The Five Cursed Witches: Volume 3 - Morana, the Witch of Life

Chapter 2 Surviving

Morana

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Darkness. Complete darkness. Floating. I was floating. I was nowhere. I was everywhere. I didn't have a body. A mind, a consciousness, that was all that I was. A soul floating in darkness.

There was no concept of time. I could have been floating in the darkness for a second, or an hour, or an eternity. There was no way to tell. But a voice was what brought me out of it. Or many voices rather. A choir of hushed, slithering voices that echoed through the darkness.

"The price was agreed, and the payment done. The blood of three for the ever-flowing. Three lives for the everlasting."

After those words, air flooded my lungs. I had a body again, and I opened my eyes. Right before me was metal. It was so close that my nose almost touched it. I then realized I laid in a very odd way. One of my legs was straight, while the other was bent. My upper body was twisted, but so was my head to give me the view of metal. One of my arms was above my head and the other underneath me.

Then the sounds registered in my brain.

"Is she alive?"

"I didn't have time!"

"Is she breathing?"

I finally realized what had happened. The truck. It hit me. I was currently under the truck.

With that realization, I became aware of the pain and I let out a groan. My whole body ached like hell.

"Did you hear?"

"She's alive!"

"Has someone called an ambulance?"

"Just stay there! Help will come."

Panic of being trapped under the truck washed over me. Thoughts of that it could crush me or catch on fire ran through my mind.

I was not really claustrophobic, just that the idea of being stuck in a small space without the means to escape terrified me. Especially at that moment. So yeah, maybe I was claustrophobic. But that didn't matter right then. I just needed to get out and into the open air to fill my lungs.

I started moving, tried to crawl out. There wasn't much space to move, just turning, so I was on my stomach and could crawl, was a struggle. Then I had to keep low to not bump my head. The whole process was too excruciatingly long, and I forced myself to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth to not panic.

"Stay still! Help is on its way!" someone shouted, but I didn't listen.

"You might have broken something. Don't move!" another voice yelled, but I didn't listen to that one either.

Or I did listen, but I didn't stop moving to get out. The only thing the voice managed to accomplish was making me aware of the pain I felt again.

I felt like I'd been run over by a truck, but not in a literally way. No, the pain was rather the type you get after a really hard workout. My muscles ached. But honestly, I would have imagined the pain caused by getting run over to be very different. I didn't feel hurt, only sore. No throbbing headache, no limbs that wouldn't listen to me, no stinging from an open wound. Just muscle pain.

When I finally got out from under the truck, a thousand voices met me. But I didn't listen to them. I was just exhausted. Not tired from being hurt, but exhausted and in desperate need of a nap that lasted days.

After a long time, or after no time at all, I wasn't sure which, the paramedics showed up. They asked me questions too, though I wasn't sure what their questions were or if I even answered them. I was just too tired. All I wanted was to close my eyes and sleep.

They put me on a stretcher and only then was there something that pulled me out of my tiredness. I felt the burning of eyes on me. I turned my head in the direction that I felt the gaze from and looked into the face of a man. He was vaguely familiar with his beautiful and expressive brown eyes.

The emotion in his eyes confused me though. Everyone else had looked at me with worry or fear for my well-being. But there was only anger in his. Anger that was directed at me. But why? What had I done, except almost dying?

As I disappeared into the ambulance, I realized why he looked familiar. It was the same man that had shouted at me right before the truck hit.

I was much more alert and conscious now, though I quickly noticed that the paramedics weren't aware of that fact and, frankly, I preferred it to stay that way. I didn't want to deal with anything. So I let my eyes close.

"I can't find a single wound," one of them said.

"But the blood?" another answered.

"Yeah, I've checked, but there's nothing. And all of her vitals seem fine. A bit of a high pulse just. Honestly, nothing seems to be wrong with her."

"Broken bones?"

"Nothing."

"What the heck? She was run over by a truck and there's blood all over her! You must be missing something."

"I'm not! You can look for yourself."

I tuned them out at that point. I sang song after song inside my head to not hear anything that happened around me. I also kept my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep or unconscious or something. There was no way I was going to let them know I was awake and heard.

The truth was, their words scared me. I didn't get it. How could what they had said be true? Sure, I did think I could be magical somehow, but to walk away from being run over with not so much as a scratch? What the hell was up with that? Even if I was magical, that wasn't normal, was it?

I kept on feigning sleep as we reached the hospital and all the checkups that proceeded, and I maybe did fall asleep for a bit. For a moment or two I listened, but what I heard disturbed me as much as what the paramedics had said did.

"She seems to be in top health. Not even a bruise."

After that, I continued singing in my head again. Song after song after song. It was better, easier to concentrate on compared to the questions that formed in my mind one after another.

I continued distracting myself until I heard a new voice. This one was very different from all the rest and that had to be why it managed to penetrate me. It was rough and angry, compared to the subdued marveling of the hospital staff.

"Who the fuck are you?"