Her senses came to her slowly. She was gradually trying to push herself off the floor, head pounding, as the ten-year-old beside her practically hopped up.
They’d made it out… somehow.
All the voices started out as quiet and unclear, though became more distinct after a couple of seconds.
“Mama! Papa!” Nebli was alright, at least. She rushed up to some of the people at the door.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!” the mistress of the house cried. She pulled Nebli into a hug, the master joining them.
“We were so worried about you,” he said, continuing to mumble thanks to whatever spirits might be watching..
“I played in the best place!” Nebli went on. “I want to tell you about it! Can you listen?”
Mernia didn’t pay attention to the responses of her parents, if they gave a response at all. Instead, she focused on the hand that touched her shoulder, and a voice she was overwhelmingly grateful to hear.
“Mer, are you alright?” Her father was looking at her, concerned, but she somehow managed a small smile. He wasn’t anything like the versions of him from that place—he was whole and healthy, aside from perhaps not getting quite as much sleep as he was supposed to.
“Y-yeah…” she mumbled, though she wasn’t exactly sure how much she believed it.
“Come on, I think it’s safe to say that you’ve done what you needed to. Let’s get you back home.” He helped her up, a support she willingly accepted in her unsteadiness.
What she didn’t realize, though, was that she was more than just a little unsteady. As soon as she was up, and nearly about to continue on her own, she fell back into her father and blacked out.
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…
She processed everything around her quicker this time, with special help to the annoying song blaring on the radio. As soon as she mustered the confidence and strength required to, she mumbled, “Can someone turn that damn thing down..?” She opened her eyes a moment after to find herself in the hospital; her parents were sitting beside her and a nurse fumbled with the radio on the other side of the room.
Mernia’s mother smiled. “You’re awake now! That’s good. Leave it to the doctors of Istrus to work their magic!”
Mernia slowly sat up, well aware that her headache had yet to go away. “What happened?”
“It’s been two days since you went to find Nebli,” her father began. The nurse slowly made her way over to them as he spoke. “I’d assumed, when you didn’t send us anything, you were just in that determined work mode of yours—but you’ve actually been missing since then. For some reason, though, it was only a couple of hours ago that Nebli’s father contacted me about it. I don’t know why he thought lying to me about the whereabouts of one of my officers and my daughter was a good idea, but that’s what he did. I came to take a look myself and, nearly as soon as I got there, you and Nebli reappeared through that mirror. You passed out soon after that, though.”
“Doctor said it was exhaustion, maybe some kind of shock,” the nurse commented casually. “I’ll get one of them to check on you, but they’ll probably just send you back home.” Then she walked away again.
“I’m hesitant to ask this so soon, but do you remember what happened to you?” Mernia’s father asked. “One of the other officers are interviewing Nebli and her family now, but I want to hear your side of the story, too. Given its apparent correlation to the events, we’re sending the mirror off to Aecara—we’re not necessarily equipped to deal with that kind of thing on our own.”
She thought back to the things she saw—the oozing, golden not-blood, the bodies of friends and family barely held together, the single eye of the Fallen One. To consider it brought flashes of unease and distress, which she tried her best to beat down in front of her parents. “Could I… do it later? There’s still a couple of things I have to process for myself…”
“Of course. Take all the time you need—just worry about resting for a while. Work can wait until you’re ready.”