Chapter 232: This Feels Perfect
"Maurice. Maurice. Maurice, wake up..." That clear and familiar, feminine voice kept murmuring his name, driving him into consciousness.
For a while longer, Maurice felt his body falling into the endless abyss, his environment enshrouded in the same darkness that effortlessly sucked him in.
He felt weightless as the gravity slowly pulled him deeper into its depths, calling for his soul, but he made no effort to fight it. His initial motive was to succumb to the darkness, but when he heard the familiar voice that continuously uttered his name, his eyes snapped open in his subconsciousness, also snapping him awake in reality as his eyelids fluttered open.
When his vision cleared, his sister’s face came into view, like a light driving away the darkness that nearly consumed him. Her worried green eyes softened into relief, and she exhaled a breath he guessed she had been holding for too long. Taking quick notice of his environment, he no longer found himself in the abyss but in his room in the Palace.
He was resting on the comfort of his mattress, and he could perceive the odd scent of Herbs. Everything was as it should be, and he blinked, as though he feared he may have imagined his sister’s presence and his present environment, whilst he pulled his body to sit upright on the bed.
"Sister?"
"You’re finally awake." The relief in her voice as she spoke, and when she held his hand, Maurice knew none of this to be his imagination. While his mind was still in the process of rebooting, he felt his sister’s soft, delicate palm on his cheek, and that made his brown eyes shift to meet her green orbs.
"I’m not dead?"
"Were you planning to die out there? Of course you aren’t." Samantha reciprocated sharply, as if she couldn’t believe he would dare say something like that to her. When he was brought back after successfully getting his hands on the gemstone, her heart almost left her chest when he passed out in front of everyone. She stayed by his side till it clocked midnight, hoping he would wake up soon, and now that he finally regained consciousness, he was talking about death.