Our Forbidden Love 2

18: Alexander

It is so weird. I'm awake but asleep at the same time. I can sort of hear the noises of the world around me but only if I purposely tune in; and even then, it's really muffled and hard to hear. My eyes are useless. It feels as though I'm not controlling them and they just seem to move on their own or accompanying the sharp pain that shoots from my head and is sent in a shockwave down my entire body. Now that I think about it, I can't talk either; my tongue seems sort of unresponsive and I'm not too sure what that means. I try to wiggle my fingers and toes which I struggle to do and even then I have no idea if they moved or not. The only thing I can do, is be still and hear muffled noises if I tune my ears in.

The last thing I remember was the purple coloured light shooting out of the pedestal in Kiwi Civitatem's Government House. Ask me about anything that happened after that and I have absolutely no idea. And where am I? I had no idea of that either. What had happened to me? Did the light do something to hurt me? Was Starley feeling like this too? Was she okay? Was she with me right now, worried about my current state of being? My brain was so confused and I kept asking lots of my burning questions in my mind over and over again but I don't hear anyone answer me.

All of my senses are very messed up. Not only my regular ones, but also the ones that had come with the name of 'The Stonal Child' around Oceanum Villa as well. The mild telepathy, the sensory of seeing how powerful a merfolk was. They're gone, or at least not at my immediate exposure like they had been. I have no awareness of what's around me; those senses seem to be shut down, or at least not working for the time being. And how long had I been like this? I have no idea. I'm hopeless.

Ouch! There goes another shockwave. It starts at my head, a sharp pain in the centre of my head. Then it travels down my body in a sort of wave. The same pain, down my neck, breaking off to go down my arms; continuing down my waist and down my tail. It only lasts a few seconds, but the few seconds are a painful few that I can do nothing about in my near paralysed state. I don't even know why I'm in this much pain, there was only light. Light can't hurt you can it? Well, it must've considering nothing else hurt me.

I can't do anything useful anyway so I just decide to try and sleep and I must succeed because I start to dream.
At least it thought I was dreaming...
***
Alexander Stonal sitting in his desk at Broadbeach State High, determinedly watching the doors waiting for his angel to magically appear. The two desks beside him, usually filled, are empty. He ignores the coincidence between the empty desks and who would usually be sitting there.
~
Starley Star-Bub, her wrists tied behind her back with rough, fibrous ropes, her head slamming into the cold metal floor of the van, purple tipped blonde hair falling forward with her body. She's praying her boyfriend is coming to get her, scared for her life that she's not going to make it out of this alive without Alex by her side. She called out to him but he still hadn't come yet. Maybe he wasn't ever going to come...
~
Alexander Stonal waiting beside the bed in the spare room in his childhood house. Holding her hand, thumb rubbing over it just how she loved it. He's watching her, not creepily though; in hope that there's still life somewhere in the small body lying motionless on the bed. She's been motionless for a day and a half now, since Thursday morning when she flew across the beach out of my arms and landed in a way that broke her arm neatly in two.
"When we had that argument," he whispers to her, hoping somehow she'll hear, "I was so scared that I was going to lose you. My own ignorance nearly cost me you and our, but you're priceless, Starley and our relationship gives me security and happiness." No crying in the practices; strong and bulletproof when she couldn't hear him.
~
Waiting beside the bed in Lilliana Dun-Hill's hospital in Government House, again, holding Starley's hand waiting again for her to wake up. This time, her right arm is injured, covered in bandages that have long since turned purple from her blood. Lilliana occasionally entering the room to replace the bandages, Bubbles and Walter coming in to visit her, but other than that, it was only him who stayed in the room the entire time: her loyal boyfriend soon-to-be-husband.
~
Starley sitting beside Alex's bed, hand in his, scared tears occasionally falling from her eyes and dripping onto her tail. Piper sitting on the other side of the bed, her face showing no emotion, her mind unreadable. Starley's thumb rubbing across Alex's hand just like he did for her. Alex, unresponsive and unmoving; Starley, hopeful and scared; Piper, emotionless and serious. She's waited by his bedside for twelve hours now. Twelve sleepless hours she'd rather spend beside her boyfriend's bed in case he awakens; instead of working with the other nine Government members, sleeping or spending time with her family.
~
Alexander Stonal lying motionless and unresponsive on the bed in the middle of the hospital room completely unaware of his girlfriend's hand in his or his mum sitting on the other side of the bed.
~
The purple light. The light, burning, burning, burning. Literally burning Alex's skin as it got closer and closer to his body. Screams in pain. Starley calling out to him to see if he's okay. No response. Calm cocoon of light supporting Alex in the 'air'. A spark; a rectangle; a scream; pain; a flash. Alex fallen on the floor. Starley kneels beside him, panicking. Hurriedly picks him up; struggles with his weight and her small, scrawny body. Teleports. Out of sight.
~
***