Cipher Code {complete}

Chapter Twenty Three: Dreaming For Reality •EDITED•

Esau finally managed to pry his heavy lids open.

The violent throb that scratched at his skull and the silence that wouldn't have tortured his ears if not for the continuous sound of chirping crickets, served as prompt reminders that he was not dead.

When he forced his eyes to adjust to the darkness around him, Esau found that he was sitting and staring at a person.

Their frame was slowly revealed in front of him as everything suddenly brightened and the first thing he was able to properly see after gaining consciousness was the blood trickling down Edythe's cheek.

He didn't remember what he had noticed first, the cut on her face or the fact that something felt terribly wrong, but that didn't matter for now.

In that split second of sudden awareness, he also didn't know if he had imagined the pain she must have been feeling before anything else had managed to click in his groggy mind. Or if what he felt was the stinging ache that had crawled agonisingly along the length of his own face.

One thing was for sure though, he was now in undeniable pain.

"Eddy," he called to her softly as he raised a hand to her unveiled face and watched in a sort of numbed shock as the tips of his fingers brushed away rivulets of the red liquid he had come to despise.

"What happened?" He pulled his hand away, holding it against his chest as though he had been burned.

"You fell," she answered, her voice containing a chill that sent tremors through his heart.

"I caught you." Edythe continued, like it would mean something to him. She didn't really answer his question but it didn't matter.

I did that. Esau trembled and furiously wiped the blood on his hand with his shirt, forcing his mind to seize control of the rest of his body and move. He wanted to get up and leave; a quiet voice in his head told him to run.

He had nowhere to go or any idea of where he was, but he didn't care.

I did that. He squashed the feeling of danger that rose up in his chest at the thought and tried to breath evenly, not daring to pass out again.

Esau just wanted to get away from her before he did another thing he would come to regret. I did that.

"We are on a tree," Edythe said without looking his way, as though she had read his mind, "you will fall."

"I'm sorry." His face paled the instant he heard the barely subdued anger in her voice.

Esau folded his legs to his chest and pulled away from his sister, shifting back towards the trunk of the tree.

He had just realized that they were sitting on large branch; Edythe sat closer to the edge than he did but she didn't seem to mind.

"Don't apologize, I shouldn't have forced you up that tree in the first place." she said.

"You didn't. . ." He rested his head on his knees and stared at his sister, fear suddenly gripping his heart as a small beam of moonlight fell on her face and illuminated the wound he had just touched.

Esau could see it clearly now and it terrified him, it resembled the scratch from a claw and stretched down from her forehead to the side of her left eye. Once again the sense of danger flared up in his mind and he thought back to the pain he had felt on his face.

His gaze not leaving hers, he used his fingers to trace his own wound, wincing slightly as his nails scratched at the broken skin. He tried to visualize where it was on his face and bit his lip.