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I groan in the base of my throat as the last bit bubbles up my throat, burning across my tongue and down my chin. Someone wipes my neck and mouth with soft material.
Everything is a blurry, black pit with figures shifting around me. They’re all so close yet so far away in the dizzy haze of my sight.
Signals of pain blast from my brain like a storm of radiation. I suck in a harsh breath, hissing through my teeth and throwing my head back in misery. A mix of fire and ice wrap around my legs, shooting acid up my hips and into my stomach. I must have the flu or strep throat. Maybe I was thrown off a cliff, breaking half the bones in my body.
I yelp before turning to vomit again. My hair is pulled from my face. A hand grips mine to keep me steady. To keep me grounded.
I’m shaking all over. Muscles vibrating like I’m sitting on an engine. Where does the pain begin and end? Why am I trapped in this dark hole of hellfire and pain?
It hurts so bad. I can’t take it! Someone, help me!
I feel the echo of a cry leave my lips. A man’s voice crackles against my cheek. A forehead is pressed to my temple.
I’m dying. I need help!
The pain becomes all-encompassing, roping around my shins and kneecaps like barbed wire soaked in kerosene.
“—hurts!” A word screeches out of my mouth with stinging anguish.
“Do we have anything stronger than that honey?!” a gravelly voice barks out.
“We need Dessin! Where did they go?”
A blubbering cry slips from my hold, slurring uncontrollably from my hammering chest. I cough gooey phlegm from my lungs, hacking until the muscles in my stomach cramp up, then cry harder.
I want to ask the figures around me why it hurts so bad. What’s wrong with me? Who can stop this unimaginable anguish? I want to beg someone for help. Maybe even to kill me now. End this suffering.
But the only word I can say is “Why?”
“I’ll get help, Ruthie!” Niles. I pick his voice out of the eternal stinging.
“I’m so sorry, little rebel. I’m going to find more medicine to make you feel better. We didn’t expect the last dose to wear off this fast.”
I blink through the glaze of tears pooling over my eyes.
“Warrose?” I hiccup.
I hear and feel him exhale against the side of my face. He’s so close, his facial hair tickles my cheekbone. “Yes. I’m here.”
“Why…” I mean to ask again, but the word is trapped in an air bubble sitting in my throat. I see the flash of a thick, sharp piece of metal. I see an audience jumping up and down, hollering, and beating their hands together.
Warrose stiffens without so much of a breath to leave his nostrils. Why isn’t he saying anything? Why won’t they tell me why I’m hurting?
But ignorance is only a temporary gift.
I see my legs detached from my body.
On the ground.
A pool of my own blood.
“My legs!” I gasp, eyes shooting wide open. “WHERE ARE MY LEGS?”
Out of the corner of my eyes, Niles covers his mouth and closes his eyes.
Answer me. Why isn’t he reassuring me? Panic shreds my insides.
I try to wiggle my toes, roll my ankle, flex my calf. Nothing. I try harder. Clench my foot. Bend my knee. There’s pain radiating up my shins. That means I was wrong, doesn’t it? My legs are still here! How else would I feel pain down there?
