Hey everyone! I'm sorry I haven't been posting. I had a busy few weeks.(: Well, I started writing again and finally finished chapter 10!(: I'm sorry if it's not that good, it's been a while. Tell me what you think!(:
Chapter 10, Lyra:
“Will she be alright?”
“Yes, I believe she will be despite the damage that will take much time to heal completely.”
My head aches, deep, pounding threatens to break my skull. I curl my fingers slightly, regaining any feeling that I lost in them. Am I dreaming? I couldn’t understand this. No more pain. My body felt released, not completely here.
“Elle?”
I moaned, a sound that escaped the back of my throat. My throat didn’t hurt.
“Be careful, she is still experiencing minor symptoms of immobility. It will be a while until she can fully be herself.”
What are they talking about? I am supposed to be dead, aren’t I? Why is everything confusing? Where am I? Who are these people? Where is Trenton? Questions kept racing through my mind.
“She needs rest.”
I felt something. On my left hand, I felt a touch then a tight hold. I willed my fingers to curl to form some sort of reassurance, but I couldn’t bend them appropriately. Suddenly, I lost that touch, my hand trying to grip air. Deep inside me, panic began digging at me, my breathing becoming short, ragged breaths.
“Elle, are you alright?” I felt comfort from his voice. Trenton’s. The only person that I could trust completely with my life, besides for my grandmother.
When I felt his hand back on mine, I was calm again. I knew that if he was by my side, nothing would happen to me. Slowly, my breathing became slower and slower, letting exhaustion consume me as I fell into a deep sleep.
I woke up, feeling a rush of... excitement? My body was itching to move, run, anything. Through my eyelashes, I could see that I was in a room with cedar walls. What is this place? From curiosity, I shoot up, searching for... something or someone. The speed at which I arose shook my head, stars quickly covering my vision. I felt nauseous as well. On my shoulder, I felt a gentle push, trying to lay me back down. Instinct took over and I began trying to fight back.
“Elle, it’s alright. You are safe.” I turned and saw a woman with black hair, sleek as a raven’s wing. Her eyes shone a dark tone as well. Her face looked sharp as stone, but soft and fragile.
I searched her face for anything, any sign that she may be an enemy to me. Nothing showed that she was dangerous. Now even more puzzled, I lay back down. Where am I? Where is Trenton? He was here, I know he was. In a slow, tender voice, I ask for water. The woman places a cup in my hand, filled with water. I swallow it in a few mouthfuls, knowing I should be more cautious, but I couldn't help it. I crave more.
“Is she alright? I thought I heard you say something.” My hope rose again, hearing Trenton’s voice. From my excitement, I say, “Trenton!” and try sitting back up, the cup fell to the floor. He rushes over to me, then began looking me up and down, making sure that I was alright. I wanted to flail my arms around him and never let go. Now I felt safe.
Trenton crouched down beside my bed, gripping onto my hand tightly. I couldn’t help but smile at him, I had missed him so much.
“I will leave you two alone.” The woman stood up from her stool and walked out of the room without a second glance. She shut the door behind her.
“I can’t believe you are alright.” Trenton keeps a tight grip on my hand, making sure that I will never escape him again.
My mouth twists into a slight grin, then I say, “What happened?” The question that has been bothering me much.
Trenton turns grim, and looks down at my hand.
“Trenton? Is everything alright?”
He turns up to look at me again, and says, “You should really rest, you don’t need to worry about it now.”
“Trenton, tell me. I need to know.” I begin to feel worry. From the short time that I’ve known him, I never have seen him look this way. Unsure and upset.
Trenton lets out a sigh, making sure my eyes don’t meet his, then says, “You don’t understand, Elle. You were dying. Your heart stopped.”
The two words heart stopped seemed to hit me more than dying did. Maybe I was expecting death and grown accustomed to the word as it replayed in my head over and over. Maybe dying seemed more simple to me.
“We were sure that it was too late. The poison made it too far-” Trenton’s voice broke.
“What poison?” I ask, remembering something about poison being said.
“You were poisoned. The blade that cut your Mark was poisoned.” Trenton glances at the bandages wrapped around my arm, the light gray webbing still traced on my arm.
From the little that was said, I try to piece together what I had stored in my memory to everything that Trenton was saying. Nothing made sense.
“What is happening to me?” My eyes can’t look away from my right arm. The pattern looked like something a spider could create, the sharp angles and thin lines.
“The poison did much damage, destroying most of the muscle and tissue in the arm. That’s all I have been told.” Trenton looks deeply sorry, almost as if everything was his fault.
“It’s not your fault, Trenton. Truly,” I say, hoping to reassure him.
“No, it is. I should’ve been more aware and cautious. If I was, maybe you wouldn’t be in this condition. It is my fault.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?”
Trenton, smiles slightly, then it fades away to a straight line. “I heard you screaming, I heard you saying you wished you were dead. I watched the poison creep up your arm. I knew everything was my fault and I couldn’t do one thing to help you.”
Now I understood why Trenton felt this way. Watching me scream in pain, begging him to kill me now and unable to do anything about it? That is something that no one should experience. The guilt must be tearing him apart.
“But I am alright! I am alive!” I am almost yelling at him.
“Look at yourself. You are not alright. You were dead. If you were alright, you wouldn’t be in this bed right now.” Trenton closes his eyes tightly. A small tear escapes.
“Is everything okay?” The woman peeked her head out from behind the door.
“Yes, everything is okay,” I say, hoping she will leave.
She crosses the room in what seemed to be a single motion and checks my right arm. Her thin fingers begin unraveling the white cloth while I watch intently. She notices me watching her and says, “You might not want to see this.”
I swallow hard and say, “No, I want to see.”
Trenton stands up sternly, only looking at the floor, then walks out. It must be too much for him. Maybe he didn’t want to see the horror on my face as I glance at my wound for the first time.
The woman sighs, and continues unraveling. Closer to my wrist, the spider web gets darker and more unnatural looking. It also was traced on the base of my palm. My breath catches as the last of the cloth falls to the floor. The thing on my wrist wasn’t my Mark anymore. It was jagged, torn, ripped, shredded, and horrifying. I swear I caught myself let out a tiny shriek.
What used to be a light blue swirl was now a menacing, rough patch of skin, a slow ooze of clear liquid escaped through the gash. I felt nauseous, the taste of bile burned the back of my throat. The woman inspected my wound, twisting my wrist this way in that between her delicate hands. My arm itself had gotten thinner and fragile, like a dry twig. I prepared for the pain that I had grown accustomed to as the woman began running her fingers along the opening. No pain. It caught me off guard.
“Does the... poison cause hallucinations?” I ask, my voice raspy.
The woman looked up at me in surprise by my question. She seemed to be thinking intently on something, then looked back up in realization. In her chirpy voice, she says, “Oh, no. It doesn’t.” She stops, then asks, “What did you see?”
“I thought I saw my Mark bleeding out... water. I wasn’t sure...” I trail off as I watch her wrap up my wrist again.
“No, no. It was real. The poison doesn’t cause physiological damage, only mass amounts of pain, inability to heal quickly, and much physical abuse along with death. Not hallucinations.” The way she said everything seemed almost too calm. Maybe she has had patients like me before.
“What was I seeing, then?” Puzzled now, I search her face for anything signaling my answer.
“You were bleeding water, so to speak.” The woman pins the end of the bandage with a needle of some sort to keep it in place. She sits up straight, and waits for further questions.
My brows furrowed as I tried to make sense of bleeding water. It wasn't right. From my expression, the woman explains further, “Since your main element is water, you bleed water from your Mark. If your main element was fire, it would be blood, but much warmer than average. Earth, its sand; air is just a small amount of wind that leaks out.”
“Why didn’t I bleed water then when I was shot with an arrow?”
“It didn’t make contact with your Mark. Only if your Mark itself is cut through is when it bleeds water.”
What? How is that possible? My grandmother never told me such. Am I dreaming this? I have to be right? I can’t bleed water.
“Trenton said earlier that my heart stopped.” I wasn’t making this into a question, it was a fact that I was stating.
“Yes.”
“I thought my ability to heal was...invincible.”
“The poison prevented your blood to clot and heal, making it difficult to treat you.”
“How did you treat me then?” All I could remember was the searing pain that felt like it was never going to disappear from my body.
The woman sighs, then begins, “We could see the poison moving through your veins, taking control. It darkened your veins to the gray they are now, that’s how we could watch it. I had only treated few patients like you during the beginning of the war, all died from it except one. The only way to get the poison out of your system was to... drain it out of you, along with the poisoned blood. When you came, it was almost to your shoulder, and it would have been too late if it did reach there. The only option besides letting you die a painful death was to push it out of you. We knew when you were out when you stopped screaming, but then your breathing slowed, your heart as well. I continued draining the poison from you, then your heart stopped.” The woman hesitated, then continued, “We had to revive your heart. What seemed like forever, you weren’t breathing at all. Suddenly, your heart sprung back to life. The poison was out. It was a miracle. Try wiggling your fingers.”
My mind orders my fingers to twitch slightly, but nothing comes from it. I order it again; nothing. Questions buzz through my mind. What if I will never be able to use my arm again? What if I become paralyzed? Is it permanent?
Almost as if she read my mind, the woman says, “You will regain movement in your arm in a week or so now that the poison is out. Only until your nerves, tissues and muscles heal.”
It amazed me how this was all true. Every bit of it. Maybe everything that was imaginable was real. Could it be? I retrace through my memory of all the moments that I captured images between bursts of pain, now everything slowly making sense. I understood my memories, knew what they meant.
“How long...” I trail off. I don’t need further explanation.
“Five days total.”
I was somewhat glad that the woman didn’t go into further detail into everything, and I felt the guilt that I owed her something in return. She saved my life, and I don’t even know her name. Almost unable to control it, I ask, “What’s your name?”
Obviously the woman was expecting something else, but she smiles and says, “Lyra.”
“Lyra, thank you. Truly.”
“Your welcome. It’s an honor to save the last Mover in Arai.” Lyra smiles a white smile and stands from her stool, shuffling up some of her supplies that weren’t needed. She was stiff, trying to hurry for an unknown reason that worried me. I figured it may be nothing important to me, so I ignored it.
“Lyra, can I ask you something?” I ask, completely serious now.
“Yes, what is it?” Lyra collects all of her supplies in her hands, eyes wide.
My eyes scan the room, thinking of a way to ask the question. I finally come up with something that makes sense, “Is Trenton alright?”
“Yes, he didn’t suffer from any wounds.” Lyra seemed to relax now. She must have thought I was asking a major question.
“No, I mean mentally. Is he alright?”
That’s when Lyra hesitates again, thinking of what to say. In a light, quiet voice, she says, “I don’t know. He keeps blaming himself for what happened. It’s not good for him to put that much on his shoulders. It will take time, I think.”
I nod a thanks, then stop her before she is out the door. “Where exactly am I?”
Lyra smiles again, “In the Elf Kingdom, of course. In Abell.” With that, she leaves the room. I think I will grow to like Lyra in time. It troubled me to think Trenton being mentally unstable, though. He needs to stop telling himself things that will make it worse. I need to convince him that it wasn’t his fault. It isn’t; couldn’t be. Trenton didn’t know, no one did. If it was out of selfishness or desperation, I don’t know, I wanted Trenton back. I felt alone and vulnerable. A feeling that I dislike. I yelled for him.
In a matter of seconds, he was by my side, still looking grim and angry. He resumed his previous position and pushed back a chunk of hair away from my face. Only then I really saw the hurt in his eyes. He looked away quickly.
“What did Lyra say?” Trenton asked, stroking my left hand.
“That I will be fine,” I say with a smile, hoping to cheer him up. It didn’t work.
He shakes his head, eyes shut tight, “I’m sorry, Elle. I’m sorry you had to go through this. If it weren’t for me-”
My voice cuts his short as I say, “I am here and alive because of you.”
“Please, Elle, don’t argue.” Trenton seemed exhausted, knowing that it was no use to argue with me.
I stop, letting him talk.
“Are you going to be able to Move again?” Trenton asks, switching topics.
I was going to say, “Yes,” but it wouldn’t be what Lyra said. I didn’t ask her. She didn’t say. “I didn’t ask her. I’m sure it will be fine.”
Trenton didn’t seem convinced. It would be harder than I thought to reassure him that it’s not his fault.
“I know what your trying to do, Elle,” Trenton confronted.
I was expecting another question about my health, not this statement.
“Just let it be. I will be fine.” It was obvious he was the opposite of fine.
It tore me apart seeing him being haunted by guilt that shouldn’t be placed on him. Was there more to this that I didn’t know? Maybe, but I didn’t let it bother me. Trenton was the only thing important at the moment.
“Do you still trust me?” Trenton looked up from his hands, eyeing me.
“Yes, I do. You are the only person that I can trust.” I smile.
Trenton seems unfazed. The guilt must be so deep that it’s impenetrable. Just then, Lyra comes walking back in to check my vital signs. It must be awkward for her to see Trenton and I like this, but I didn’t let that get to me. Before I let myself forget, I ask her, “Will I ever be able to Move again?”
Trenton listens intently on Lyra’s next words, waiting for something horrible. Lyra stops doing whatever she was doing to my wrist, mouth slightly open. Her expression worried me, my face turning down from a smile.
“What is it?” I ask, scared of her answer.
“I don’t know,” Lyra mumbles.
“What do you mean, I don’t know?” Trenton is getting angrier, I could feel him tense besides me.
Lyra starts crying, and I don’t understand why. She says as she pats her eyes with her sleeve, “The poison did to much damage. You may never be able to Move again.”
