Laughter echoes, it’s Nina she’s playing outside. There’s an old play set out there from when I was a kid and it’s long since been covered in rust, the once vibrant paints chipped away with time.

The laughter stops replaced by a shrill ear-piercing scream, she’s laying flat on her face some ten feet from the swings, I can already see the blood.

It's everywhere coating the grass my father spent hours mowing in a thick layer of red. My feet feel sluggish but I manage to sprint over to her side and gently turn her over.

Her bloodshot eyes lock with mine and a chill runs down my back.

“Why did you hurt me?”

I can’t speak bile and stomach acid start squirming up my throat and I heave, blood flows from my mouth in a river. Nina is standing over me as I fall to my hands and knees coughing and hacking.

“You’ve done this to yourself you know.

You chose the easy way out, you could’ve saved me but instead, you chose to wallow in your sadness crying victim.

But which of us was in the car big brother?”

My arms are on fire and give out collapsing me into the muddy soil. I can barely move my body and everything is in pain.

A shadow loom over me and a deep voice speaks.

“You should get up now.”

—{}{}{}{}{}—

I shoot into a sitting position and deposit what little is in my stomach into a nearby bucket before collapsing backward. The fluids are a dark red, I really do have internal bleeding then, more immediately I notice that my head doesn’t hit the ground but rather an exquisitely soft pillow. In fact, I appear to be in a very large bed, though it is stained thoroughly by my sweat and what I hope isn’t piss.

The room is dark save for a small candle on the bedside table illuminating both the bucket and a tall pitcher of water a glass beside it. I force down two cups worth and lay back down careful not to worsen my growing chest and stomach pains.

My arms and chest have been properly bandaged even my stubbed pinky finger receiving a small wrapping, I also happen to be naked under these blankets and very quickly I grow much warrier of my rescuer. Not that I’m ungrateful for that hunter having saved my life, it's just creepy to know someone’s seen you naked while you were unconscious.

Thin lines of light trace across the room circling the now-revealed door a soft click follows and the light fills the room. The hunter steps inside pulling the chair from a desk I hadn’t noticed before and slowly sets the lantern he carried onto the floor, his face is given a haunting look.

He narrows his eyes and again speaks in words I can’t even recognize as a language, if it’s a local version I’m even more clueless. I shake my head ‘no’ and give my best-confused puppy stare, he seemingly understands my ignorance and only sighs. One of his massive hands reaches down and extinguishes the light, his eyes still locked with mine, only the small candle fills the room now.

And then he glows. A faint white light flows from behind his head down to his outstretched right arm leaving everything in a halo-like effect. He reaches out and puts his hand on my wrist, I let him my body unmoving as I witness whatever it is I’m witnessing.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The light slows as it makes contact but it continues to move toward my head all the while sweat is beading on the man’s forehead. Whatever this is it’s causing him significant physical strain, his eyes are bulging a little and every vein in his neck is protruding the skin turning a light pink. Finally, it touches my forehead.

The world explodes into colors and the man relaxes by a great deal, I only notice as he releases that he was struggling not to crush my wrist. A faint blue washes over the room, like a veil of silk caught in the wind it flows gently only moving as it wishes ignoring the two of us entirely.

The blue condenses and darkens before it begins to circle our heads like a massive infinity symbol always flowing. He taps my hand and I stare at him, his eyes are staring deeply into mine, and it clicks.

Fear, concern, questioning.

They all flow from him like water down a river.

I can’t help but think of my time here.

Pain, suffering, lost, fear, confusion, loss.

He sheds a tear and nods ‘yes’.

Protection, exchange, teacher, healing.

It’s my turn as I nod.

The light around us fades and the room is plunged into darkness the candle having long since gone out. He lights the lantern and walks out of the room, closing the door gently.

I sleep.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

He’s broken, so deeply broken.

For all my ideas on why he was out in the woods, I neglected to state the obvious even as it stared at me.

He was going into the Scar to die.

I recall his arms, the scratches from his accident, and the clean lines that blended so seamlessly with them. They’d healed long before I bandaged him but those thin lines of scar tissue were still so easy to see.

I wipe my eyes again as the last of my spell wears off, sharing thoughts like that can take its toll, and yet I still know so little about his situation. The Scar is quite possibly the worst way a person could die only beaten by starvation and burning but some would call it far worse. To feel your every speck of being slowly pulled away from you as you turn to red mush over the course of days.

If you were lucky that is, so many had come from that horrid place with malformed limbs or strange additions, things that not even monsters would eat. And he wanted to go there, only changing his mind at the last second, I hope, if he was already inside that desert there was no telling what could have happened to him.

Deciding I need to cheer up I check on the girls, Emma is nestled under her big sister's arms Anna still holding the book she was reading to put the little one to sleep.

My mind wanders and I can’t help but shiver at the thought of either of them doing what he did, I owe their mother the world, I can’t just let him go.

Even if he tries to leave I won’t let him until he’s fully healed, it’s the best I can do for him without making things worse. I hope. The short journey through the house is stopped short when I reach her study a single book on the desk inside the cover bears her writing.

Anna needs the practice, I’ll have her help me with him tomorrow and maybe we can get a name out of him.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

A soft cover of silk all the colors of the rainbow slowly falls all around me but just as it’s nearing my head it stops a small gap between it and me.

I reach out to touch it but it moves away always the same distance from my skin.

I push harder trying to bridge the gap by any means.

A force pushes back, the gap. Curious I try to grab that instead hoping to force the silk closer.

My hand vanished in a cloud of pink mist and I cry out.

When my eyes open I can smell bacon.