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Chapter 13: Wake Up!
Green flames swarmed me.
My vision swayed from side to side. Bullets blurred past me. Blades raced through me, and screams tore inside me. And death loomed all around me.
I buckled up from the nightmare.
Wooden walls replaced the green flames, candlelight stung my eyes, and people observed me insecure and scared.
A contracting pain ran inside my left hand. It was stuck inside a metal box.
I felt it. It felt. Like a second consciousness, my hand flaunted from hunger. A ravenous lust to devour crawled up my arm, along my shoulder, and relentlessly cracked into my brain. I tried to open the box with my other arm, only now remembering it was destroyed.
I squeezed out the clogged air in my mouth, desperately trying to fight against this hunger.
“Hercu! Stay with us!” Nita held me.
“He’ll faint again,” Hale said. “The cold water!”
A sheer cold splashed over me, getting me somewhat back to my senses.
I gasped for air.
“Hercu! Stay. Awake.” Nita held my head.
I tried my hardest to prevent my eyes from closing. “Where . . . am I?”
“We have capsized a ship from the Verdant Kleptos. Don’t worry. We’re safe.”
I searched the room. Barrels, strapped with ropes, lay stacked under a wooden staircase. Next to them hung hammocks and lanterns. Behind that, rows of crates and cannons. A small boat hung from the ceiling.
Nita, Hale, and Brenda stood at my side, worry plain on their faces.
“Where’s Finn?”
Brenda avoided my gaze while Hale opened his mouth, but Nita stopped him.
“Finn didn’t make it.”
“What—”
“I’m sorry.”
“But I made it! Surely he survived, too, then!?” I yelled at her.
“He was dead when I found you, Hercu. I’m sorry,” Nita said calmly, her eyes tired of crying.
The unpleasant feeling, imminent from tearing, spread in my eyes.
“We don’t know what happened to him. He didn’t look human anymore.
“Your hand, too, we have an idea, but we don't know anything for sure. Your hand . . . we can't examine it as long as it is like this.” Nita glanced at the metal box around my hand.
It was a small iron chest with steel ropes attached to my wrist. Green, scale-like textured skin covered my skin up to half my forearm. No—it was my skin.
The panic mixed with the tired frustration and the craving thirst in my hand reached new heights. I moaned in pain. It felt like my hand tried to eat itself.
Screaming the pain away refused to work. “A . . . cannon . . . ” I hissed between gritted teeth.
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Everyone looked at me, confused, and the pain just got worse. Longing, yearning for food. I pushed the others away and stumbled to the cannons. I lifted my trembling arm and smashed my hand on the barrel. The box shattered to pieces, grounding the cannon a few inches into the wooden floor.
Finally free, I spread my fingers in loud cracks. Like a tattoo, dark green scaled skin substituted large parts of my hand. Fine curvy lines opposite the thick space from my forearm up to the second to last fingertips. A blueish purple gem was embedded inside it under my middle finger knuckle. From it ran delicate golden ornaments up my forearm and finger to the golden rings. All melted into my skin. My nails had turned pitch black with hints of dark green and a little gold as if sprinkled over them.
My whole arm jerked towards Nita. A surge calling me, demanding, forcing. A lust like none other I’ve ever felt, a desire that needed fulfillment or the world would burn to ashes.
Nita looked at me, distraught. Then she was already lying on the floor, with me above her. Like a wild beast on the run, I eyed my prey. No fear was present in her eyes, just pity.
I could hear her heartbeat. I felt everyone’s heartbeat clearer than my own. Half my own will, half the hand itself, jerked down and ripped Nita’s pants pocket open. I knew that this was the only way to stop the thirst.
I held it up and crushed whatever was in my hand. Green liquid trickled out of my fist. But it got less. It subsided into my skin.
Bliss. A bliss purer than hearing mermaids sing shot up from my hand and into my head. A drunk sense washed over me, calming me to some degree.
No one moved shock all over their faces.
I opened my hand, and tiny glass shards prickled to the ground.
I hadn’t noticed at first, but now that my hand had returned to its normal shape, it had been very scrawny just a few seconds ago. Mangled.
“Hercu?” Nita asked, eyes wide open and a dagger pressing against my throat.
“I—I don’t know . . . the pain just wouldn’t stop. But now, only a small appetite remains.”
I got off of Nita and offered her my hand to help her stand. Then decided against it and held it close to my chest instead.
“Ehm, sorry. I better not touch you with that . . .” I said, embarrassed.
The gem below my knuckle seemed more colorful now and more greenish purple than blueish.
Hale sheathed his saber back. “How are you feeling? What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I’m—fine. The last I saw was how Nita dragged me through water after Wyatt stabbed my hand with the Jade Mint Crystal.”
“Jade Mint Crystal . . . “ Nita muttered and rubbed her chin.
“Who’s Wyatt?” Hale asked.
“One of the factory’s guards,” Brenda said. “One of the worst ones.”
“Yes, he—he killed Finn.” I swallowed the urge to break out in tears and curse Wyatt.
“Hercu, the crystal. Do you mean a solid shard out of Jade Mint, no liquid or powder?”
“Yes.”
Nita shot up and came close to me. “Where is it now?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced at my hand. “The last time I saw it, it was stuck in my hand—wait! Where’s my bracelet?!” I turned my hand several times, but it wouldn’t just appear.
“What bracelet?” Hale asked, even more confused.
“My mother gave it to me!” I searched my pockets to no avail. “Please no . . .”
“What material was it made of?” Nita asked, intrigued.
“I don’t know! What does that matter?!”
“Just tell me!” Nita grabbed my shoulders firmly.
“I—purple, purple spheres? Or something like that, I don’t know. Where—”
I checked my hand. “No way.” The gem had a very similar tone of purple.
Nita caught on to my thought process. “Hercu, were they perhaps purple beads?”
“Perhaps . . . it's in my hand . . .” Disbelief flooded me.
“I think so too. Damn, you should have told me about the bracelet,” Nita said, annoyed.
“What? Why—how was I supposed to know?!”
Nita turned around and showed her neck tattoo. It looked strangely familiar to my hand.
“Look, this happens when the right minerals get mixed and consumed.
“Those purple beads only exist Under The Dawn Sea and are the rarest mineral at that!”
“Wait—what? But then how did my mother . . . Mum? You . . .” Chills burned over me like a sunray flashing by.
“How many beads did the bracelet have?”
“How many? Like 15? 20, maybe?”
Nita’s chin dropped. “My goodness . . .”
“What?! What is it?”
Hale came to my side, clearing his throat. ”Hercu, finding a single one can be compared to a miracle. But finding as much as over ten . . . who was your mother?”
A roar of questions broke out inside me. Both my parents held secrets beyond my imagination. Dad’s name got dropped by a Verdant Klepto. Mum had a bracelet with one pearl of it having way more worth than a whole of one of those soup containers in the factory. Probably the whole factory.
Questions that commanded answers knocked against my head. The pain felt like a headache from crying too much. And at last, the appetite in my hand still demanded more Jade Mint, a lot more.