Things that Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 47: Finally Answered: Part 1

A/N: After an extremely long hiatus I finally found some extra time and the energy to finish another update! I apologize for the long delay and I hope that you all enjoy this update. I can make no promises about when the next update will be available, but I hope that the break between updates will not be this long again. Happy reading everyone!

Before this whole mess started, I had never passed out of fainted in my life. Now, however, I felt that I was almost adjusting to awaking from an unconscious state. Unlike the first few times, I knew I was alive and not dreaming very early in the process. My head was throbbing so painfully that I could feel each individual beat of my heart. The sensation hurt too much not to be real. Unfortunately, however reassuring it was to feel my pulse, it was also extremely disorienting. It felt like hours before any of my other senses were prominent enough to fitfully overcome the throbbing in my skull.

It was my hearing which rallied first, but the sounds that I heard were confusing at best. Muffled voices, slamming doors, the soft thud of feet against stone, and ripping fabric.  They did nothing to help identify where I was or what was happening. I couldn't put anything into context.

Smell came next.

Wherever I was, the stale air smelled like mothballs and the pungent rusty smell of blood. Was it my blood? Most likely. Somehow though I couldn't find the strength to be overly concerned about that fact for the moment.

What took the longest was opening my eyes.

They didn't just pop open like I wanted them to and I definitely didn't blink twice and yawn like an awaking sleeping beauty. It was a struggle to even force my eyelids to move and when they did they seized uncontrollably for a few minutes before I could try to focus on anything. When I could, my vision was blurry and distorted. The wolrd seemed off kilter and the colors of every shape around me swirled together like a kaleidoscope. After much struggle I was fianlly able to sit up with shaking muscles, gripping the sides of the bed for support. 

At least I deduced that it was a bed, as uncomfortable as it was.

It was the right shape and height to be a bed. This plus the fact that I was covered in some sort of sheet I felt comfortable with the deduction. As I shakily rubbed my hands over my eyes, I realized a few more things as my vision adjusted.

My hands were no longer bound.

The only evidence of the cold metal cuffs left were two white bandages around my wrists. They must have been covering the deep gouges in my skin where the metal sliced flesh. Eerily, I remembered the sensation of blood tricking from my wrists down my arms. The white bandages were a much preferred sight.

 I was sitting in a dingy bedroom.

The space was obviously not in the nicer portion of the city. The lighting was dim, the wallpaper was peeling, and what little furniture that was in the room was old and worn. Werewolves would not live in an area which looked so run down. It was clean though, so it had to be lived in by someone.

Humans. This was a residence of a human.

I happened to catch my reflection in a mirror which was across the room and flinched at my appearance. My hair was still red but it was wild looking and full of knots, my eyes were so blood shot they almost matched the fake color of my hair, there was a bandage on my head, and a dark purple bruise extended down from the edge of the bandage to my chin on one side of my face. I could tell that it was only hours old by the heat and swelling that stretched the flesh.

My clothing wasn't the same.

 I was wearing a loose fitting pair of sweatpants and a cotton shirt that was wide in the shoulders but short in the arms. They were dry and warm at least so I guess that it was an improvement. I tried to move my legs and felt pain shoot up from an area that felt constricted. I pulled back my pants leg to see yet another starch white bandage constricting my leg.  I had almost forgotten about that injury.