Sanguine Tides - Book 3

Chapter 17

TW in the description
Thank you so much to lvca_arts (Kea/Meca) for the art!!!

Luca POV

His mind was shattered like glass. He could see the faint reflections of who he was in the pieces.

Luca was there. But he also wasn't.

Alive - but not living.

He was trapped in a constant reset. The moment he became aware of his surroundings, his mind rebooted him again. And again. And again.

So he stared. Awake but not present. Eyes open but unseeing. In a never-ending state of self-defense. Because if his mind allowed him to think for more than a second, the pain would kill him.

He had to remain blank.

Empty.

Until someone stopped his ravaged mind and saved his fragile spirit.

Alberto POV

It would be three days before they reached the shore. Alberto switched with Giulia for Luca watch and slept until noon the next day. But he didn't truly sleep. He tossed and turned the entire night, unable to quell the frantic searching in his mind. 

"How did you sleep?" Giulia asked, taking the tea Alberto offered her.

"Good." He lied. "Has he said anything?"

Giulia sighed as she looked at Luca. He was in the same half-sitting position from the night before. Eyes open. The only sign of life was the slight rise and fall of his chest.

"No. Mattias said that if he doesn't come back soon, he will have to put a feeding tube in."

Alberto bowed his head.

This was a mess.

"I'll take over; get some sleep." He offered. Giulia nodded thankfully and took her tea with her as she left. But before she closed the door, she turned, locking eyes with her brother.

"You really don't remember him?" She asked, as though a small part of her hoped this wasn't real.

Alberto shook his head slowly.

"No."

She nodded, then left.

~.~.~.~.~.~

Giulia POV

"I've been thinking a lot about what you said."

Giulia took a seat in Mattias's room, hot tea in her hands and mind racing.

"What did I say?" He replied, not turning around.

"What you said about Alberto's mind forgetting or ignoring things to protect itself. And how Luca's doesn't do that."

"Oh?" He said, dropping white tablets in a liquid, making them sizzle.

"I don't understand why Luca's mind didn't do the same thing as Alberto's. Why didn't his mind just forget instead of feeling all that pain?" Giulia asked, the same question that nagged her these past few days.

"Because Luca is mentally stronger than Alberto," Mattias said like the answer was obvious.

"What?" She asked, perplexed.

"A disturbing childhood severely compromised Alberto's mental health. His mother's sickness, being kidnapped by his father, then later abandoned. The kind of response we are seeing out of Alberto doesn't develop overnight. It happens over the course of years and years of mental damage."