A taste of freedom

Chapter 39

  I huffed out a struggled breath of air and opened my eyes. My eyes scanned the room, as I was to tired and weak to move my head. My left hand was being clasped tightly by non other than Ray. I tried to move my hand but it was numb and useless to me. "R-Ray" I croaked out his name with a squeaky voice. With the way my voice sounded you'd think I'd been out for a month. I assumed that I couldn't have been out for more than a week and a half though, considering what my "conscience" told me. I'm still confused about what it's really there for but I'm sure I'll figure it out sooner or later. I waited for Ray to answer me but I got no reply. I suppose he didn't hear me. My body got that tingling feeling as if it was coming back to life. I tried to move around but my movements were strained so I couldn't do much more than slowly sit up. Ray must've felt the movement and he shot up with wide eyes.

"Y-Y/n? Are you really awake or is this a hallucination?" He picked up his free hand and rubbed his eyes before opening them and blinking vigorously. I smiled at him and he seemed to get the message, judging by the way he threw himself at me afterwards. We stayed in a tight embrace for what felt like half and hour. A few stray tears fell from Ray's eyes as he stood up. "I-I have to go get the other's" I gently grabbed his hand before he could leave, whispering something along the lines of "let me talk to Yuugo first." He nodded and left the room to go get Yuugo. I was sitting there waiting when I felt a horrible pounding in my head. I gingerly felt my head as voices ran threw my mind. They all had the same concept, negativity. Things like "you're such a burden" , "how could you do this to your family?", and "they should've let you die" all floated around in my brain.

I clasped my head in frustration. I knew everything they said was wrong but a part of me believed it. Well, until I figured it out. The voice happened to be all to familiar, my own conscience was the reason for these negative thoughts. I figured out that the price for my new found "abilities" was that I would continuously be put down and driven to insanity by me conscience. It's supposed to kill me from the inside, physiologically torturing me. I'm alright with it though, all I have to do it put up with it until we can escape this world. Yuugo entered and walked over to me cautiously when he saw me gripping my hair. I took a deep breath and looked at him before smiling. "Sit down" I told him and he did as I said, keeping a blank face. "Why do you want to talk to me of all people?" He questioned "I want to thank you. You went out of your way to help me even when it wasn't necessary, so I wanted to thank you for it!" I clapped my hands together but tensed up because I was still really sore.

   He shook his head "but it was necessary, you would've died if I hadn't." I sighed and face palmed. "No I wouldn't have, I told Ray before I blacked out that I would live. So no, I would not have died. Anyways is there anything I can do to for you since you helped me out?" He paused for a minute and thought before closing his eye and crossing his arms. "How did you heal up so fast? With an injury like that you should have died within minutes." I swung my legs off of the cot I was on and leaned my elbows in my knees. "It's a long story but, long story short- regeneration from demon blood that was injected into me at an experimental farm called Lambda." His eyes widened in surprise before relaxing again, "I suppose that explains a lot of things then." I nodded and tried to stand up from the cot.

    I ended up falling back onto it because my legs buckled beneath me. "Damn, how long was I out?" I sat up again and Yuugo spoke "about 2 and a half weeks." "What?! 2 and a half weeks?!" I shot up from my spot on the cot only to wobble and fall onto the ground. "Yeah and wait here I'll be right back." He got up and left while I waited on the ground. Yuugo came back in less than 5 minutes with a wooden cane "Lucas randomly had a spare one, here" he helped me up and I leaned on the cane. "Well, can you gather everyone up into the dining room? Tell them you have an announcement and then I'll walk in. It'll be a super cool entrance!" He nodded and headed to gather everyone up while I followed slowly behind. I got a weird sense of deja-vu though. I remembered the morning of the day Conny got shipped, Emma came bursting into the dining room and then started complaining to Mama because Ray "ruined her entrance." I rolled my eyes at the memory. Although I wasn't apart of the conversation I remember seeing it go down.

   I heard Yuugo talking to everyone in the dining room and then he stopped, I took that as my cue to walk in. "Y/n!" I heard everyone yelling around me and then they charged towards me. I held my hand up and they all stopped. "As much as I love your guys' hugs do ya' think you could do it gently?" They all replied and I dropped my hand to be attacked by crying kids. I laughed as the grace field kids all complained about me dying. Lily came charging through the crowd of kids and basically crushed me in a hug. I winced at the pressure but let it be because she was crying. "How many time are you gonna make me think you're dead?!" I hugged her back and rolled my eyes. Oliver came over to pry her off of me and when he did gave me a hug himself. "Stop being and idiot" he ruffled my hair and I laughed.   I turned to my side to Ace and he gave me a giant bear hug. "Nice to see you again big guy" "yeah you to, sis." We let go of the hug and Don and Gilda came up to me next.

   "Y/n, I thought you died! Twice!" Don was sobbing into the crook of his arm as Gilda pat his shoulder. She gave me a smile and I remembered to letter I gave her. Her smile conveyed the message to me easily. It said "nice to see you were right but, if you ever almost die again I'll kill you." I laughed softly and hugged the both of them. Emma was up next and she just kinda stared at me for a little bit with and thoughtful expression. "Why would you- how did you?" She was blabbing so I pulled her into a hug and pat her back. "If I knew Emma, I would tell you" she released the hug and spoke "you're crazy."  Marko came sprinting towards me and Emma before shoving her way in between us. "You idiot! You could've died! I thought it was 'we die together or we don't die at all!' What happened to that?! Why would you do something so stupid?!" Marko yelled and kept poking me in the forehead. "But I'm not dead" I shrugged and she dramatically fell to the ground in exasperation. "I give up!" I laughed and felt something wrap around my shoulder. I looked up to my right and saw Ray standing there with a blank face. "Did you get taller that me Ray?"

Word count: 1340
(A/n: sorry for posting so late 🙃)