The Vortex: Rectification

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Fifty-One.

At this point I am thinking that maybe we should start pretending that I never said that I had grown into a different kind of person after all this time, because I don't feel like this new person I had tried to be right now. Not when everything has exploded around me, and I haven't been able to leave my room long enough to wash my hair over the last week.

Did anyone get injured or died? Nope. Did Aleera take a turn for the worst that I don't understand? Again, no.

But since finding that knife at the Rowin cabin it has only ignited this crazy need for me to figure out a way to make all of this easy, finish the war as if to make up for the fact that we didn't find some collection of plans in that rotten house in the woods. If I was being rational, maybe it would be easy to see that there was never going to be this all-telling revelation waiting for us there.

Instead, somehow, I feel like I have fallen off the rails a little, the second I pulled open the old blood ritual books they swallowed me whole, it's different to the way it was when I was still in school. That was this need to know that there are solutions to all the issues we might face but now we have all of these things going on and I need to figure out how to fix all of them.

"What happened to the Aurora that was begging us to come to a Resistance meeting?" Jai's voice makes me jump, my neck aches as I look up from my scribbles along the notepad pressed next to the book I'm ingesting. "You don't care too anymore?"

His arms are crossed across his chest, leant against my open doorframe with his dark eyes studying the disarray that my room has become. Like it mirrors the still messy living room that is slightly empty, but still full of stacks of my research and medical textbooks. Every time it feels like it's all coming together, it seems like this one tiny, stupid thing sweeps me back off my feet and then I'm drowning all over again.

"Are we supposed to be leaving?"

"No" Jai sighs, moving further into my room and sliding onto my crowded bed, pushing stacks of useless information towards my folded legs. "But we will be soon, and you can come if you feel like you're going to be up for it"

"Up for it?" I question, eyebrows furrowing despite knowing what he's meaning. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Aurora, I think we should skip past the part where we pretend that you aren't struggling with everything going on right now. Before you went to that cabin, I thought that things were getting better despite your lack of sleep and obsession with finding Aleera's cure, but you've backtracked so much this past week, why?"

"There could be a way Jai, a way that this knife and the spells and rituals that can be done with it not only to help Aleera but to help me get my magic back!"

Like those six words are everything he's been waiting to hear, he fully slides onto my bed and pulls the book and pen from my limp hands. His dark brown eyes pin me to the spot and kill any protests in my throat, "Is this what this is whole about, you trying to fix everything?"

For no rational reason his question make my throat tighten and my eyes burn, but I swallow down the rise in emotion to be able to answer him as he takes my shaking hand into his. "I've caused so many bad thing Jai, I know that I was always meant to do everything that I have but I've let so many people down in the process. I feel like even though I'm back, I've still lost everyone"

"We are all right here 'Rora, you haven't lost anyone and anyone that is gone? That isn't your fault in any capacity"

"Then why does it feel like I have? Everyone's in and out of here all the time and I feel so trapped not being able to do the same but at the same time leaving terrifies me when I can't help everyone. I got so good at it over the years, on being relied on and helpful and now what purpose do I serve?"