After the End: Book 4

62. Dizzying History

Harry's POV

I was well acquainted with pain. Both physically and mentally.

I didn't mind it, really. There was a certain baseline level of pain I was willing to accept in both respects. My head always pounded, and my heart always ached. I knew that. I expected that. 

I was also used to pain that ran a bit more serious. I'd gotten concussions. I'd been beat before. I was pistol whipped once.

If I had to try and compare the way that white hot fire had ran along my temple to the back of my skull to a pain I'd felt before, I'd say it was closest to getting pistol whipped. I felt frozen in it. Even blinking set off a new wave of nausea. I thought I was going to pass out.

It had happened so fast, I wasn't even entirely sure what had happened. My mind was too muddled in pain. So much fucking pain. My ears rang in it. My eyes got blurry. I felt jarred and disoriented. For a moment, I thought maybe I was in a nightmare.

Then baseline consciousness returned as I got over the shock. I became aware that I was on my knees, and the ache presumable from hitting them was at least distracting in the slightest way from the head throbbing things. My face felt hot. I felt pressure on my arm, and although I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes yet, Oliver's screaming was evidence enough for me to know he was there. His screaming mixed with the ring in my ears to a splitting octave. I swallowed hard to bite down the nausea.

"Harry, I saw that hit you on the head. Are you okay? How bad did that hurt?"

I kept my eyes closed but Naomis voice came to me like a grounding wire. I wrapped my consciousnesses around it, and tried to let it pull me to the surface. I focused on her words. Something had hit me on the head. The acknowledgment brought the image to me. Pushing Oliver. Something falling.

Oliver screamed again at my side, and the ringing in my ears stabbed. I mustered my voice, and without answering Naomi's question, I said, "Please take Ollie."

The pressure at my side released. The screaming in my ear moved further away to be relaxed by the phantom ring of it.

"Harry, talk to me. How bad is it? What am I looking at?"

That voice belonged to Louis. It was calming, and just as grounding. Pleading almost, like he had to restrain it.

I opened my eyes for him, immediately feeling assaulted by the lights. That really confirmed it for me, helping me piece my current condition together.

"It's definitely a concussion," I forced out.

Definitely. I knew this pain. I knew the fog and the lack of focus intensifying in my brain. I couldn't feel present for more than a few seconds at a time before my sluggish mind kept slipping away back in on itself. My positive energy had dissolved. I was slipping under a disconnected blanket.

Something had just hit my head. Hard. I was not coming out of the daze correctly. That really pointed to one thing we all knew I was predisposed to.

When I came to that realization, and all of the working parts associated, I frowned away from Louis inquiring expression at my side. I didn't want to see the way my admission would hit him.

How bad is it? What am I looking at?

"Louis, I'm almost certainly not making it on that stage tonight."

It was the first time since Melvin had begun meddling that I'd voiced any true opposition. I waited for Louis to argue, or to perhaps show any sign of disappointment or resentment at the statement, but he'd just nodded grimly. His expression slipped into something determined and things began to move rather fast around me.