Page 4 of Cursed Shadows 5

I feel all of that… until my eyes finally do roll back into the border of my lashes, and I feel nothing at all.

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I stir to the sensation of moss and grass smushed against my cheek. The scent is strong, it burns my nose with its freshness—a fragrance of dewy earth I haven’t inhaled in what feels like forever.

It tickles.

My nose wrinkles against the brush of earth, of grass, of weeds, even an insect skittering over my face.

My lashes flutter open.

And all I see is darkness.

I squeeze my eyes, once, twice, then the slow contortion of a frown warps my entire face.

So much hits me at once.

Too much.

The searing cut on my head, the pulsations of a swollen brain thrumming against a skull, the raw coarseness of my throat, a deep ache in my chest that, though I can draw in breath, comes with sharp pains through me, like needles.

I roll onto my back.

A boulder is quick to press into my spine. At least, I think it’s a boulder, a rounded, smooth stone of some kind. It doesn’t dig, like a rock would do. It doesn’t cut into my flesh, tug atmy ruined sweater, or ridge against the grooves of my spine. It moulds, a curve swelling outwards, and offers some relief in that it arches my back.

Something pops, and the relief there is instant.

A breathy sound escapes me.

I hear it. The full air from my lungs sighing out of me, undeterred. No pressure crushing my windpipe, no leg to silence me…

I am out of the rubble.

My heart jolts.

I scramble to sit upright, but I am slow, and the sudden movement swells nothing less than sheer agony through me.

I am dizzied for a beat, head spinning as I clench my eyes shut. I wait it out, then start, slow this time, to sit on the grass. Then I let time shift by me for a while, let the breaths ease in my sore chest.

Legs splayed, hands digging into the rich soil beneath me, I listen.

The sounds are different where I am now.

Crashing rubble and whooshing shadows and pummelling darkness and drumming bootsteps pounding on stone floors and screams and cries—it’s not gone. But it is fainter now, distant.

I must be near Comlar, but not in it, not anymore.

It takes my mind a moment to catch up, to understand… and my pained face tightens that bit more.

Samick spared me.

He dragged me out of the rubble, carried me away from the destruction of Comlar, then deposited me here…

Whereverhereis, I don’t know.

My hands flatten on the dirt.

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