What We Left Behind

Chapter Three: In Which Eric Shows Us What An Idiot He Truly Is

You choose. 

You choose it. Choose, Eric. 

A breath heaved in. 

Chest expanding and a pit forming in his stomach. His ribs emerged. 

His heart picked up the slow thuds. 

Synchronising with time…

And then a burst, a flash. 

Eric's eyes flew open, huge pupils staring at the dome ceiling above him. For a few seconds he seemed to be stuck in time, frozen in that shocked stance as if he had been tasered. 

Then all the memories ran in. 

Eric released a sigh, then groaned in a low voice. 

Why did you have to fall asleep? Why did you have to choose chaos? 

He closed his eyes, acutely regretting the moment when he had given in to the claws of sleepiness. Why couldn't he stay awake any longer? Wait for someone to come? Get help? Maybe call his psychiatrist? Why couldn't he build up enough nerve to do any of that? 

Now that Eric was back in this world of the unknown, it would be hard getting back. 

With a groan and a wince he tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but someone held his hand back. Glancing off to the side, he noticed that woman. The same, old woman who didn't seem to want to leave him alone. 

She was sitting on a chair by his bedside, gripping his hand with all her strength. Eric stared at her for some time, his mouth curled up in annoyance, then he forcefully pried his fingers away from her hand. 

He proceeded to get off the bed. 

Searing hot pain shot up his leg in the process, and when he gasped and looked towards it, he remembered that his knee was butchered. 

Badly. It was bandaged clean now, but Eric could still recall how it had looked when the knife had just gone through it. 

It wasn't anyone else's mistake. It was his own. 

Especially because he had held on to the knife when it had been plunged into his knee. 

He couldn't explain it. Eric had been desperate to leave this place (and he had figured that it only happened when he was deeply asleep or plain unconscious). In those times he was transported back to the normal world.

The ordinary, safe world. 

To travel to that world, since he wasn't able to escape the bounds of this frantic woman Yeona, and because the guards were threatening him to surrender or otherwise he would be dead, in absolute hopelessness, Eric had tried to hurt himself with the nearest weapon he could spot.

His own knee. It happened fast and impulsively. He realised he had done it after he had done it.

Thankfully, as a result, he had been back to his world. 

Where he had fallen asleep in the bathtub. Again. Obviously, lack of energy and blood. 

Then he was here, again waking up in the infirmary, the same place he had been in earlier. Only this time, his knee was hurt and he doubted if he would be able to walk well. 

If he tried to run. 

Because that's what he was planning to do. 

The bed springs creaked as he shifted to the edge. His legs, dangling over the edge, tentatively pushed out. The soles of his feet grazed the floor. Eric tried to stand up. 

He hissed, and sucked in sharp breaths as his injured leg took hold the weight of his body. He fell back onto the mattress, grimacing and rubbing a hand over his face. 

He stayed still for a few beats of silence, then tried again. 

It was bearable. 

He closed his eyes shut in exhaustion, trying to regain any of the energy. 

When he opened them again, his vision swam. His head felt dizzy and for a few seconds he just stood on his spot and swayed a little. 

Then he clenched his fists shut and took a deep, determined breath. He took the first step. 

His legs wobbled. 

Sweat dripped down his temple and his breath shortened. 

His body ached. 

God help me. 

Eric rubbed a hand over his face, wiping away the tears of exhaustion that had leaked, then he pushed his hair back from his forehead. He looked around the room and saw his shoes placed in the corner, the Adidas a sharp contrast against the old wooden furniture and mediaeval style of the room. Eric took a seat on a chair nearby and hurried to put on his shoes. 

His eyes locked on the sleeping form of Yeona, who was collapsed by the bed. 

Eric tried to make as little sounds as possible so as to not wake her up, but his heart was beating fast and loud. Every strand of his essence was scared to death. He had not yet walked beyond Yeona's room yet, just travelling here and there inside this place, but right now, he was taking the risk. 

He was going to walk out. Walk out of the supposedly safe haven Yeona had claimed to have made for him, and Eric did not know all the horrors he could find beyond the door. There could be monsters. Dragons. Ghosts. There could be people who would kill him at one glance without thinking at all. 

With his mind telling him to stall with this plan, and his curiosity and wish for freedom telling to just get out of this room, he listened to one and completely ignored the other. 

He stumbled out of the room.