Chapter 21
When Alja regained consciousness it was to find herself curled up in a fetal position on the hard, cold tiles of the bathroom floor. Her clothes were soaking wet with cold sweat and partly splattered with vomit. Literally every part of her body was sore. It barely registered. The echoes the episode had left inside her soul were far worse than those inside her body. Death reverberated in every part of it, draining away all warmth, all hope, all that was good.
She was trembling so hard it took her ten minutes to get to a sitting position. From there she was able to grab a towel from the rail and mop up the worst of the mess she'd left on the floor. Then she crawled into the shower and let the hot water pour over her until the acrid stench was gone and she felt something close to warm. After what felt like an eternity she was finally able to get up to take a proper shower. Then she dressed and removed all the evidence of her breakdown. Only then she realized that it was getting dark outside. She must have been out for hours. She only hoped Kaleb had been busy enough not to notice her drop-out at this unusual time.
She found some bottles of mineral infused water in her nutrition cupboard and forced two of them down. She knew she needed food too, but she doubted that any of the nutrition bars would stay down. Sleep was also impossible. The moment she drifted off she'd be helplessly exposed to her subconscious. And that was no place she wanted to go anytime soon. Even awake faint voices still whispered in the back of her head. How could she have dared to forget them for even a single second?
They were wearing her psyche down gradually, but they were also the indicator that she was no longer splitting off parts of her self completely. Yet she also knew she hadn't fully united that dark part of her mind to her self. If she had, she'd be insane by now. She had only tied it to her conscious control tight enough that it shouldn't act without her notice again. She knew she was walking a fine line, but she had to stay sane long enough to complete the work she'd been born for. She just needed more time. It was all she could hope for right now.
So she lay down on the bed to relax her body as good as possible and played little mental games to prevent falling asleep or thinking of the darkness that lay inside her again. Only her thoughts kept circling right back to Kaleb – this man of ice and rock who for one single moment had been pure heat, passion and electrifying sensation.
But how after all this horror could she still think only of him – of the pleasure she'd felt in that brief, stolen moment when he'd kissed her? It didn't matter right now, because – paradox as it might be – those memories also kept the darkness at bay.