Trail of the Dead

Chapter 4

First came the agony, every part of me was either throbbing or aching. It could only be described as a knives piercing every part of my already broken body. Immediately, my mind tried to think back to the events that had led to this affliction but the torment robbed my brain of clarity and blanked out any reasonable thoughts. This only compelled my brain to be more frantic and try more hopeless attempts to do something. At the height of my fret, my attention was drawn to distorted whispers close to wherever I was.

"...she's lucky"

"-on the road"

I tried to decipher the broken words only becoming more confused when I attempted to put together the broken sentences. Steadily, everything seemed to be making itself known to me, the pain however, was hot at my feet still blocking any logical thoughts. When I seemed to have enough control about me, I slowly lifted my eyelids only to instantly shut and pinch them when a beaming white light flooded my vision. The whispers ceased, alerting me that my audience most likely realised I was waking up.

"Hey, you good?" a man's voice gently spoke.

Slowly, I began opening my eyes again to analyse my surroundings. However, the light didn't hit me like I expected, instead I was greeted with a striking face holding an anxious expression. My eyes widened slightly and out of reflex, my arm swung around so my balled knuckle struck the right side of his face, but I instantly began regretting the move as the pain shot down my arm. When I looked back up at the man he was 2 steps away and rubbing his jaw while his eyes were pinched in pain.

"Is that a new way to say thankyou?" he remarked in a sarcastic tone.

"For what?" my weak voice spoke for the first time making him open his eyes back up.

"He's the one who brought you in, you would have been dead if it weren't for him." another voice spoke this time making me turn to the end of the bed I was laying on. It was the barman from the stygian, catching me of guard. Next to him stood another stranger, he had a small beard that consisted of more grey than black hair, a black bandana covered his head and a sleeveless leather jacket on his muscular body; he was hunched over nursing my left leg.

The barman's words triggered my memories of the events from last night, everything rushing back to me. So this was the tall stranger.

"Shit" I murmured turning to the man who was still clenching his jaw.

"Sorry" it felt weird having those words come out my mouth, I rarely ever spoke to anyone let alone apologised.

"No harm done" he replied, a small smile breaking out in his strongly structured face. He had short black hair that framed his forehead quite well and big grey eyes with hints of light blue that peered up at me.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, I felt a sharp pang in my right leg causing me to wince and grunt in pain as I snapped my head towards the stranger nursing my leg.

"Well it's gunna hurt if you have a bullet that's almost gone through ur bloody leg" his husky deep voice grumbled as he continued with his actions.

I hadn't noticed the pain last night, in fact I had no idea that I'd even been shot. Why were they attending to my wounds? Was this a hospital? It looked like one, there was an iv that was beeping to my left and a tube connected to my left hand pumping a fluid into it. I was laying on the kind of bed that irritates your skin to the point it goes red. But if this was a hospital, why was a guy that looked like he walked straight out of a biker movie treating me? And what was the barman and the other stranger doing here?

"Where am I?" I asked voicing my thoughts.

"The Stygian." The barman responded.

"What?" My tone held surprise, why did the Stygian have all this set up?