Living Proof

Chapter Three

Every time he moved, pain shot through Boromir's entire body, so his sleep was interrupted by seemingly endless burning stings that had him sucking in hard breaths, which only made the pain worse, at regular intervals. He couldn't get comfortable. Everything hurt beyond pain, beyond reason, beyond sanity.

He tried to remain still, to breathe as little as possible, but that made his head ache and spin at the same time. So, he fought to control his breathing, fought to subdue the dizziness. He focused on the hearth along the far wall, studying the grain in the wood above the dusty, sooty brick. There were only a few things along the mantle—a stump of candle in a battered tin dish, a pair of black gloves he recognized as his, and a small portrait in an oval frame that was too far away for him to make out who might be in it.

He tried to remember what happened, what led up to his waking on a lumpy sofa, in this strange, somewhat dilapidated cabin, but all he remembered was a soft, feminine voice apologizing for hurting him even as she caused pain worse than the fires of Mount Doom. He'd thought at first he'd dreamed the ordeal, until she stroked his cheek and assured him he was safe. Then, his eyes opened and he saw her and he knew this was no dream. The pain was no nightmare.

It was all reality.

A horrible, pain-choked reality.

Five arrows, she'd told him. Five arrows he could only vaguely recall at the moment, and somehow, he wasn't at all certain he wished to recall them. It would come back to him eventually, once the fog of pain and exhaustion lifted.

His eyes refused to stay open for more than a few minutes. Then, he'd doze, only to be rudely awakened by a fiery burst of pain shooting through him if he coughed or inhaled too deeply. He'd lay there, staring at that blasted stump of candle, those gloves, and that portrait, and wonder all over again.

This went on throughout the day. He knew time passed only because of the changing shadows, which grew long and thin as the sun shifted. Perhaps he'd imagined the young woman who'd helped him? A hallucination brought on by blood loss and pain, perhaps? He might have just stumbled his way to this shack of a cabin, after all...

A fireball burst in his chest, just below his left collarbone. His right arm felt leaden as he lifted it to bring that hand up to probe, and he let out a hiss of pain as he poked the bandage, and the wound it covered.

"Not a dream..." he groaned, his stomach clenching violently as pain radiated through him in flaming waves that had him arching from the cushions, then recoiling as they worsened. Icy sweat broke out all across his skin, the dizziness worsened. A sour taste flooded his mouth, followed by the chilled horror of knowing he was going to be sick.

"Easy." The soft voice returned, a hand on his back while a bucket appeared before him. He convulsed with pain, his stomach emptying itself of what little it held to make him gag and cough and almost cry at the same time. He'd never felt agony like the one which coursed through his body at that moment.

"Shhh..." Her whisper was soothing, as was her hand on his hair. He heard her cough and mutter, "Oh, my..." but she never slowed the hand stroking his hair so lightly before moving down to his back.

He coughed, spit, and then just sagged against the sofa cushion, half-hanging off it, while his gut continued to twist and spasm. The burn receded, but only just, the icy sweat icier and sweatier still as it prickled along his back, across his chest, and he had not the energy to move at all. He didn't care if he slumped off the sofa and onto the floor. In fact, death would be preferable to the agony coursing through him then.

"Let me die," he moaned, swallowing hard as a fresh wave of nausea rose.

"Shhh..." She continued rubbing his back with that gentle hand. "It will pass in but a moment. I will brew you tea for pain and give you something for the nausea as well."