Chapter 15: Principal Twiller
First, the bitter taste of medicine came to his mouth. Then he felt an uncomfortable sensation on his back, made prominent by the weight resting on his belly.
Groaning, Damien slowly opened his eyes, a blinding light coming from the large window to his right immediately flooding them and making him wince. He tried to remove whatever was resting on his belly, but his hands wouldn't budge. Such was the case with his legs and neck, too.
With a racing heart whose pumps could be heard in his ears, Damien scanned his surroundings by darting his eyes wherever they could reach.
'Where am I?' He wondered.
He couldn't recognize anything familiar about the room.
The ceiling was white, but it didn't have a bulb hanging from it. The same was true of the plain, boring sticker-less walls by the large alien window located right above his bed.
Shifting his eyes to the left, Damien was surprised to see a curtain separating him from whatever lay on the other side. Then it hit him. He wasn't home. He was in the hospital. A rather strange one, considering there wasn't any machinery beeping nearby.
Then came the memories from the fight. Like a movie on repeat, they flooded his mind, and he closed his eyes, trying to piece everything together.
'I remember the flames and shadow. Oh, and how they controlled my body,' he thought bitterly.
The last thing he had expected after the fiery frames gave him another chance at life was the power that came with it. Although they led most of the fight after taking possession of his body, he had felt it—the immense pleasure that came with knowing he could trounce his enemies.
It was thrilling. Especially when he could protect Ahara and the others from harm.