Phantom Touch | Minho |

Chapter five

I was running through a forest. it was early night, I could tell by the way the trees glowed in a deep blue hue. Underneath my feet I could feel cold earth, damp from rain. My chest heaved with urgency, my breathing ragged as I tore through the woods, ducking beneath low hanging branches. I wasn't running away from something, I had to get somewhere. And I was running out of time.

Something cold and damp rested against my forehead, a gentle pressure applied. The pain came a second later, aching and burning into my skin.

"I think she's coming around." Someone mumbled. Though his voice sounded distant and foggy in my barely conscious brain, I could hear the lightness in his voice and the slight crack.

When my eyes opened the world blurred, a blotchy mess of color and light meshed together.

"Hey. Hey, Max. Can you hear me?"

"Dude, back up-"

I bolted upright, though the movement hurt my head so much I could have passed out again.

"Whoa, hey!" The boy standing beside me finally came into focus. He was shorter and lean, his arms surprisingly toned for how thin they seemed. He held both his hands up as he stumbled backwards, knocking into a table behind him and sending various materials tumbling to the ground. "You're okay, it's okay!"

I panted as I looked around me. lanterns flickered from most of the room's surfaces, illuminating the walls made from thin branches lined together like a dense forest. Everything seemed to be held together with matted string, ready to be blown over with the slightest wind. Metal tools lay scattered about the tables along with padded gauze and bandages. I had been laid on a dingy cot on a blanket that used to be a burlap sack and smelled of hay, complete with a flattened, worn pillow with reddish-brownish stains to lay my head on.

"Clint, man, back up, seriously!"

I whipped my head around and jumped as I realized another boy had been hovering two feet away from me, staring at me like I was a species of bug he had never seen before. I was almost comforted when he looked startled too as I stared back at him.

At the opposite side of the room three figures stood nearly flat against the wall, my head felt light and my ears rung in a low, hollow pitch as I squinted to make them out.

Alby came into view first, his once rigid shoulders had bowed slightly, making him look much smaller than he had before. One would think he was an unmovable, stoic statue if it had not been for him wringing his wrists, the one nervous tick he either allowed himself or never noticed he was doing.

Newt stood to his left, one hand on the staff he always carried with him. I used to think it was just for walking, but from the tenseness in his shoulders and the tightness of his grip I knew he was prepared to use it as a weapon if necessary.

I didn't need to look at the next person to know who it was, so I didn't. I could feel Minho's stare, anyway. He spoke first.

"You alright, max?"

"What happened?"

Heavy silence blanketed the room, broken only by one of the boys, Clint they called him, shuffling his feet on the dirt floor.

" 'Believe Alby's got something to say." Newt spoke up, slapping a hand on Alby's back. His friend turned to him with an icy glare, causing Newt to remove his hand promptly.

"Look..." Abby stared at his hands as he talked, was he nervous? "Earlier... things got out of hand in a way I didn't expect."

"What d'you mean?" I asked, eyeing the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot.