Awakened (manxman)**Halloween Story

Chapter 2

Enlightened

(Vasiliy Mararov, my vision of Remy the Seth's guardian Imp)

Seth

My eyelids felt like they were weighted down with lead and it took several attempts before I was finally able to open my eyes. I blinked a few times to clear my vision. The pounding behind my eye sockets kept me from recalling where I was for a moment, but once I reconciled with the throbbing ache, my memory of the last few hours or my recent past came rushing back to me with a vengeance.

There was nothing around me to tell me what time of day it was, or hell, even what day it was. A startled gasp escaped my throat when I unconsciously tried to sit up to attempt to decipher where I was, but my battered body immediately reminded me that it wasn't a good idea to move at all. Lying back, I tried my best to calm down by taking deep even breaths, but even the slightest movement of my diaphragm rising or falling to allow me to draw oxygen into my lungs caused me to wince in discomfort.

It felt like something sharp was poking me in my side. It was most likely a piece of my shattered rib cage. I was breathing okay, so I figured my lungs were alright and nothing was punctured. I tried to turn my head to study my surroundings and a cold sweat broke across my forehead from the pain of my efforts.

The first thing I noticed was that I was in some kind of luxuriously appointed bedroom instead of being helplessly sprawled out the cold dirt packed floor of the old mill. I was completely clean, free of the dirt, blood, and bodily fluids I was left to die in puddling around my broken body. I was lying in the middle of what seemed to be a very large and very soft bed.

The lighting in the room was very dim, almost non existent. The only light source seemed to be coming from a small decorative desk lamp on the antique table by the closed door across the room, everywhere else was cast in darkness. My eyes returned to

my body and I noticed I was naked but covered up to my waist with a milky white satin sheet. I rubbed my fingers over the silky material and the movement caught my attention.

My eyes went wide as I looked down at my hands, my knuckles were sore, and the skin was mottled black and blue. Otherwise my fingers, my hands, and my wrists were no longer a mangled mess of dangling flesh and broken bones. I was sure that they were resembled raw hamburger meat not so long ago, aside from a little stiffness along with some deep bruising, they were almost perfect again. I kept staring at them in wonder.

My brain tried to cope and find a reasonable explanation for this sudden miracle. Raising my eyes, I looked around the best I could and saw nothing other the darkened corners of the room. I didn't want to tempt fate and move my throbbing head to the other side so I decided to bite, the bullet and cleared my throat.

"Hello." The weakened squeak of a sound barely made it past by lips, and I swallowed what little moisture I had left in my mouth and tried again with a little more volume this time around. "Hello, is anyone there."

There was a sound of someone moving behind me, the subtle rustling of clothes, and the creek of someone easing up from a chair. My heart flipped into overdrive as my brain released the another memory. The unrealistic glow of a golden gaze studying me like I was some type of alien species, something that it had never seen before. I remembered that whatever the thing was, it had been so close, almost right in my face.

Yet I couldn't make out anything of it's features other than those unnatural amber globes staring down at me. I began to nervously sweat all over again. My breathing became choppy and my vision was beginning to blur as I hyperventilated in the middle of this posh bed while waiting for the unknown entity to make an appearance in front of me.