The Bookworm

Chapter 9 (edited)

Amara

The pounding of my head matched the pounding of my heart.

The first thing I usually do when I wake up is to think of breakfast. However, breakfast was the least of my worries.

The last thing I remembered from the previous night was talking and having fun with Markus and his friends. I was having a cup of something... a cup of sangria, I think, and then the memories from there on were getting fuzzy and slowly fady, slipping from my mind. I didn't remember anything other than just standing there and gradually starting to feel unwell... I think I was looking for water? I had no idea because that was the point where everything went blank as if the night stopped there.

The problem at hand, though, was a much bigger one. Like getting an answer to the question of, where was I?

The first glimpse of the ceiling was the first indicator I wasn't at Char's house, not at my own or any house I had ever been... this was a cabin, all wood.

It took me a second to move, but when I mastered the energy, I looked frantically underneath the dark gray covers that were securely wrapped around me like someone had tackled me in, and looked for clothes, petrified, beyond anything I could ever begin to describe. When I realized all of them were intact and in place, I started breathing again. The relief, though, was short-lived when I noticed who was sleeping on a small wooden chair beside me.

What the hell?

I rubbed my eyes and opened them again, blinking against the light sipping through the curtains. The figure wasn't exactly visible, and I wasn't wearing my glasses, but I could easily recognize him as Noah Wilson.

His frame was too big for a small chair like this, and his legs were spilling through the edge of the seat as if any moment now he would fall off his butt. His hair seemed to be extremely tousled, too, in a way I've never seen it before, falling on his forehead, almost hiding his sleeping eyes, but...

It couldn't be, could it?

Maybe I was wrong because, as I said, I wasn't wearing my glasses. The man was partly sleeping on his right hand, but he had big dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn't slept well for a few nights straight or hadn't slept at all.

When looking in the direction of the light hurt too much, I turned towards the opposite side covering my face with my hands hoping for some relief from the throbbing pain. I felt exhausted, I was so tired, and all of this didn't make any sense. I wasn't sure I could deal with it right then and there, so I decided it was a dream. Noah wasn't invited to the party, didn't know Char, and I was dreaming. Pulling my head under the covers for comfort, I fell into an easy sleep, determined this was nothing but an odd manifestation of my subconscious.

I just needed some rest.

~0-0~

The smell of food pulled me out of my dream state.

I tried to stretch my aching limbs, but I was way too stiff. My head was still pounding, I noticed. Opening my eyes the scenery hadn't changed, if anything it was just the same, with the only difference I found beside me two capsules that looked a lot like Panadol, with a glass of water.

My dry mouth and throat begged me to take a sip, but the part of my brain that was scared and still functioning, even under these circumstances, wouldn't drink, eat or swallow anything offered to me until it made sure I was safe.

Slowly I dragged the sheets off of me and noticed I was dressed, my costume might have been wriggled but it was still in place, so that hadn't been a dream either. Had I imagined, though, Noah sleeping on a chair at a reachable distance?