D. MacHale - Raven Rise

“Good morning!” came Telleo’s bright greeting as she stepped into the room. “Glad to see you back with us.” She joined me by the bedside and did a quick check of Loque’s vital signs. “How do you feel?”

Loque growled, “Like I’ve been trampled by a herd of animals and left out in the sun for a week.”

“That good?” I asked.

Telleo gave me a look that said I shouldn’t be making jokes. “Let’s not stress him,” she said to me.

“We need to talk,” I protested.

“We really need to talk,” Loque echoed.

“There’s plenty of time for that,” Telleo scolded. “It looks like you’re going to be with us for a while.”

She took my arm and led me out of the room.

“But-“

“Let him sleep, Pendragon.”

I looked over my shoulder and called, “Welcome home. I’ll be back later.”

“I’ll be here,” Loque said softly. I think he fell back to sleep. Telleo was right. He needed the rest.

Once we got outside the room, Telleo was all smiles.

“It’s good, right?” I asked. “He made it through the night.”

“It’s a very good sign,” she said. “No guarantees, but he’s got a better chance than we thought. You should go somewhere and get some rest too. You’re a mess.”

I pulled away from her and sat down right in front of Loque’s doorway. “No chance,” I replied.

“Pendragon,” she scolded. “You won’t help him by staying here. The doctors will be by soon, and I’m perfectly capable of caring for him.”

“And I’m perfectly capable of hanging around,” I said. “Give up. I’m not leaving.”

“Do what you want,” she snapped, and walked off in a huff.

She was ticked. I wasn’t sure why she should be so angry that I was staying there, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t moving until I knew that Loque was definitely going to get well…and until he told me all that had happened back in Rubic City, and what he meant when he said, “They’re coming.”

I settled myself in to wait on that freakin’ hard, rock floor for as long as it would take. Loque deserved nothing less.

“Iknew I was dead,” Loque said. “Or would be soon.”

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that the doctors allowed me to talk to Loque again. He’d slept most of that day, only waking up to eat a little and drink some juice. The food was helping him get strength back. He could sit up. Things were looking good. I think the doctors wanted to wait another day before letting him talk. I know Telleo wasn’t happy about it. I guess they were afraid he’d get all worked up or something. But Loque insisted. He wanted to tell me what had happened, and I was all too happy to listen. Sort of. I sat next to his bed, alone. Telleo wanted to stay, but I wouldn’t let her. I had no idea what Loque was going to talk about. We had seen things in Rubic City that most of the people of Rayne knew nothing about. It would be better to keep it that way.

“The shattered glass was coming down on top of me,” he continued. “There was no place to run, so I just stood there, waiting for the end. I felt a rumble and suddenly I was falling. The floor had collapsed under my feet. I don’t know how far I fell. Twenty feet? I landed hard and crumpled, but I still had focus. I knew that the glass was coming down, so I rolled. I didn’t know how much of the floor had given way, but I hoped I could get under a section that hadn’t collapsed. It was the right move, because the bulk of the glass didn’t hit me. It landed on the section of floor above. For one brief second I thought I had escaped. Then the floor above me collapsed. The weight of the glass was too much.”

“A section of floor fell on you?” I asked in horror.

“With the weight of the glass on top of that. It felt as if I were being crushed, but it was better than being shredded.”

I laughed. I know, it was a weird thing to do, but hearing the truth of what happened in that moment helped wipe away the nightmare memory I’d carried with me since the moment I heard the stained-glass wall explode. My version was a lot more gruesome. Loque laughed too. I’m not sure why we both thought it was funny. I guess it was some kind of relief.

“This isn’t funny, you know,” I said. “I’m sure you thought I was done,” he wheezed. “There were a couple of times I wished I was.” I stopped laughing.

“I lay there for a long time,” he continued. “My eyes were burning. I wanted to open them to see where I was, but the only time they felt even a little okay was when they were closed. Didn’t matter. It was pitch dark anyway. For all I knew, I was bleeding to death. I probably lay there for a couple of hours before I got the courage to move. I think it was the pain in my legs that finally got me going.”

“How badly were they hurt?”

“I think they were broken. Both of them. Moving them was more painful than I can describe. I had to drag myself out from under the rotted piece of floor and across a sea of broken glass. I moved an inch at a time. Every time I put my weight down, I had to be careful that it wasn’t on something sharp. Didn’t matter how cautious I was. It happened. A lot. I don’t know how long it took to crawl out of the wreckage. It could have been days. Eventually I got myself to a piece of floor that was clear of glass.”

He hesitated; the memory was tough to relive.

“You want to rest?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly. “I want you to know what happened in case I…” His voice trailed off.

“You’re not going to die,” I assured him.

“I wanted to, Pendragon. I really did. The pain was horrible. I was bleeding everywhere. My eyes burned. My legs ached. I found myself wishing the fall had killed me, because I was looking at a long, agonizing death.”

“But you didn’t die,” I said.

“No. The Flighters found me,” Loque continued. “I thought for sure they would kill me, but they had other plans. They carried me out of the basement into the city. The pain was unbearable. I think I passed out a couple of times. One positive thing, I realized, was that I hadn’t lost my sight entirely.” He touched the bandage over his right eye and said, “I can see light and shapes through this eye. My left eye is useless, but I’m not blind. I guess that’s one thing to be grateful for.”

“You’ve got a lot to be grateful for,” I said softly. “You’re alive.”

“Funny, huh? It’s all because of the Flighters. But they didn’t help me out of kindness. They needed me.”

“For what?”

“I wouldn’t find that out for a while. They took me to this big, black triangle-looking structure. It didn’t look anything like the other buildings.”

I knew exactly what it was. It was a Lifelight pyramid, but I didn’t want to get sidetracked onto that particular story train, so I didn’t say anything.

“The place smelled like animals,” he continued. “I guess that’s not far from the truth, because it’s where the Flighters lived. They laid me down on the floor in a dark corner with a group of sick and injured. It was horrible. I was put between people who were crying out in pain or coughing with disease. The putrid smell of infection is something I’ll never forget. The only, thing that kept me from going out of my mind was the will to see Ibara again. To see someplace green and clean. I told myself that I’d do all I could to stay alive, just to get back home.”

“And you did.”

“Not for a while. They barely spoke to me. Whenever I asked for something, they’d grunt and ignore me. But they fed me. I don’t know what I ate, but it kept me alive. Sometimes there were bits of foul-smelling meat. I didn’t want to know where it came from. Mostly they fed me some goo that wasn’t horrible and gave me energy.”