A Tall and Small Collection | S2

Confessions to the (Un)Conscious

Content Advisory: This chapter discusses sensitive messages ahead mentioning intense emotion, past experiences, and personal injury to physical and emotional self.

~~~^*^*^~~~

Quiet.

Peace.

Finally, there was a moment of calm in the home. Even though everyone was still recovering, they knew they were safe and had drifted off to sleep.

Well...

Everyone except Ashlynn...

She couldn't sleep.

She dared not sleep.

There was a compounding, spiraling fear that they would be gone when she opened her eyes. It would've been so easy for the other Borrowers to gang up on the family she knew and loved. The emergency flashlight across the room was aglow dimly like a flickering candle.

It wasn't enough to ease the human's unease.

Were they being watched? Would they, whoever "they" were, make another attempt? Was this a message for her? Or for other Borrowers? Were they saying this would happen to others if they befriended humans?

Even after helping them, there was such mistrust. It made Ashlynn frustrated and angry. She imagined this was how Soren and his family felt, being watched and small knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it.

So, with her churning mind, Ashlynn stayed awake with the light on her bedside table on as well as the emergency flashlight in the hallway on.

The tenseness in her body wouldn't relent, even as she looked at all of the Borrowers sleeping.

Rey, brace firmly in place, was asleep on his side. Dorian tried to stay up with Ashlynn, but his own ordeal left him exhausted too. They were curled up together with Mayzie in the middle.

All three slept in the makeshift tent Ashlynn made on the bedside table to shield them from the light that was still on, and it evidently was enough. Ashlynn could see the tops of their heads from under the blankets, Mayzie's wavy brown and auburn kissed hair tousled in between Rey and Dorian's sandy blonde heads of hair.

It wasn't them, however, who she was really worried about.

It was Soren.

Thankfully, Borrowers were hearty and more resilient than humans, but not by much. He was stiff and lethargic all afternoon and into the evening. He drank the hot liquids Ashlynn offered him, but it was obvious he needed a good night's sleep nestled in blankets way too big for him to recover fully by the next day. Ashlynn couldn't help but think over and over that if she were just one more minute late...

No...

He was still here.

He was alive.

He was going to be fine.

That was what she had to remind herself of over and over as she stared at Soren's sleeping form. Unlike his brothers or daughter, Ashlynn insisted on having him sleep next to her on the bed next to her pillow so she could monitor his condition. Even after hours of time on the heating pad and sleep, he was still having a hard time moving and couldn't quite get warm, not that it was unexpected.

Some of the articles Ashlynn read said that an uncomplicated recovery could take as long as 48 hours to recover from. If Soren didn't feel better by tomorrow afternoon, Ashlynn would have real reason to worry. It was one of the reasons why she wanted him to be close... among other reasons.