The Sleeping Girl

Chapter Nine

I rush over to Mike's unconscious form. "Mike!" I shout. I'm terrified. This can't be happening. His aura is getting fainter and fainter. He is dying.

No!

He can't be dying. I won't let him. I won't. I refuse to accept it.

"Mike, Mike!" I cry out, desperately. He can't leave me. We can't let the darkness win. No no no nononono. I put my ear to his chest. It's moving ever so slightly. The small rise and fall is nearly imperceptible, but it's enough for me. He is still alive... for now. 

I press the palm of my hand to his bleeding abdomen. His blood is moist and sticky. Dark. Thick. His blood. Closing my eyes, I start to tremble. Still, I am determined. He will not die. I am the Sleeping Girl. I am strong. I can prevent this. 

I let all I have left flow into him, feeling the wound close up ever so slightly. All of my force, my power, my life, my everything. I have never healed anyone before. Never been strong enough, never had to. But still, I know that I can. But now I must.

He can't die. He can't. Not Mike, Mike who's been so understanding, so compassionate, so helpful in this impossible time. No. I won't let him die.

Leaving my left hand on his stomach, I press my right hand to a particularly nasty looking burn on his cheek. I think I can actually feel the bond through. I shudder as I feel fresh skin start to grow underneath my touch. Tis a strange, weird sensation, and one that I'm certain I don't like to feel. Furthermore, healing him is draining me. Tis exhausting. Far more so than fighting the sprites had been.

After a few minutes, I can feel that the skin is fused together, and appears to no longer be bleeding.  I remove my hand and look at his face. He's still unconscious. I press my ear to his chest. I don't hear a heartbeat.

I don't hear a heartbeat.

I. Don't. Hear. A. Heartbeat.

"Mike!" I scream. "No! You cannot die! No... No Mike..." Suddenly, all the walls in my world are coming crashing down. This can't be happening! I start pressing my hands to every single wound and burn I can find trying frantically to heal them; to heal him. I barely feel fresh skin close over one wound before moving on to the next and the next and the next. His stomach has started bleeding again, the wound ripped open. I pull his shirt up and wince at the sight of it. A long, deep, bright red gash. I'm powerful but not that powerful. I can't heal this.

I press my hands back to it, desperately wanting to make his heart somehow start beating, to feel its steady thump, to feel the blood rushing in his veins. To feel the life pulsing in him, a healthy aura.

But none of these things are happening.

Hysterically, I press both hands back to his stomach again, not caring that they're getting all dark and sticky with blood. Thick, warm, dark, oozing blood. But I do not care. I don't care about anything but keeping this dead boy alive.

I'm crying, crying on him, my tears splattering his face and I don't care. I'm hysterical, crying and shaking and wailing so loud that I am surprised that the people in the shops nearby don't come running to see what is wrong. But then again, if they saw this horrific sight, they would probably keep on running, but in the opposite direction. My vision blurs from the tears but I. Don't. Care. First Ailie, now him. How many ended lives will cause? How many times will I carry the burden of knowing that I alone was the sole reason that a person is no longer here on this earth with us? How many deaths will I, as the Sleeping Girl, be responsible for?

What's the good in being so powerful if everyone still dies for you? If even when filled with so, so much power, you cannot even keep the ones that you care about alive?