The Nightscape

Swirling Aura

"Can you feel that?" Zara asked, pinching Lyra's leg, hard. She winced. 

"Ow, yes, I can! Stop that!" She yelped, trying and failing to pull her leg away. As it was, all she managed was a weak, uncoordinated swipe in her general direction that Sarah easily caught and turned away. Zara frowned. 

"Interesting. Usually if someone is suffering from paralysis, it's due to damage to the nervous system, so there's loss of sensation and usually pain in the back." She gave Lyra a questioning look and she slowly shook her head. 

"I can feel everything, and I'm not in pain. I just can't move my legs, and my arms feel so heavy I can barely move those either. I just don't feel well." She explained weakly, trying and failing to shift into a more comfortable position. Sarah realised what she was doing and helped her sit up, leaning back against her. Zara frowned, thinking for a moment before leaning forward and taking hold of Lyra's head, tilting it forward and parting her hair to check for any head wound. 

"You haven't been hit in the head, at least not hard enough to make a mark, so that probably isn't responsible. Did you drown at all, in the wave?" She asked, clearly bemused as to what was causing the paralysis. Lyra hesitated. 

"I- I don't know. I lost consciousness, kind of, but it feels like I did inhale some water." Lyra guessed, not really knowing what had happened in that black spot of her memory between seeing the spot of light and waking up with aching lungs on the beach with Sarah hovering over her. Behind her, the woman frowned. 

"Lyra, you weren't unconsciousness. You yelled out for me after you finished coughing, and only passed out when I came over. What exactly happened, everything you can remember from when you fell into the water to when you woke up with me, alright?" Sarah asked her, Zara nodding along though she still looked confused. 

"I was thrown into the water, and I can't swim, so I began to sink and panic and thrash. The monster was circling beneath me, and I thought I was going to die, and I breathed out. And then, just as I was about to breath in, there was this weird blob of rainbow light coming towards me and it hit me, and then the next thing I remember after that was Sarah waking me up." She explained, knowing it was almost entirely useless information. The two women exchanged a look. 

"I never saw any light, but I was a little distracted. Did you see anything?" Zara asked Sara. She shook her head. 

"No, I was also a little distracted with not dying. But honestly, after everything that's already happened to her, a rainbow ball of light knocking her out and stopping her dying hardly seems like a stretch." Sarah reasoned, moving out from behind Lyra and gently lowering her down to the ground and shrugging off her jacket, balling it up and tucking it beneath her head. Lyra would have preferred to sit up, but as she couldn't do it under her own power she didn't have much of a choice. 

"Believe or not, I know how stupid it sounds, but I'm not lying about that. I'd really like to know what was going on, and making up what happened isn't going to help that." Lyra reasoned, wincing at the sun shining in her eyes. Sarah absently changed where she was sat so the sun was blocked behind her back. 

"Honestly, Lyra, I don't even know what's caused this. It wasn't a head injury, and if you can feel your feet then it wasn't a spinal injury either. If tendons or muscles had been damaged, you would be in pain and there would be blood. I think it could be exhaustion, maybe some brain damage from being deprived of oxygen, or just a mental block. In short, I don't know what happened or how to fix it, and even if I did, it would take equipment I don't have." Zara said with a tired shrug, gesturing at the carnage around them. "I presume we'll be resting here tonight while we regroup, so we'll see if a rest helps. If not, we can make a stretcher out of the things in the forest and carry you with us." She decided, before standing and looking around with another sigh. "I need to check for any other survivors. Sarah, take her over to Vivian, that's where everyone is gathering." With that, the midwife walked away. Sarah threw her hands into the air and gave Lyra an exasperated look with a grin.