Silent Noise (2)
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With a loud THUD, the wooden door at the end of the winding hallway was flung open.
“Julia....you’re late.”
“T-This is lady Julia?”
Inside the room were three people, two of them were completely unfamiliar to me, but it didn’t look like Julia was familiar with everyone here either.
“Vreena is that him?” Julia called out, fixing her eyes on the young boy now lying on his back, clad in robust, clunky armor that must have doubled his own weight, wincing in pain. The bed sheets that I could only assume were once white, now had prominent crimson stains scattered all over it, to the point where the viscous fluid was even trailing off onto the wooden floor.
Vreena was standing over him, applying pressure to his shoulder wound with a piece of fabric that had long been dyed in the color of the young boy’s innards.
“Isaac!”
Emma shouted in a voice that sounded like it was on the verge of breaking. She wrestled herself from Julia’s grasp, falling limply to the ground and tumbling a few steps forward before inevitably falling flat on her face.
The other woman in the room, who I didn’t know, bore a stark resemblance to both Emma herself and the youth currently grimacing in pain. Everything from the brown hair down to her azure blue eyes made it a dead giveaway.
The bucket of muddy-red water immediately fell from her hands, surprisingly though, hardly any of its contents had been spilt. “Emma...you need to calm down, Isaac will be fine. Lady Julia here will heal him, she’s the best healer in all of Zale after all.”
I know those words were meant to give her daughter comfort but given the steady stream of tears now gliding down her cheeks I couldn’t accurately determine who actually needed reassurance here.
“Okay, mother...” Emma responded with teary eyes, mimicking the woman’s expression.
Although Vreena was still focusing on the task at hand, I could tell that the situation unfolding right now wasn’t one she enjoyed.
“Gaaaah!....Ack!”
Now writhing in agony, Isaac’s body shot up from its original position, bringing into view the very reason behind his now frantic movements. “Damn it Isaac hold still!” Vreena pinned both of his arms with hers, despite her age she somehow had enough strength to force the half dead youth into submission.
“Isaac, hold on we’ll-” Emma rose to her wobbly feet but couldn’t even take a step forward.
“Stay back! He’s poisoned so don’t get too close, even inhaling the vapor from this thing for too long is a bad idea...Tch! Julia I can’t keep this up forever you know.”
Vreena’s words had seemingly halted Emma on the spot, instead of advancing, she’d been forced to do the opposite. Looking closer, the source of Isaac’s agony had become abundantly clear; there was a gaping hole on his left shoulder that was so wide you could almost see straight through it if not for the intertwining mix of purple and red fluids lining the inside of the wound.
In a metal container over on the nightstand was a pricked object coated in a thin sheen of the very same purple fluid, it wasn’t made of metal, nor was it particularly bulky but instead bore a streamlined shape and was curved near the tip.
It was a little longer than Owen’s shortsword. The purple markings that lined the circumference of the boy’s wound meant that this was undoubtedly the object that had reduced him to such a perilous state.
I couldn’t be sure as to what it was, but my best guess would have to be.....
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“A Basilisk’s fang is it....”
Julia murmured in an uninterested tone. Tying her hair up, she walked over to the trembling boy, his own sweat now gliding off his body and mixing with his already spewed blood.
This entire time, Emma’s mother had been too shocked to even speak, she turned to Julia out of pure instinct.
“Please....can you save my son? I can’t lose him too....”
“I can.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard Julia give an answer that had been imbued with such unshakeable confidence. Closing her eyes, she extended a hand towards Isaac and took a deep breath before chanting “Spirits of dawn, I summon you now, burst forth and bestow us with your radiant glow - Fairy Light”.
Just then, Julia’s body was enveloped in a veil of neon green light that soon overpowered everything in the room with an aura of absolute tranquility. It felt as if all my previous fatigue had been effortlessly washed away with nothing more than a few words from her.
Isaac’s flailing immediately subsided after she cast that one spell, and so too did the tense atmosphere that had previously weighed over us all.
“I-Is it over?” Emma asked in an overly curious voice.
“No, I just lessened the pain. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to heal him right now since he’s still poisoned. After we extract all that nasty stuff then he’ll be just fine~”
Julia’s demeanor was still quite serious, but her usual tonality had returned just now, if only for a second.
“Emma...can you wait outside with Liam for me?”
Emma stared at her absent mindedly before answering, her slender arms fell limply to her side like all the strength had been instantaneously drained from them.
“Mhm. I’ll do that.”
She’d put on a comforting face for me and Emma just now but we both knew that it simply meant we weren’t needed here, if anything we were actually in the way.
Taking my hand in hers, Emma promptly escorted me away from the hollow room once dominated by screams and sorrow.
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It was now evening. The once blue skies had been dyed into a bright orange color by way of the fading sun’s will. Right now, the entire world seemed to be donning the color of the descending ball of light, it even managed to permeate its way into this obscure hallway, casting shadows that now seemed to be far more conspicuous than usual.
I couldn’t decide if the scenery unfolding out the window behind me was beautiful or ominous, but the only creatures who seemed to find pleasure at this time of day were the flock of cawing crows now whiffing by overhead.
After leaving Vreena and the others inside that room, they’d managed to sort out Isaac’s condition in under an hour, but there were dozens more people suffering from the same fate as him who’d all been carried here, so both me and Emma ended up spending the entire time alone in the hallway.
Emma hadn’t said a word to me ever since we left that room. She sat on the floor across from me, curling up into a strange posture and resting her head on her knees. I had no intention of annoying her but there was something I wanted to confirm before making any moves. Still....I had no idea how to approach her, especially since we were both alone like this and given the state she was currently in.
I had very little experience with whining children, so it was all but impossible for me to predict exactly how this was going to go, the fact that I’d even dragged this out for so long was starting to get to me. Still, it had to be done, just the thought of a certain someone mocking me for being unsociable was more than enough to spur me into action.
“Emma....are you awake?”
“Yea...what is it Liam? Are you hungry or did you finally start missing home?”
Her head was still hanging low even as she spoke, she clearly wasn’t very interested in anything I had to say.
“No....I was just checking to see if you were alright.”
“.....I’m a little tired.....”
That reply was all I needed to hear, it was all or nothing now.
“Can I ask you about your family?”
She paused for only a few seconds before answering, but in this vacant space it almost seemed as if time had stopped for the two of us.
“Why do you want to know about something like that?”
“W-well your older brother’s a raider, isn’t he? I just wanted to hear more about him since he fights monsters and goes on adventures. Didn’t he tell you any stories you can share with me?”
“Liam....it’s really not that great you know. That’s exactly how my dad used to talk.”
“....Your dad?.......”
“Yeah, he was a raider too.....but he died a year ago.”
(Alright, time to lay the groundwork.)