Ellora's Sun

Chapter Sixteen

A gust of wind blew past, and her hair tickled the back of her neck. Adelaide blinked her eyes open, met with a bright, blinding light. Her surroundings were quiet, calm, serene. She didn't move. She was sure she'd bled out on the stone platform, and this was her waking up in the afterlife.

Adelaide heard voices whispering around her, and she shifted her head to look for the source. The soft blanket covering her fell to the ground as she pushed herself up. The source of the whispering was nowhere to be found, but Adelaide took note of the large room around her. She'd expected it to be white, pristine, and bright like the depictions of death she'd seen in movies. It was surprisingly cluttered.

She was lying on a large, king sized bed with dark sheets in the middle of the room. To her left was a wall made entirely of windows, sending in beams of natural light as the sun lowered in the sky outside. Across from the bed was a wall covered in bookshelves, but it wasn't enough to contain the amount of books in the room. They sat on every inch of space. The nightstand, the dresser in the corner, the coffee table in front of some armchairs. It looked more like a library with a bed in it than a bedroom with books in it.

A guitar hung on the wall next to the door, with an electric piano sitting below it. Adelaide saw the door cracked open, and the whispering was coming from outside the room. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, but immediately regretted her movement. She yelped in pain, clutching her stomach. Adelaide looked down in surprise. Surely you're not supposed to feel pain in the afterlife?

The baggy t-shirt she was wearing wasn't enough to cover the ugly, jagged cuts running up her arms, or the deep cuts on her hands. Adelaide traced a finger over her palm, wincing when it stung.

"Adela?"

A voice near the door asked quietly, pushing the door open slightly. She looked away from her hand, smiling when she saw James in the doorway. Once he saw that she was awake he crossed the room in two strides, attacking her in a hug. Adelaide felt her sore body scream in pain, but she didn't care.

"Oh my god," James breathed, wrapping his arms around her. Adelaide hugged him back, wondering whether or not he was real, "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Am I okay?" Adelaide asked cautiously as he pulled away. She glanced down at the cuts on her arms, one of which had started to bleed after James' hug. He moved away from her, immediately regretful.

"Oh shit, I'm an idiot. Sorry." He hurried to the table near the armchairs to grab a small box, pulling out some gauze and other first aid supplies. Adelaide watched curiously as he tended to her wound with expert care, as if he'd done it a million time.

"Hey James," Adelaide asked him as he worked. As her brain started to wake up, she began to realize she wasn't dead, and that was somehow more bizarre to her, "how long have I been out? What happened?"

"It's been two days now," James told her with a soft smile. Adelaide eyes widened at his response, "You lost so much blood, Adelaide, so much. I had no idea what to do."

"Thank god Stefan was there. He was able to do this spell that stopped the bleeding and get you stable, and then he carried you all the way here. You've been out since then. He's been doing more treatments with the spell to help you heal quicker." James explained to her as he finished up with her wound. He put the box and supplies to the side, sitting carefully next to her on the bed.

Adelaide looked down at her wounds again, noting how healed they looked for only two days. They were definitely still painful and fresh, but her wounds had definitely required stitches, and there were none she could see.

"Where is here, exactly?" She asked, looking around the large room again.

"We're closer into the city, I think. This is Stefan's apartment." James told her, gesturing to the room around them. Adelaide raised her eyebrows. The room was not what she would have expected Stefan's room to look like.