To Be Luminous || HP [REVIVAL 2021]

Chapter Nineteen

If Freckles Don't Mean Anything,
Does Anything Mean Anything?

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"Albus," Kiara moans softly. "Thank god, Albus. My head . . ."

And then she freezes. There was literally no other sound at all but her voice. It was an empty vacuum, she's certain of it. . . . Yet, even as she thinks this, she suddenly hears songbirds singing. A happy creek babbles nearby. Albus's foot snaps a twig by her side.

Still. Everything feels strange.

Strange, and distant.

Wind rustles the leaves of the oak above her, but the noise it makes seems to come a half-second later. Large shafts of sunlight stake down into the clearing. It's an uncomfortably hot day. Kiara moves to sit up, to look at Albus, but blood rushes up to her head and tinges the edges of her vision with blackness.

"I cannot move," she says. "You will have to carry me."

Then there he is. His face pops up above hers, but he's obscured from the sunlight around them. Her vision is too blurry to make out the details that she's committed to memory by complete accident; dark green eyes, framed by long eyelashes; a single, deep dimple in his cheek when he grins at her; a curious expression, laced with a seriousness she doesn't know the origin of, but would like to figure it out.

All she can see now is that he wears bright purple clothing, with stars that twinkle across the fabric. Regardless of the fact that Albus would never wear something so loud, it doesn't strike her as peculiar.

She is just so happy to see him.

Albus grabs her bare thigh and presses his grip deep into her muscle until she gasps. She feels as though she is being tenderized like a piece of meat. His other hand does the same to her abdomen. Her stomach is going to pop. She stares blindly straight up. The sunlight is overwhelming.

"Stop," she whispers. He does. "What are you doing?"

Albus moves his hand to her neck, and presses gently. She stiffens. He says, "This is what you want, Kiara. I don't want to kill you. You are making me help you. To disappear. . . . Kiara. Why would I want you to disappear? So the more relaxed you are, the easier this is on both of us."

Kiara can't speak. Suddenly she can feel her arm, and blood rushes to her hand. A sharp, painful tingle races down her veins, and Albus laughs with childlike innocence, as though he's responsible for her suffering but isn't able to realize it comes from him. The pain is like a thousand needles pricking into her skin. Fear spikes her adrenaline. She can almost sit up. With her hand, now free, she secretly searches the ground for something to defend herself with.