Colapso || Leo Valdez x OC

2 ~ Wakey, wakey!

ARUNA

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Aruna wished she had some other thought when she was brought back to life. Something poetic or joyful. Instead, she mostly though Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

First; she was underwater. How did she know that? Well... She just kinda did. She was floating and sinking at the same time, and felt relatively weightless, but everything hurt. Everything burned and stung like sanitizer in invisible cuts. Her eyes flickered open and she saw someone- or something- injecting a tube into her arm. Almost like a heroin shot, maybe.

Then she heard snapping. She had no idea what it was, but suddenly, her elbow was facing the right way, so she figured the snapping was her bones mending back together. Why were they broken in the- Oh, right. She suddenly remembered smacking into the ocean and everything going black.

She was very in and out, but the pain slowly went away. She couldn't speak and wondered how she was breathing. Someone was holding her. Consciousness came and went. Sometimes it was dark, sometimes it wasn't.

Then she wasn't in the water. It was dark, but she was on the sand. She was quite tired. Two women were talking and Aruna tried to open her eyes. A white figured whispered a word in Minoan and Aruna was asleep again.

When she woke up next, she was being dragged through sand. She coughed up water, her whole body soaked. It was salty, and her skin and hair were horribly dry. There was a rope tied around her, with a knot diagonally to the upper right of her belly button.

She made a face of disgust as she spit up water on herself. "Where are-" More coughing. "Where are you taking me?"

She opened her eyes and saw something terrible; black sand, dark skies, and eerie screams in the distance. She could hear the roaring of a river in front of her, where someone was dragging her to. Fear climbed in her throat as she realized where she was.

"Let me go!" She choked out, her voice hoarse. "No! Let me-"

She was thrown into the river.

Acid. It felt like raw acid. A scream climbed from her throat, muffled by the water. It burned horribly. The water seemed to push her further down, and the only thing keeping the current from dragging her away was the rope someone was holding.

Her vision blurred. Her mind felt like it was being ripped into pieces. Grey water flew all around her, carrying mysterious whispers. The pain started to take over, and Aruna felt her consciousness threatening to disperse.

You can't do this again.

Aruna fought. She tried to cling to every good feeling she'd ever had. She tried to swim to the surface but didn't succeed. It became very cold. Very cold. She shivered under the water and her limbs moved like jello.

She remembered what used to keep her warm at night; Leo. He was always there, sleeping next to her, making sure she was never cold. The smell of cinnamon passed by. Aruna's lips and chest began to heat up. She felt a burning where the knot was, and concentrated on it, urging it to spread further and further over her body.

Someone above the water said something she couldn't interpret. It was a woman's voice, and she sounded mean, but Aruna could feel encouragement coming from her. The woman was confident and strong, and Aruna clung to that. She swam further up. Her limbs were moving better. Her fingers breached the surface.