𝒑𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒓 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ 𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖𝚜

chapter nine : reconcile and rehabilitate

[IX]

"YOU'RE NOT ALONE."

I gasped awake. The voice in my head had seemed so loud, so real, so when I woke up alone, it was incredibly jarring. As the world came into focus again, I felt the sting of my injuries, and groaned with animosity.

The groan, it seemed, alerted someone, who was with me but had been behind me, so I hadn't seen them waking up. This someone seemed to hop over to me with what could only be described as enthusiasm, or perhaps nervousness, or both.

"Amelia?" She waved her hands in front of my face. "It's Ellie. Do you know who I am? Can you recognise me?"

As my consciousness came back to me, I found I could not move my arms or legs.

In my half-delirious state, I felt like I was back at the cross-wire fence again with the handcuffs, and I started to mumble.

"No, no, no. Not again. Not this..."

Ellie backed away from me a little. "Amelia? Can you hear me? Do you understand me?" She spoke very slowly now, and as I realised I was once again, not becoming a fungus-zombie monster, nor was I chained up and left alone in the snow, I could be relatively calm in my surroundings.

Not totally though. I was still tied up.

I looked at Ellie, who in the morning sun, looked strangely nice, despite how much I thought I had hated her. I stared her right in the eye, as I knew she was apprehensive about my assumed 'turning', and said, totally deadpan,

"We have to stop meeting like this."

She puffed out a relieved sigh of air, and threw a twig at me, to which I responded with a very appropriate, "Ouch!"

"Fuck you, Amelia! You could have hours of consciousness left and you're still a raging asshole!"

"Hey, I'm the one tied up here! Who's the asshole?" I paused for a moment. "Also..."

I thought about it. Now I had been bitten in front of her, there was no avoiding it. I would have to tell her.

"...I think I'll have more than a few hours of consciousness left for you..." I started. This was going to be a stiff explanation.

She eyed me like I was growing horns. "What...what do you mean?"

I drew in a huge breath, and blurted out a very unprepared, "It'sokayEllieI'mimmune."
She shook her head, and in her way, asked a cocky, "English, please?"

I braced myself. She might think I'm crazy and shoot me, or leave me to die tied to this stump. I had to show her the scar. It was my only proof.

"Ellie. I need you to look at my right leg." She picked up my injured leg, probably assuming I meant that one and had confused my left and right. I'm not that dumb, you bitch. "No, not the left one, you dumbass. The right one?"

She gingerly lifted my right leg. "Now, roll up my trouser leg."

"What?"

"Just do it."

She rolled up the jean leg just as I had asked.

"Now, this will make it a lot easier to explain...I think. Look at my shin, under my leg."

She looked at me like I was talking rubbish, but complied anyways. The light shifted in her eyes as she glanced upon the scar left there over two months ago, that dreaded night.

"It's-"

"-a bite mark. A scar." She interrupted me. "You're..."

I was waiting for her to say it. Crazy. Liar. Or, if I was very lucky, immune.