The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter seventeen:

Clarity was weightless. She imagined it to be somewhat similar to the feeling of floating around in zero gravity. She rather liked it. Maybe she would reconsider her decision to never set foot on a starship in her life. It might be fun after all.

She didn't mind death. If she really was dead, that is. She still wasn't completely sure.

Then she remembered her mom. Her dad. Rachel and the others. They would miss her, wouldn't they? Yes, she was sure they would.

The thought came slow to her foggy mind, and she realized something.

She couldn't die, not with so many people that would miss her.

She tried to find the spot where she had left her body behind, but she couldn't. She was stuck, drifting in black oblivion, forever. She didn't even know if she was moving around at all as she tried drifting back along the same path she'd taken.

Every thought came slowly to her. Her mind was clouded and sluggish, every bit of information taking a long while to process.

A few more minutes of fruitless searching yielded nothing. Gone was the tranquil drifting from before. Instead, every second she drifted, her anxiety increased. She was going to be lost for eternity. If she was dead or even if she was in a coma, this wasn't good.

Then, she felt something. A pull—something tugging at her where there had been nothing before. She was no longer floating.

It was like a rope pulling her back to the land of the living. She could feel it tugging at her, calling her back. The longer she was pulled, the clearer her thoughts became. She could tell that she was nearing her body again, and she no longer felt as lost as she had just a moment before.

The rope that was pulling her reminded her of something—or someone. It had a feel to it, like a familiar smell or taste. It was like déjà vu.

A second later, she had it. The rope reminded her of Johnny. She didn't know why. She wasn't remembering or hearing anything, and it wasn't like she'd ever tasted him. It was just—there.

Pretty soon, she was able to feel again, but the feeling was horrible. After the weightlessness of before, her body was a burden. Everything ached. She had been expecting a feeling of relief upon finding her body again, but contrary to her thoughts, she immediately wanted back out again.

When she opened her sore eyes, she was still in the dreadful black room. She tried to rise to her feet, but her body wouldn't let her. Nothing seemed to work as it should, but at least her thoughts were no longer so slow and groggy.

She gave up on standing or even sitting up, and flopped to the floor. No use in attempting the impossible.

She hadn't been expecting the weakness. She had been thinking that she would have a killer headache, or maybe a few sore muscles, but she literally couldn't move anything without extreme exertion. It took her completely off guard. After all, it was only her head that August had drained.

It took too much effort to figure out why, because everything was inoperable. She could barely hold her eyes open.

As she lay there, some of her strength returned, and she let her eyes flicker closed. It was taking too much effort to keep them open, and she wanted to conserve her strength, or at least speed up the recovery a bit.

After a while of lying there, she was dimly aware of voices. Low voices. Sad maybe? What had happened in her absence? Hopefully nothing serious.

When she next attempted to open her eyes, she found it much easier. She was getting stronger much faster than she'd thought she would. She should probably just ditch all of her ideas about this. It was completely new territory to her, after all.

The light was blinding. She didn't like it, but it wasn't too bad, so she kept her eyes open. She had no idea what would happen, but maybe it wouldn't hurt anything. Someone was crouching above her, holding her head in between their hands. Which reminded her; she could feel that, too.

Everyone was just a dark figure against the bright lights. She could tell that the tall, skinny one must be Rachel. The others, she wasn't so sure. Then again, Sam was obvious from the ears.

The murmur of conversation grew in volume as her hearing slowly came back. They weren't sad anymore. They were excited.

A few minutes passed before the light began to dim and she could actually see properly. It was Johnny that was crouched above her. There was a thin trickle of blood coming from his nose.

"Are you alright?" Johnny asked. His voice, although much clearer than the others, was still slightly muffled as if she had water in her ears.

She didn't trust her voice, so she tried to nod. Her effort was only partially rewarded. She did manage to nod, but only so slightly that she was sure they hadn't even noticed it.

But apparently they had because there was a general sigh of relief that even Clarity's muffled hearing could detect. Rachel visibly relaxed.

She couldn't keep her eyes open any longer, but she felt herself getting lifted up, moved, and set down on something hard. She didn't like the hard surface. Something much softer was placed under her head. The soft thing only improved it a tad, though.

Low voices were once again floating past her fuzzy hearing. She was too tired to care what they were saying, but the subtle noise kept her in a state of half-consciousness. She wasn't able to fall fully asleep, but she couldn't remain fully awake either.

She wished the others would shut up so that she could get some sleep.