How About Seven? ✔

25. Atlantis

The world was fizzling in and out of my eyes.

It's either you or me, sweetheart.

I had no idea where I was - I'd stumbled out of the warehouse some time ago and I had a feeling I was hopelessly lost, but even that I wasn't quite sure, because something was wrong with my head, it didn't seem to be working right - 

Apple pie?

 - and there were these lights and at first I thought they were streetlights but today they seemed unusually glaring and bright, and each little ray that entered my eye seemed to trigger a spike that slammed into the back of my skull - 

You look so pale. Seen a ghost?

 - plus whenever I took a step it seemed to thump like an elephant's stomp on the hard, tar surface of the roads, but look the streetlights were gone now, where had they gone too? replaced by muted soft glows . . . what were those, house windows? Was I in a neighborhood? My neighborhood? Since when did my apartment block become so short? It's only two storeys tall . . . and why were there so many of them and are those garden gnomes - 

Please, call me Thomas.

- there's an eye in my vision, no wait two, two eyes, two eyes looking at me, no wait, now it was a face, and don't I know this person? the mouth was speaking, talking but I can't hear - those eyes, so nice, so blue - 

Because the lady has one. She has a witness that will testify that you committed unjust conduct against her, and that witness - is me.

 - and the world was melting now, like a dark chocolate flavored ice cream, all darkness, like a black hole collapsing into itself, no light, like the magician's cloth being pulled away to reveal the bunny popping out of the hat beneath - 

So. Nice tattoo.

 - and I felt the strength being sapped straight out of my very bones, my head pounding, my eyes hurting; two strong arms lifting me up as I suddenly, magically became weightless, two strong arms carrying me away, away from where? as the night folded in, encapsulating everything, encapsulating me, until all that remained - 

Were those two mesmerizing, beautiful electric blue eyes.

*

I woke up in a soft, lush bed.

The headache in my head had subsided to a distant throb, and when I reached a hand up to touch it my fingers brushed against cotton. A bandage. 

Where is this?

It was a bedroom of some sort, the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed. It looked somewhat luxurious. Next to me was a Moroccan chest-of-drawers that doubled as a bedside table, with a lime green apple lamp.

I kid you not.

There was a hiss of pain from somewhere nearby and I froze, going rigid. Did Jasper get me? Was that him? By Merlin's baggy Y-fronts, was I in his room?