Chapter 63: Hunted and Haunted (1)
At that moment, the world had gone bright white.
All of his surroundings felt distant, muffled, muted, as if his body were being stuffed away from reality.
His left side began to hurt, and so did his collarbone, tight and numb his skin felt. A drumming sound echoed overhead like someone banging inside a bucket. Thunder was it?
Hope blinked.
Twice more.
The glare soon faded, and Hope finally saw rain falling from the sky and the wisps of clouds and smoke curling like fingers. The drumming sounded again, but his memory's voices were clear in his ears, ringing like a shocked crowd from afar. It seemed that they were more real to his soul than to his flesh.
Hope blinked again at the sky's mourned light.
But then, as if someone had switched off the light, his vision went black.
A twitch spasmed in his fingers and knees, at least he knew his hands and feet were still intact. He was still awake. He knew it, although it felt like he was sensing it from afar.
He could also faintly feel the cool metal of the Pearls of the Moon dangling on his ear, humming its magic hum against the side of his head in which strangely reminded him of his younger self resting his ear against his home's fridge. He would hum along with it also back then. He tried to hum now, or groan, but no sound produced behind his lips.
Up. Up. He had to get up.