Ink Stained

107: rikuto*

リクト

[pai]

[wake up]

[pai]

[wake up]

[paipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipaipai]

[WAKE UP]

"Lisyonak!"

Her eyes snapped open and pain immediately hit her head, eyes creaking from being stitched together from a night of fitful tossing and turning in her attempts to sleep. She woke with her heart thudding in her chest as the swirling pool of her [ability] subsided, screaming echo fading away, its job in rousing her done.

She'd barely slept that night to begin with. Several times she'd nodded off for but a few seconds, body weary and eyes drooping as sleep stretched its eager fingers out to her, only to be violently rejected as she startled awake moments later, memories of red dots flowering on pale foreheads plaguing her mind, and the whole cycle would repeat itself endlessly.

Shin was there every time she jerked awake, holding her in his arms, soothing her with his touch and his voice reassuring her that he was there, she was safe, they were okay. She thought that maybe, at one point, he'd sung a lullaby to her. Now in her half-asleep state, she was frustrated to realize that she didn't remember what words he sang, how he sounded.

She'd finally managed to snatch a few hours' sleep some minutes before Shin had left the room, kissing her temple softly as he told her to rest when she tried to sit up. Her slumber, aided by Kuniumi this time, was so deep that it was like she'd been swimming in a dark ocean that had no beginning and no end, surrounded by a white void that unsettled her, even though she wasn't exactly afraid of it.

Then it came again.

The sound of that name – her name, his name – being called, desperate, pleading, scared.

"Lisyonak – Pai!"

She shot out of bed faster than she'd ever moved in her entire life, tears springing out of nowhere to blur her vision at the incredible weakness pervading her bones, hair a puffy cloud of snow. Her heart thudded in her chest as she miscalculated and fell to the floor with a painful thump!, legs tangled in the blanket Shin had covered her in when he left earlier.

Her arms shook as she shoved the blanket away and stood with knees wobbling uncertainly as she stumbled to the door. She put a hand to the wall as she gasped harshly, pulling air into lungs that felt deprived of it. Fear pumped like poison through her veins, fear that she was still dreaming, that the voice calling her name endlessly wasn't real, that she was hallucinating, that every possible thing that could go wrong now, was.

He's here, Kuniumi whispered.

The wavering hope inside her blossomed at the quaver in Kuniumi's voice. It gave her the strength she needed to lurch upright and reach for the door. Her feet were bare on the cold floorboards, but she didn't care about that, heartbeat banging up a riot in the confines of her ribcage as she flung the door open – to be met with Shiori's startled face.