Sorry for the long wait, but here's another amazing chapter!

;-;

Kendra came back to consciousness in four different phases.

Phase one- the pain. A sharp, stabbing pain in her stomach. It was without reserves the worst she had ever felt.

Phase two- the memories came back to her slowly. She remembered walking, and being attacked by something. She remembered a vivid red of her blood, when the adrenaline had kept her from feeling the pain. Said pain progressed past the stage she thought was the worst, reaching new limits.

Phase three- she heard hushed voices whispering in the room. She didn't try to make them out. By now, the pain was barely containable. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from screaming and flailing. With every beat of her heart, it spread, feeding off of her bloodstream and growing. She felt like someone had ripped her open and poured acid into her bloodstream, and never stopped pouring.

Phase four- through her eyelids she saw a reddish glow of light. Her senses were in hyper drive. She heard an unfamiliar voice, Gavin, and Warren in the background. She felt clean sheets on top of her and breathed in fresh, cool air. But by then she was past caring. If she had thought the pain was bad before, it was pure, unabridged torture now. It was everywhere. She could barely distinguish from where she had been sliced open from where she hadn't been touched. She was burning, drowning in a lake of acid, being slowly devoured by sharp teeth, being ripped apart... all at once. The thin sheet on top of her felt like the weight of the world, and if she could've remembered through the pain how to move, she would've screamed. She would've kicked and flailed. But the pain held her prisoner- striking her unable to do anything other than waste away.

"There she is." The unfamiliar voice said. It sounded as if from miles away.

"She's awake?" She heard Warren ask, sounding dubious.

"Yes. Unable to move, doubtless, but conscious. Poor thing," The voice said.

"How bad is it?" Gavin asked. She focused her mind on the conversation, trying to distract herself.

It didn't work.

"Unbelievable. Like nothing else. Harpies, dragon venom, demon spit, nothing imaginable. Nasty creatures."

She decided that the unfamiliar voice sounded much older than Warren, by a good many decades at least. It had a faint hint of a man who had carried the burden of the world on his shoulders, a faint, haunting sound. But besides that, he also sounded like she would expect a sage to.

"This should help." The voice in question said. She felt a prick on top of all the pain, and from that point on her arm it started to dull away. Like injecting ice water into the flesh of a burning corpse.

When it faded, she realized that no matter how she tried, she couldn't explain it. It had been so strong then... but now, the only thing left was a haunting feeling. She couldn't remember quite what it had been like, or recapture the feeling.

Not that she wanted to.

In relief, she opened her eyes to be greeted by three anxious faces. Warren and Gavin looked worried for her, relieved that she had woken up, and guilty. But the face she didn't recognize looked... almost pleased.

It was a worn face, pocket-marked and so lined with age that she would've mistaken him for a pale corpse. His gray hair and beard reminded her of a wizards.

"Hello my dear. How are you feeling?" The old man asked eagerly.

"Much... better. What happened? Who are you?" She asked, firing the questions in rapid succession of one another.

"First things first. Does any pain remain?" He asked. She scowled slightly as he sidestepped her questions, but shook her head.

"Good. I'm afraid that it won't be the last time. The poison in still in your system, and no amount of magic will change that. It feeds onto your bloodstream, literally becoming one with you. To expel it would be to destroy whatever it was latched on to.

"Like radiation for cancer." She murmured. He hadn't appeared to have heard her, but Gavin, standing next to her, nodded. He was intently watching her face.

"The pain will come in random bouts. As well as some other effects: twitching, seizing, things of that nature."

Kendra had barely heard what he had said after he announced the pain would come back. She felt the blood rush from her face in fear. Gavin grabbed her hand comfortingly, sitting on the edge of her bed. She squeezed his back half heartedly, her mind racing.

"Unfortunately there's nothing to be done about it. As your system generates more blood, the good will replace the bad. The poison will slowly die within you Of course, it will take months before it;s all gone from your bloodstream, and from the organs... I can't promise that you'll ever recover fully."

She felt numb, as if the pain had seared away her sense receptors.

"I'll... never recover?" She asked, her voice hoarse.

"That can't be right." Warren interrupted. "There has to be a way."

Agad smiled grimly. "As I said, there's no telling. But with blood transfusion and other operations, it might eventually completely wear away. You only need one kidney, and your liver can regenerate. And given time, your body will heal itself. But there are other... more lasting effects. The poison is very magical. It very well might leave some of that behind in you," He said, his face stern.

"That is, if you ever make it out of here."

"We can't stay here long. We'll have to keep you in the knapsack while you recover," Warren said, almost apologetic.

"No." Kendra said immediately. "I'm not sitting around while you put yourselves in danger." She said adamantly.

"K-kendra-" Gavin began.

Agad cut in. "She's right. If you keep her there, it won't stop the effects. But when they come, she'll have no help. It could very well kill her. And besides that, for her body to fight the poison, it needs all the help it can get. And by that, I mean that musty, stagnant air wouldn't help anybody."

"I'll leave you with a potion to stop the pain, but she won't be able to administer it to herself." He said finally, leaving the room with a flourish.

"That was dramatic." Warren muttered.

Gavin helped her sit up. She had on the same clothes as before, but the shirt was new. She realized with a shock that it was the one Gavin had been wearing earlier. Looking at him, he shrugged.

"I packed extra."

;-;

Everyone had left Kendra alone in the infirmary so that she could get some rest. It was going to be a big day tomorrow, and she was definitely going to need all the rest that she could get, but she could hardly sleep. She lay in her bed, tossing an turning; trying to find herself a comfortable position in which to drift off to dreamland.

That's when she heard soft footsteps by the door of the infirmary. She heard the door slide open slightly. She saw the shadowy figure looming closer to her in the dimly moonlit room. She sucked in a breath of air and tried to pretend to be asleep. Who would come to her at this hour? Was someone trying to kill her? What was going on? Questions ran through her mind in a never ending circle until the person crept up to her bedside. She knew what she was going to do: once the person grabbed her, she would punch them in the face, surely they wouldn't be expecting that.

The person grabbed her arm; she twisted around and punched them in the face; she didn't bother looking to see who it was.

"Ouch!" she heard a familiar voice cry out as the figure crumple to the floor.

She leaned over the bedside and glanced at the person.

"Gavin?" she whispered.

"Ugh," he replied, trying to get up. "Who knew a g-g-girl like you c-c-ould pack such a p-punch?"

Kendra laughed.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

Gavin looked at her face; only then did she see the distraught in them.

"Oh, Gavin, what's wrong?" she inquired.

"I just...K-kendra, I think that you should stay in t-t-the knapsack," Gavin stuttered.

Kendra gave a great sigh.

"I don't want to feel like a 'damsel in distress' kind of girl, you know?" Kendra told him. "I don't want to feel like I've got nothing left to give this team and I don't want to feel like that anymore."

"Kendra, you've given plenty to this team," Gavin said.

"Yeah, right. Remember when we were on Lost Mesa? Remember how I couldn't do anything to help? I hate feeling like that; like I can't help anyone. That's why I don't want to stay in the knapsack, alright? I don't want to go in there," Kendra told him.

Gavin sighed heavily.

"Alright, seeing as there is no changing your mind, I'll go now," Gavin replied, "But first..."

Gavin leaned in to kiss her; it was something that she wasn't expecting. He kissed her gently on the lips, and to her, it felt like the ghost of a kiss.

"What was that for?" Kendra asked, barely able to find her voice.

"For good luck," Gavin winked. Kendra watched him as he turned to slip away and steal into the night, acting as if he'd never been there in the first place. There was only one thing left on her mind:

Did that mean he liked her?

;-;

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