Chapter 176: He Thinks he Is
The two days following their crucial meeting had passed much faster than Arthur would have hoped for, time seeming to slip through his fingers like sand despite his desperate wish to slow it down. Each hour that ticked by brought them closer to their departure, and with it, the looming shadow of Fort Stan grew ever larger in his mind. Now, as the pale morning light filtered through the thin curtains of his temporary quarters, he found himself staring at the ceiling, officially awake on the day they were scheduled to leave.
Although "waking up" was perhaps a loose term to describe his current state, seeing as he hadn’t really been able to fall asleep to begin with. The concept of restful sleep had become increasingly foreign to him over the past forty-eight hours, his mind too active and anxious to allow his body the peace it desperately needed.
For the past two nights, Arthur had experienced that same subtle feeling of something slowly growing in the back of his mind – a presence that seemed to pulse with a life of its own. It hadn’t gotten bigger or worse in any measurable way, but every night when the world fell silent and he was left alone with nothing but his racing thoughts, he could feel it there. It was like a second heartbeat in his skull, pulsating rhythmically just enough to cause sleep to elude him completely.
The sensation was maddening in its consistency and mystery. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it was undeniably present – a constant reminder that something was different, something was changing within him. As he lay there staring up at the cracked plaster ceiling of the temporary room he was staying in, Arthur couldn’t help but get lost in increasingly anxious thoughts about what this strange phenomenon might mean.
After the first night, he had tried his best to forget about it, dismissing it as stress or perhaps just his imagination running wild in the face of their upcoming life in district 3. But now, as the feeling persisted with unwavering consistency, it was starting to make him genuinely nervous. The rational part of his mind began cycling through possibilities, each one more concerning than the last.
’What the hell is it?’ he thought, his internal voice tinged with growing panic. ’Should I see a doctor? Maybe it’s a tumor or something! Could it be some kind of side effect from our time in the realms? What if it’s—’
But before his panicked thoughts could develop any further down that dark path, they were starkly interrupted by Aziel waking up in what could only be described as a storm – quite literally. Lightning began coiling around his friend’s form like living serpents of electricity, crackling and sparking in the dim morning light. Aziel launched himself out of bed and to his feet with such explosive force that Arthur was certain he had achieved some form of levitation.
The sudden display of raw power and energy caused Arthur to sit up in a hurry, shock lacing his features as he stared wide-eyed at his friend. The air in the room seemed to buzz with electrical energy, making the hair on Arthur’s arms stand on end. For a moment, he was certain that some kind of emergency alarm should be sounding, that they were under attack or that some catastrophic event was unfolding.
"What is it?!" Arthur yelled, his voice cracking with alarm as he assumed something must have been terribly wrong for such an explosive awakening. His heart was pounding against his ribcage, adrenaline flooding his system as he prepared for whatever crisis had prompted such a dramatic response.
Aziel simply turned toward Arthur, lightning still coiling around him like a living aura of power, with a wicked smile spreading across his face that seemed to light up the entire room. His eyes were bright with an almost manic excitement, and when he spoke, his voice carried the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning.
"It’s finally time to get the action started!" he exclaimed, his words practically vibrating with energy. "We’re leaving today!"
Arthur stared at him in stunned silence, blinking slowly as his friend’s words sank in. The contrast between his own anxious state and Aziel’s boundless excitement was so stark that it left him momentarily speechless. An empty, blank look settled over his features as he processed the fact that his friend had just given him a heart attack over what amounted to his enthusiasm for their departure.