If You Feel Better

Chapter 67

Aya had never felt more unwell in her life. Her stomach felt like a pool of acid, eating her alive from the inside out. Her entire body ached like it was one giant contusion, not a single part of her without some kind of pain. Nausea hit her like a solid brick, twisting her stomach into knots and blanketing her in an overwhelming sea of sickness.

She winced as she slowly gained back feeling, stirring from her otherwise restful sleep. Wearily, she pried her eyes open with a pained groan, holding her pounding head as it throbbed like it had a heartbeat of its own. The difference between her eyes open and eyes closed was nil. She blinked a few times to make sure that her eyes were actually open, the darkness around her matching the darkness of her sleep. Am I blind? she thought. She gradually sat up, looking through the blackness for anything other than a void, but finding only nothingness staring back at her.

"You're awake."

She nearly jumped out of her skin, startled by the voice piercing the darkness unexpectedly. The flame of a candle suddenly lit into existence, emitting a soft glow that revealed the menace she had become so familiar with. Bakura stared at her from a table not too far away, sitting lazily in a chair facing her with a bored look on his face.

Bakura? she thought, too disordered to be overly disconcerted by his appearance. She didn't understand anything. She couldn't remember what had happened. She looked around in a semi-confused state, finding herself in another one of his lairs, in a bedroom similar to the others. "I'm back?" she asked, rubbing her eyes and forehead, not believing what she was seeing. "What happened?"

Bakura stood, pouring a jug of water into a cup and holding it out for her to take. "Drink," he said. "There no chance that you're not dehydrated after the day you had yesterday."

Aya didn't need to be told twice. Her mouth felt drier than the desert outside. Her headache was a thousand times worse from the plague of thirst, pounding unforgivingly like a harsh drum. She snatched it out of his hand and chugged it straight down hastily. She couldn't get enough, her thirst not even close to quenched after just one cup. He poured her two more, gone as soon as it left his hand.

She wiped the bottom of her lip with the back of her hand when she was finished, gasping for air after nearly drowning herself in glass after glass of water. "God, everything hurts," she whined, leaning against the wall, holding her abdomen, which hurt the worst of all.

"I'm not surprised," he said, falling back down in his chair. "I dragged you across the ground through that man's entire property, you threw yourself from my horse, and you headbutted me as hard as you could. I'd be shocked if you weren't hurting."

Ptahbis, Aya thought at the mention of his mansion. "What happened?" she asked again. Mere fragments of jumbled memories came through, but she could coalesce into a coherent picture. It was mostly blurry colors and noises, no specific words or people. "The last thing I remember . . . Ptahbis . . . he-he forced me to eat . . . something. I don't know what it was. His servants held me down and shoved it down my throat. And then they tied me to his bed . . . and then nothing. I remember exchanging some words with him, but I can't remember what they were or what happened after that."

"Well, allow me to fill in some blanks for you," Bakura said, filling himself a glass of water. "I found him on top of you in that bedroom. He hadn't done anything yet as far as I could tell. You still had all of your clothes on, which I assume wouldn't be the case if it weren't true." He took a sip nonchalantly, continuing his story of heroism. "I put a knife into his throat and pulled you out of there. You were already fairly incoherent by that point."

None of his words struck a particular chord with Aya, but she did seem to remember some flashes of blurry imagery that coincided with his story.

Bakura chuckled at the memory of it all. "It wasn't easy. You fought me tooth and nail the entire way. I had to drag you out by your ankles. After a well-fought battle, I finally got you on the horse. You managed to throw yourself off partway here. Nearly got yourself trampled. I finally got you down here, not that you didn't try to fight against me then too. Smashed your head against mine. Gave me a good welt above my eye." He rubbed the spot where she made contact, a large bruise well-formed on his brow. "You were crying hysterically and couldn't tell up from down, but you still fought with everything you had to break free. I'm almost proud."