Losing Faith

𝟐𝟗

"You look like shit." Such a painfully familiar voice, which sent a hot wave of longing and the realization of how much he missed this voice through Draco's whole body, made him slowly turn around, blinking from the bright light.

He didn't know how he ended up in the middle of a place where there was nothing but white around, but he felt a burning sensation in his lungs, a sting in his nose, a heaviness in his legs, but in his soul, he felt only peace and serenity, as if this was the place where he always had to be.

As soon as his body made a rotation of three hundred and sixty degrees, and everything stopped floating before his eyes, he felt as if he began to suffocate.

Pain, pain, pain, weakness, tingling, dizziness, nausea, pain, pain, pain...

It all swirled inside him until his feet seemed to be rooted to the floor, until he couldn't make a single movement, and it seemed to him that he couldn't even breathe, because his whole body was paralyzed by the sight of Faith standing in front of him.

There was a smirk on her pale face, her green eyes sparkled like jewels — she looked real, but yet she was like a cloudy vision.

"Faith?..." Draco barely managed to squeeze out the words, taking a small step towards her, feeling as if his legs weighed a ton.

Faith nodded curtly, stretching her lips into a wide smile, her hand reached out to her hair, running thin fingers through the curls.

"Did you miss me?" Her voice was playful, and it made Draco grin, as if she was really alive, standing right in front of him safe and sound, as if everything that had happened before was not true, and she was real, the only real and important thing in his life.

"What is this place?" He asked, looking around, but again, everything was white, above his head, under his feet, on the sides — it was like a vacuum, without a hint of an exit from there.

"I don't know," she shrugged, "Maybe purgatory?" She folded her hands behind her back and began to walk slowly back and forth, and there was not even a shadow of a smile and amusement on her face anymore.

Draco watched her like a pendulum of a clock, and with every second, more unpleasant, heavy feelings settled in his chest.

He only seemed to notice right away that she was wearing the same dress she was wearing at the party, in which he had last seen her, but now he realized that it was wet, drops of water were dripping from it, falling into white nothingness. Her skin turned a more earthy color, tears froze in her eyes as she stopped in front of him, very close — he could see his reflection in her pupils.

"You weren't there," she whispered, two pearls of her tears rolled down her painfully blue cheeks. "I was so scared, so lonely, so cold... where were you when I needed you the most? Where were you when I was so hurt and afraid? When where you when I called you?"

Draco couldn't even swallow the lump in his throat that rose from all these questions, from the sight of her painful condition, her eyes filled with tears of pain and resentment, from guilt and shame — he wasn't with her to save her, he was there to remove her fears, comfort her, warm her. He felt insignificant and pathetic.

"I have a headache, Draco, I want to sleep so much, I want to be warm and dry, it's so cold in this wet dress." Her trembling hand went to the back of her head, without taking her eyes away from his. "I have such a bad headache, can you help me?"

Draco looked down at her hand, which was now covered in maroon blood that she had collected from the back of her head, and he wanted to throw up.