place." She scribbles down something on the chart again while I hope I'm a passable liar.
Her tone gets more serious, bordering worried. "Do you remember how you got here?"
I try to, but everything is just blurry, dark around the edges. Masses of form and color moving. A broken form, white against the starry darkness. The moon is in goddamn pieces.
I remember the panic, the realization that I was going to die.
Before that, running from some kind of animal that just felt… wrong. It seemed to blend into the snow, even though it was the pitch black form of a small crocodile against the almost blindly white snow, two beady red eyes and dozens if not hundreds of sharp, short teeth. It took me down, biting my leg with too much strength for such small body. The kitchen knife I found dug deep into its eye before it could move, my body twists in a way that the flesh gives way to the teeth. Before I could recover another one jumps at me, maws wide open. My arm comes up without a thought and that… animal lands on my chest, it's incredibly heavy for its size and I could feel the bones giving in as it landed and twisted, knocking the air out of me. The rest of the fight is a blur of black, white and red that results in a broken knife and probably arm.
"Lizards," I finally say. There's this incessant beeping, I look at the doctor wondering if something was wrong, and she's on the other side of the bed, a few strands of graying hair escaped the bun and fell on her face - when did she get there? -, there's this look she gives me that I'm not used to being on either side of, filled with sympathy, pity.
"It's okay," she starts and hands me another cup of water that I reach out to grab. I'm shaking so much that the water almost spills. Why am I shaking? "Deep breaths," she mimics the move moving her hands up and down, slowly.
The look is still there when I calm down. "Yes, Irvibanes," she gives me a tentative smile. "They had to unlock your Aura," isn't that one of those charlatans… more 'esoteric' things? "It took care of a lot of the damage, but it's healing slower than we thought," there's a small knit between her eyebrows, eyes slightly narrowed "from what we heard we thought that you would wake up within the day."
The confusion is apparently evident on my face as she continues. "The Huntress that unlocked your Aura was admitted into the hospital together with you, exhaustion symptoms. A collateral that sometimes happens." Huntress? The form of a purple-clad hero pops into my head. "It's a lot to take in, I know," she says after a brief pause.
You have no idea.
"You'll be here for one more night, for observation, just in case." She starts, scribbling some notes on the chart. "There are some forms that you'll need to fill in to take care of staying issues if you need," and the look is back.
"Yeah, I'll need those." Saying that just made it more… real.
She nods and pulls the curtains back. "Wait," I say before she leaves, "the woman… the nurse that was here before," there's this tiny bit of guilt there. "Could you say I'm sorry to her? I think I did something bad."
"No problems." There's a small smile and a nod.
As she leaves I realize something, and then I'm wondering how I'm going to pay the hospital bills.