CHAPTER XI
My head was booming. Something was scratching me on every side. Was I still in the battle? Did the Sennites have me? What was scratching me. I opened my eyes. I was in a bush. Naked. The glowing light of my porch was making my headache twice as bad.
I suppressed a scream. I was naked, and I was 100 percent whole. No silvery brown Jalil remnants. I was where I was last. Something wasn't right. What was I going to do? I was naked. I was in the real world. Everworld Jalil had just gotten an explosive charge to the face.
Maybe he was dead. Maybe that was it. Game Over, Jalil. No more WWII Documentaries starring Hitler's New Reich Territories of Everworld and the Allied Forces of the New Democratic Order of the Norse Battalion. No more shiny plate mail being torn apart by a 30.o6 and hand grenades. No more April, David, Christopher.
What the hell was this? I was naked. I was whole.
I rolled over quickly. The scraping branches poked at my skin. My knees carried perfect indentations of the twigs and branches and leaves that I was now kneeling on. I pulled on a branch above me, trying to gain my balance and stand up, but all the leaves pulled off in a wet sappy slide and I was on my knees again.
I crawled out of the bushes, trying to stay hidden. It was nighttime again. Not the same as it had been. It was morning probably. The west was growing gray with the overcast dawn. I had to get out of here. Had to get clothed. How would I explain this to the police, to my parents, to anyone.
Maybe we were all back.
Maybe I wasn't dead, but Everworld decided to spit me out. Maybe it wanted all of us out of there. We had done too much damage. The delicate interstitial of universe had been too worn from all the use and now its spitting us back to keep the tear from getting bigger. Maybe being back was a defense mechanism to keep from some universal overlap.
That would be great. The Vanir and the Sennites winding up in the North Shore. That would make a great 60 Minutes Story.
"Terror on Lake Michigan. Gunfire erupts as Neo-Nazi militants wage war against a group of Vikings."
Focus. Get out of these bushes. Get safe. Get your head together. I raised myself up and tried to stand without the aid of the dewy branches.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
Muffled sounds came from the battle around me. I was bleeding. Bleeding from god-knows-where. My skin felt like it being pressed by a hot iron. The ringing in my ears. The burning light in my eyes.
BOOM BOOM BOOM.
I couldn't hear a thing. I couldn't see a thing. The sounds were all the same. The rat-tat-tat of gun fire sounded like popcorn in a microwave. It was all warm muffled sound. Like being encased in water, listening to a fireworks. The sound was so loud, but I couldn't hear a thing.
The pain in my skin increased. I was being dragged. The red hot iron had just tripled in size. I was being dragged up. I couldn't see or hear but I could feel. Reason told me to fight, but my limbs were weighed down. I was encased in tires. I was a rag-doll. Blind, deaf, dumb and burning. W.T.E.
The pain stopped suddenly, but in one more second, it was back. I was no longer being dragged. I was still. I could hear muffled voices. Muffled boom-boom-boom. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Clang. Plate male and swords against camouflage and M-16's. Full Metal Jacket against The 13th Warrior.
I was burning. My head was pounding. I was deaf. I could feel my arms and legs being picked up. I was being carried. The battle was over. They must thing I was dead. I tried to scream. I opened my mouth. The ringing got 10 times worse. I pushed all the air in my lungs up and tried to scream. Gurgle. Spatter. Choke. Blood in my throat. I keeled my head over and spit. Vomit ensued. I was puking. Was it blood?
I opened my eyes and tried to focus. They were burning with white light. I blinked out tears until I could feel my eyes getting read. I was still being carried.
More blinking. More tears. Finally a streak of blue was visible followed by red. Those weren't only tears I was blinking out. I focused and lost focus. Everything was blurring white and fogging blue.
I craned my neck up to look at what had me. Pain shot down my spine as my neck cracked followed by a sudden sense of being enveloped in a warm euphoria that was gone at the same moment. I opened my eyes wider. I screamed. Screamed so loud that I must have alarmed the man holding my legs because the next moment my head hit the hard ground.
I rolled over and threw up again. Vomit traced from my throat to my mouth. I could taste the sickly strong bile and could feel the chunks of food being carried out through my lips. I looked up. My heart pounding at twice its normal rate. My whole body went cold and constricted. I felt like I had suddenly stepped in to a freezer at the bottom of the ocean. My skin was being pulled to the muscle. The hairs on my arms stood and conducted electricity. Adrenaline pumped. My eyes had narrowed. Fight or Flight. My vision was perfect. My hearing was perfect. My pain was gone. I looked up at the Sennite in front of me.
I was as good as dead.
