Sick Bird (Completed)

Heal

Scar pov:

One minute, I found myself absentmindedly wondering where Jelly had wandered off to. I had barely completed the thought when, in the blink of an eye, there she was, cradled in my arms as if she had been there the whole time. The familiarity of her soft fur immediately grounded me, but what caught my attention more was the soft glow on her forehead. A faint kiss mark, shimmering gently, illuminated her sleek fur. It pulsed with a quiet, comforting light as if someone or something had left it there as a sign. My heart jumped.

“Mumbo! Jelly’s back!” I yelled out, my voice echoing strangely in the vast, endless void surrounding us. There was an odd sense of relief and confusion. How had she appeared here? The void itself felt alive, shifting in response to my words. I stood in the middle of nothingness, yet there was something now—a tree, massive and ancient, with roots twisting into the ground that didn’t exist, had somehow formed behind me. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Without thinking, I sat down against the bark of this impossible tree, letting Jelly wiggle free from my grasp to explore her surroundings. She seemed utterly unfazed by the surreal landscape, pawing curiously at the glowing grass that had sprouted near the tree’s roots, her tail flicking as she moved in her curious feline way.

I should have been exhausted, especially after everything we’d been through, but in that moment, energy buzzed through my veins. I was wide awake, more alert than I had been in hours. The tree's presence, the void’s eerie calm, Jelly’s unexpected return—it all should’ve felt overwhelming, but instead, I felt... alive.

And then, as quickly as the rush had come, it faded.

A sudden wave of exhaustion slammed into me without warning. My limbs turned heavy, my eyelids drooped, and the sharpness in my mind blurred like ink in water. The energy that had kept me buzzing dissipated, and before I could even comprehend what was happening, darkness pulled me under. My body slumped against the tree, and I was gone.

I don’t know how long I was out. It felt like seconds, but when I blinked my eyes open, the void was still there—silent and infinite—and Jelly was sitting at my feet, her glowing kiss mark dimming as if she had been waiting. My heart pounded, the remnants of whatever dream I had slipping away too fast for me to grasp.

“Mumbo…” I croaked weakly, still disoriented, my head spinning. But before I could get another word out, Mumbo appeared at my side, his face pale with worry, eyes wide in alarm.

“You scared the living daylights out of me!” he gasped, kneeling next to me. “You were just... gone for a second and then you weren’t! What happened?!”

I didn’t have an answer for him. I couldn’t even begin to describe how it felt, the sudden burst of energy, followed by the equally sudden crash that had knocked me out. I leaned heavily against the tree for support, feeling its rough bark press into my back as I struggled to steady myself. Jelly, ever the calm and indifferent presence, purred softly as she curled up beside me, completely unfazed by the strange void we found ourselves in. The glowing kiss mark on her head had vanished, leaving me staring at her as if she could offer an explanation.

But I couldn’t focus on Jelly for long. My mind began to twist and churn, memories rising from deep within me like ghosts I thought were long buried. The world around me blurred, growing distant and warped as the past came flooding back, unbidden. Images, sensations, and fragmented thoughts swirled in my skull, making me dizzy, disoriented, and very, very confused.

I could see flashes of them—The Heroes Association. The way they had found me, captured me, dragged me away as though I were some kind of threat. I could feel the cold steel of their restraints, the biting grip of the cuffs around my wrists, the sterile smell of the facility they’d thrown me into. But that wasn’t the worst part. No, the worst part was what came after—the drugs, the endless injections, the blinding white lights that burned my eyes.