It felt like an eternity before Jes got control of her breathing and her trembling body, but it was more likely a matter of a handful of minutes. The pain was still with her when she regained control. It was less than it was when she first woke, less even than after she had taken the potion from Hadrian, but it was still a burning pain along the entire right side of her body. She had not looked beneath the bandages yet, had feared to see.
She rose to her feet with a sudden conviction that she had to see what the strange storm had done to her. In her childhood bedroom, upstairs, she had a full length mirror where she could finally see the damage. As she stepped up to it, she saw herself for the first time as she was now. Her curly, golden brown hair was a tangled and greasy mess. She had not showered since the storm and it was quite obvious. Her left eye, amber brown as always, was shadowed and she could read her own pain in the tightness of her expression. The bandages, taped along the edge, covered almost the entirety of the left side of her body. Her left hand trembled slightly as she reached up to peel off the bandages. She turned away from the mirror once she had the edge of the tape in her fingers. She hissed as the bandages pulled at tender skin. When she uncovered her right eye, even the dim indoor light burned and her eye began to water. The skin on her face felt tight.
Jes turned back to the mirror once her face and neck were free of the bandages. Beginning on her temple was a thick roping burn that snaked down her neck and under the bandages on her shoulder. From that thick burn, smaller feathering paths spread out in a fractal-like pattern all over the side of her face. The burns were an angry red color and occasionally there was a blister of fluid. One of the branches traced along the rise of her cheekbone and spread its strange reaching branches upward over her eye. An angry red line cut across the white of her eye, following the pattern of the burns, it seemed to engulf her pupil and iris and both were the same color as the burn.
Meeting her own eyes, one a familiar amber and the other a solid red with no pupil, Jes felt that tightness latch onto her heart once more, like a fist squeezing it. Her breathing trembled as she reached her bandaged hand up to touch her burned cheek. If the thick roping burn with its fillagree of branches showed where the lightning had passed through her body, how had she even survived. She touched the angry red mark where it originated at her temple. The blast should have fried her brain. Her hand was shaking. Her heart was shaking.
She backed up until the bed hit her knees and sat down suddenly, still staring at her own odd eyes in the mirror.
She was still sitting there when Rock found her. She wasn’t sure how long it had been, staring into her own face, suddenly so unfamiliar. Rock paused in the doorway for a long moment before he stepped into the room and sat on the bed next to her, on her bad side. Her put one arm gently around her shoulders and pulled her close against him. She hissed out a breath at the pain but did not protest.
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“I’m surprised it took you this long.” He said.
A laugh escaped her, even as she broke down into tears. He didn’t say anything, just gathered her aching form close and let her cry.
“I’m sorry.” She said at last, sniffling. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.” He paused for a moment. “It’s your face.”
She chuckled again, her breathing hitching as she worked to collect herself. “I knew it would be bad.” Her voice was unsteady. “When I woke up after, before you put me on the cart. I knew it was bad.”
“Thinking and seeing are two different things.” Rock said gently.
She nodded wordlessly.
“It’s the coolest burn I’ve ever seen.” Rock admitted with a smile in his voice.
Jes met her own eyes again in the mirror. “Do you think it will stay red?”
“It’s hard to say until it heals. Maybe it’ll go away entirely.”
Her red eye stared back at her. “I doubt it.”
“Can you see out of it?” His voice showed he knew exactly how hard the question was.
Still looking into her own eyes, she closed her left eye. Her view remained steady, her right eye was the dominant one, but the nature of the view changed. For a moment, when she first closed her left eye, she saw those same writhing lines she had seen earlier. Then, beyond those lines, she saw in the mirror brilliant blue-white light pulsing over her body for a single breath, and then everything snapped into focus and she was once more looking into her own eye, an angry red circle with no pupil.
After a long moment she opened her left eye and heaved a trembling sigh. “I can see.”
“We weren’t sure that you would be able to. To be honest, you’ve recovered much more quickly than we thought you would.”
Jes wrenched her gaze away from herself and looked toward Rock’s bright blue eyes. “Hadrian gave me a health potion.”
One of Rock’s eyebrows quirked. “Then why aren’t you at full hp?” His voice was light and teasing.
Her eyes narrowed, “Apparently, they’re not all they are talked up to be.”
“We’ve been lied to by video games.” Rock said aghast, putting one hand to his heart.
She shuddered. “It’s so much worse than that.” She admitted. “It hurt.”
“That’s bullshit.” Rock said, his tone legitimately angry.
She couldn’t help but smile, the gesture pulling at the healing burns on her face and ending up even more crooked than usual. “Absolute bullshit.” She agreed, leaning against his chest despite the pain.