I'm With You

Chapter Six: Marcella

Chapter Six: Marcella

I've always hated waking up. I'm not one of those Disney princesses that gives an elegant yawn, and then pops up bright and early with immaculate hair and makeup. When I wake up it's usually with a groan and then a grunt at the mirror when I see my wild hair and tired eyes accompanied by the dark circles underneath.

But this is a new kind of waking up.

First, I do not wake up from the gentle hold of a peaceful sleep. I awake from the black oblivion of unconsciousness.

Second, I'm not sleeping in my twin bed, covered in my soft fleece sheets. I awake on something hard, something that feels decidedly like a floor.

Third, and if I may be so presumptuous to say so, the most important difference, I usually don't awake to find one of my fingers missing. But the moment my eyes strain open, I feel the dull ache of pain reverberate from my left hand straight up my arm and over my chest until I feel like the pain encompasses me entirely.

When I manage to blink away the spots in front of my vision, I take in where I am lying. I am in fact laying on a hardwood floor with only a thin blanket between me and the cool wood. Another blanket has been carefully tucked around me, and when I go to shuck it off a sudden strike of pain hits me again.

My left hand has been tightly wrapped in gauze, and I see a splotch of blood seeping through the starkly white bandages right where my pinkie should be. Seeing the injury brings the memories of everything that happened rushing back. I lean over with a groan, feeling the sudden throbbing headache.

Footsteps head quickly in my direction, and panic seizes my chest as I remember the psycho giant that threw an ax at my hand, took a knife to my throat, and relieved me of on of my fingers all in one night. I shoot up and strike out blindly at the person with my uninjured hand.

Sadly, my equilibrium is way off, and I sway to the side.

The person who had hurried my way, grabs the hand I had struck out with and they wrap their other arm around my torso to keep me upright. Closing my eyes against the onslaught of the throbbing migraine, I try and kick out at their legs not ready to admit defeat.

"Marcella," the person grunts when I connect one of my kicks to their legs. "Hey, hey, it's me, Marcella. Calm down. Shh, little sun warrior."

Upon hearing the unusual nickname, I stop fighting the person holding me. There's only one person who has ever called me that, claiming that when my blonde hair is caught in the sunlight it blazes like a golden inferno and combine that with my tendency to get into altercations with others, I'm like his own little sun warrior.

Forcing my eyes open, I blink a few times to bring the blurry figure into focus. Ash's handsome, worried face peers back at me and with the combined relief of not being held in the arms of that psycho giant and the pain I'm experiencing from my head and my hand, I collapse into his embrace.

He gently eases me to the ground, and I put up no resistance as he tightens his grip on me and leans back against the wall.

With my head pressed to his chest, I can hear every heartbeat that thumps in a rhythmic pattern. Every breath he takes is a soothing up-and-down motion of his chest. The warmth radiating from his skin seems to wrap around me in a comforting blanket.

As the gripping pain spiking through my head starts to ease off, I turn my head, so I can fully take in where he's brought me.

We seem to be sitting in an empty living room. Besides the two blankets I had been wrapped in, there isn't one piece of actual furniture in the entire room. The walls are the color of a warm summer day adorned with simple white trim. A cold, empty fireplace framed by warm red bricks sits across from where Ash and I sit.