Flawed and Tainted

CHAPTER 13. Wounded

Violet

The first sense to return was hearing, allowing me to discern some kind of noise to my right. The very distant voice of a girl, murmuring something impossible to decipher as it reaches me by intervals, never fully letting me understand a full sentence.

My sense of touch follows at a slow pace, making itself present between the numbness of my whole nervous system. The warm temperature of my body becomes present to me, the neverending increase of it sending a warning to my brain, still unable to function correctly.

As my eyes slowly waver, their heaviness decreases, offering me the chance of opening them, a light finally cutting through the darkness and blinding me for a few seconds.

The dizziness is noticeably still there, side by side with the still rising temperature of my body. My drowsy eyes attempted to open again, this time giving me enough time to see a person's figure in front of me before closing them once more.

“Oh, … I'm … sure … isn't good”

I finally get to decipher the meaning of some words, distanced by distorted and distant noises.

That was the last thing I heard before falling into the abyss again, darkness taking away every bit of sense and rationality I had gained in those previous few minutes. And then, I'm just surrounded. By silence.

***

My eyes fly open the moment my mind and body awake, both confused by every single thing around me. My senses crash together as I try to regain control, the pain and dizziness still accompanying me and therefore making the task a hundred times more difficult.

I know where I am. The undeniable smell of flowers immediately makes its way to me, letting me know I'm at Elga's flower shop. It takes me a few minutes to calm down before I'm fully able to look around me. I'm in my room. The rope and bag next to me make everything suddenly appear so real to me. Last night's events weren't a dream but a clear reality, the consequences of which I'm going through now. As the fighting plays in my mind, so does the memory of never reaching the stairs to my room and never attending to my wounds. Someone else did however. The smell of alcohol, medicine and blood around me confirms my premises.

“I'm alive”

I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive

The two words replay in my mind, the relief momentarily shadowing the confusion and worriedness crawling its way to my heart. As I try to come up with an answer to my many questions, the door flies wide open, revealing a face I know very well, one I've grown very close to in the past few months. But she shouldn't be here. Not now.

The lack of shock in her face as she enters the room with a bucket full of water and a small towel tells me she's already seen it all.

“Of course she has” I think to myself.

“Violet!” she says, her eyes growing wide as she comes closer to the bed, surprise and happiness dripping through her voice. “How are you feeling? Are you in pain? Dizzy? Or burning up again?” Again? She lifts her hand to my head, checking for my temperature. The sudden motion startles me a bit.

“I'm…” I pause. What am I? In pain? Yes. Dizzy? Absolutely. With a fever? Probably. But that's not important right now. What is she doing here? How? Why? How much does she know? The questions crush into each other as a sharp pain raises from the corner of my eyes, forcing me to close and open them a few times.

“Oh gosh. It's happening again… Are you okay?” she looks at me firmly.

I climb out of bed stumbling as my feet and legs stabilize, running for the mirror in the bathroom. What I see makes me freeze in place. 

As the sharp sting remains, my once brown eyes flick, turning lighter. As if it were an unfunctional light bulb my irises change colors, from brown to white, at irregular beats. About a minute later, my natural color returns and the sting ceases. Everything is back to normal. Panic takes control of me as I turn my head aggressively towards the bedroom, from where Melody is worriedly looking at me. The thought floods me right away. She saw. She saw everything. The eyes, the wounds, my hair the first day we met. I finally establish contact with her eyes. I'm sure. She knows.

I'm certain she could see the panic in my eyes, the overwhelming fear that flows through me, all the alarms ringing in my head.

As I grasp a little control over myself, just enough to concentrate on her emotions, my breath hitched. She is also fearful, a bit of panic in her eyes, just like me. I did expect that. What I did not see coming was the seeming sadness her countenance expressed. That thoroughly confuses me. I expected some kind of arrogance, maybe happiness. After all, she caught the White One red-handed! She had me wounded. She had me dying! She could have turned me in –”she didn't”–, she still can –”she won't”–.

I don't move a muscle as my mind races. I don't dare to. She doesn't either. We remain still until I finally open my mouth, a question coming out before I can stop it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I yell-whisper, a voice crack almost escaping through my –not recently used– vocal chords. “How many days have I been asleep for my voice to be so unable to produce sound?” I tell myself.

She keeps staring at me. Silently. The sadness in her eyes not disappearing for a second. The girl then takes a few steps backwards slowly dropping her head, directing her gaze towards the wooden floor, breaking eye contact with me.

“I'm sorry.”