Part Twenty-One

My life—in danger?

Please.



Over the next few weeks, I would appear to be getting better, then the spasms would return tenfold. During the painful periods, I was too delirious to understand anything. When I could hold consciousness for more than twenty minutes, I did some of the school work I was missing.

Em would sometimes come by during my delusional periods. Whenever I saw Rosa, she always sobbed, insisting it was all her fault. I didn’t see how that could be until I learned her power. On contact, Rosa could mess with her opponent’s mind. The punch meant for Trist was backed with a curse of sorts to make the person go insane. I insisted it wasn’t her fault, but I’m not sure I believed that.

I woke on a particularly cold night. I was on an updraft and had only woken because of the chill. I wasn’t surprised to see the first snow out my window, but I was surprised to see John sitting guard.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“N-nothing. Just making sure you’re safe.”

“From what?”

He waved the question aside. “How are you? Do you need another blanket?” He must have seen me shivering. Without waiting for an answer, he jumped up to fetch another blanket.

“John, you didn’t answer my question!”

No use.

“Don’t worry, James. You’re safe with me. Just go back to sleep.”

Nothing I could say would get him to spill, so I rolled over in my bed so I wasn’t facing him and drifted back to dreamland. If only my dreams had been normal.

Instead, my dreams started out with me hanging in front of a faceless Medieval crowd. Literally, a noose was tight around my neck. When my lungs were ready to burst, the rope dissolved and I fell to the floor of a dark dungeon.

 As I tried to regain my breath, a claw raked across my shoulder. I fell back and soaked through a pit of quicksand. The sand let me off on the rise of a hill, where I could see a battle in the valley below me. It could have been a scene straight out of the movie 300, and the sight made me gag. A strong hand steadied me, but I couldn’t turn to see who it belonged to.

I stood there, frozen, watching the awful battle rage on. It was obviously the war Trist told me about. After some minutes, the valley passed into darkness and my sleep returned to a normal one.


 
Thank goodness.