Waiting for Spring - Part I

Chapter Twenty-Two

How does it feel to be dead? To drift in the ever-ending cosmos without sense of time and space, does it hurt? Does one see the light as her very memories flash by? Perhaps all of this was untrue, perhaps not. Will we ever find out? The feeling of death and all fear it brought, will we ever describe it? Perhaps it is a trivial matter, one that can easily be explained, but is not necessary to, simply because it is irrelevant. We will never know.

-Excerpt from Omens of the War by Lord Gantry of the Shimmer, Ward.

Dead or not, agonising pain emerged from April's chest. Will it be like this forever? The darkness was so uncomfortable, it closed in and it was an almost traumatising experience. She wanted to touch the wound, but she had no body, the pain was just part of a hollow nothingness. So this was it wasn't it? Death... Will I lie here in pain until the sun no longer rises on the morrows?

Suddenly something tugged at her. She coughed, though how she did it she did not know, all she could determine was the feeling. The mere feeling of coughing, it was strange at first, but as the experience repeated itself it came closer to her. The darkness started to transform into something greyer as well. It was a revelation, all of it; as if April suddenly remembered things she had always known, but forgotten.

The sensation was a bit too much at first, almost suffocating. April panicked when she realised that she did not breathe. She tried her hardest to fight the grasp that covered her throat, but in vain. Nothing could be done, but she refused to just give up. She tried to breathe once again and realised that it became easier when she calmed down. She relaxed and suddenly she fell. How or where she did not know, she simply fell deeper into the nothingness.

With such haste that Theron had to move his head away not to get hurt April sat up, coughing tremendously while grasping for air. She continued coughing as the dark night appeared before her eyes. At first she was hyperventilating while simply staring into the darkness, but it later turned into deep breaths. She could hear soothing words, but all she knew was the pain. She pushed the embrace away, unknowing of it herself. With a panicked look she stared at her surroundings. There was nothing there, only the plains and Theron, who was sitting next to her.

With heavy breaths she turned to the man and just stared at him with her big grey eyes. Theron tried to console her with soft strokes to her hair. She removed his hand, still unable to say anything. Her hands fumbled across her body until she found the tear in the leather. She touched the exposed skin with gentle fingers, expecting it to hurt. She halted immediately when she noticed that it did not.

"What... What happened? The pain... I..." April stuttered with a fretful voice. Theron looked back at her with his dark eyes, them full of questions, unknowing how to explain it.

"Do you remember anything?" he finally answered a bit elusive to the original question.

April remained quiet for a long time, pondering.

"I... We met that king. And then... the knife. I..." April quickly crawled away from Theron.

Her throat hurt as she threw up on the grass, suddenly remembering the pain. It all came back to her for an instant, all the feelings, all the pain. It was too much for her to take in at once. She felt as if someone had turned her throat on fire as whatever food she had left in her stomach landed in a puddle on the frozen grass. While still panting she turned around and looked at Theron with bleary eyes. She could feel how her head spun and her hands were shaking badly.

"My wound, why is it gone? Did you heal it?" She stuttered in rapid progression.

Theron just shook his head in response and handed the girl a piece of fabric.