Chapter 52: Hurt you
Miles opened his eyes to find only darkness.
A void. He was in a nebulous, featureless void. Then came the cold, a wet chill engulfing his feet.
He looked down to find his legs dipped in a layer of dark, freezing water, one that extended endlessly from him into the darkness around.
Then came the sounds, light and repetitive. A bird, pecking at something.
He turned to find a body lying in the water, with only parts of its face, abdomen, and feet piercing through the surface.
A crow perched on its face, pecking mindlessly into its flesh and bone, bloodying its beak and slowly staining the water around it red.
As though sensing his gaze, it stopped it’s pecking. Then turned to face him. It’s silver eyes glowing warmly at the sight of his face.
It opened it’s beak, not even bothering to swallow the flesh there, and spoke. It’s voices soft, familiar and comforting.
"It’s not your fault, Miles. You did what you had to do."
Miss Rose.
She took flight, circling around him a bit, before landing quietly on his shoulder. Then, she nuzzled her beak into the side of his face, smearing the blood on it all over his cheek.
"They’ll only hurt you, Miles. Never forget that."
He stood stiffly under her attempts at comfort, slowly turning his gaze to the bloodied face of the corpse below him.
Jayce.
He heard a sound in the distance, then it all dissolved to black.
***
"Hey..."
"I-I think he is waking up."
Miles heard voices speaking above him, but he couldn’t pay any attention to them. A sharp, heavy pain pierced his skull, rattling his brain.
Luckily, it only lasted for a moment before rapidly easing into a dull ache.
’Is that all?’
Backlash. He didn’t know why, but those were the first thoughts that came to his mind. After abusing [Delusion] like he did, he’d expected a heavy backlash. One far worse than what he’d gone through in the hallway.
And yet, he felt fine. Not just that, his body wasn’t in complete agony either.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking through the layers of blood on his eyelids. A face appeared in his bleary vision. Chloe.
Upon meeting his gaze, she looked back to the others.
"Guys!"
Something about the way she spoke prickled at his mind. He didn’t have to think much to figure out why.
’She’s shouting.’
She was shouting, and hadn’t been smited by the principal.
’I fainted back there too, right?’
It was grounds for an execution too. Then he remembered the final message he’d seen before blacking out.
[Pylon Activated]
’So we won?’
That wasn’t all either. His body should’ve been a barely functioning mess too, especially after that beat down that Jayce had given him.
But he could feel both of his arms, his face didn’t feel deformed, and the back of his head didn’t hurt at all.
There were some aches here and there, but compared to before, he was basically as good as new.
He felt something blinking at the side of his vision, instinctively realizing that it was a notification waiting to be called upon.
Miles chose to ignore it upon hearing more steps approaching him from the side. He pushed himself into a sitting position, Chloe moving her head away as he did so, before raising a hand to clean the blood around his eyes.
Doing so only served to smear more blood there. He only tried it for a few seconds before deciding he could see well enough already.
Chloe knelt before him, Ryan and Mia approaching quickly from behind her as well. They both looked uninjured.
He looked to his other side, his gaze stopping on the body lying right there beside him.
Jayce.
His dream flashed before him, and all the memories before that too. Miss Rose, the sketches that found their way into reality, the penciled blood, the hidden mirrors, the whirl of violence in which he had killed him, and finally, Matt.
Staring at the boy now, at his actual bloodied face and dead eyes, at the knife he’d left in the corpse, he didn’t feel the whirl of chaotic emotions he’d felt earlier.
All he felt now was a dull pang in his chest. One closer to disappointment than sadness.
Numbly, his gaze traveled along the boy’s corpse, to the place his hand had frozen mid-scribble. Three lines written in blood lay next to it.
Sisters
House 4, 4th street
Pleas-
The writing grew increasingly scratchy as it progressed downwards, with the last part of the third line completely illegible.
Miles just stared at it silently, feeling strangely unmoored and lightheaded.
"Are you okay?"
Chloe’s voice brought him back to reality. He turned to find all three of them staring silently at him, a mix of worry and something else in their eyes.
He raised a hand to scratch his head, pausing midway before lowering it back down awkwardly.
"Yeah. I’m fine."
"Are you sure?"
It was Mia this time; she stared at him with a concerned frown. Miles simply nodded.
"I just need to get cleaned up, and some sleep, I think. I’ll be fine... yeah."
They all fell silent, so Miles decided to shift the conversation to something else before they probed even more.
"It worked, right? I mean the pylon?"
"Yes, we-"
Ryan was interrupted mid-nod by a shout from the other side of the room. Brandon’s voice.
"The old man is moving!"
The class rep froze at that, then turned in Brandon’s direction before looking back at Miles.
"Let’s continue this later."
He bolted off, Mia trailing closely behind him. Chloe just watched them go, then stood up, dusting her knees before extending a hand to Miles.
"Can you stand?"
Miles mentally evaluated his current state before nodding tentatively and accepting her hand. Her face squirmed when she touched his bloodied palm, but she tightened her grip before wordlessly pulling him up.
Away from the pool of blood he lay in, away from Jayce.