Paralyzed (Tboah!AlbeCale)

39) Two bros, chillin' in a carriage, 8in. apart cuz of Bud's driving skills

Confusion quickly took over Cale's mind. His memory must be playing tricks on him, because what the hell was this?

Above him was someone he had never seen before, he was in a carriage that was not his, and he was tied up just firmly enough to restrict all movement in his arms.

Had he not just been sitting on the floor during a noble banquet? And earlier too, he had been kidnapped... Was this another kidnapping? He was for sure being kidnapped, right? Wait, was this the first time or the second? Was he still stuck in his own head?

Cale blinked, his mind filling up with urgent emotions to the point of spilling over. Panic, confusion, anxiety, stress, and a severe feeling of discomfort.

His head was full of scenes that didn't make any chronological sense. Fuck, he didn't even know if they were real events or not. There was a chance that some of it was just a dream or his imagination, but they felt extremely real.

A tangled ball of burning yarn was a great way of describing the state of his consciousness at the moment. However, with every new and coherent thought he had, the yarn kept jumbling further in a useless effort to untangle itself.

"Ugh—"

A sharp pain dug through his head, and a migraine formed almost instantly. The sharp pain turned to dull and back to sharp with every heartbeat, and every noise he heard seemed to enhance that pain even further.

Speaking of noises, a familiar chinking sounded right next to his head, forcing Cale to pay attention to his surroundings. He turned to look upwards after seeing a reflective black chain around the stranger's wrist. Bits of memory from before he was knocked out slowly came back to him.

Blink, blink.

"Hey."

No response. Cale stared up at the man with his eyebrows pinched together. It was hard to tell from this angle, but...

'He looks familiar.'

Ignoring that strange feeling of recognition for a moment, Cale also noticed that this man was pretending to sleep.

Cale had a lot of practice and experience faking being asleep because of his terrible night routine as a child. It was not uncommon for him to stay up until Ron would enter his room to wake him, so Cale made it a goal of his to hone the skill of fake sleeping.

It was frustrating how his butler always knew when he was faking it, but now that he was part of the hero group, it made more sense that Ron would be able to detect if he was asleep or not.

But this man who had his head slumped forward and his eyes closed was definitely fake sleeping. His face was not completely relaxed, and his breathing was not slow and steady enough to pass as an unconscious person.

Also, what kind of dumbass could possibly fall asleep in a situation like this?

'A, ahem.'

Of course, Cale did not fall asleep earlier. He was knocked out, there's a difference.

"Hey."

He tried again to call out to this faker. The more Cale stared at his face, the more familiar he felt. From this angle and the way the man's head was dropped forward, the face veil was hanging down enough to reveal what it previously hid.

And that meant that everything except for the eyes was visible to Cale, and the distance between him and Cale was also much shorter, meaning the man's face was in prime condition to be observed.

Because of the mess of thoughts and memories vibrating like angry bees mixing with the constant zig-zagging pain currently parading around inside Cale's head, he did not remember that this person was also a kidnapper which might go after him.