Game of Light

Chapter 5 - A Lost Word

Chapter 5

The longest time Light had ever needed to stay in the Med was about an hour. On that fateful day, of which Light had many fond memories, a Giant-Meat-Ball had decided to reduce her to a 2D image and then eat her up. The whole hour had been plagued with nightmares of big rolling monsters, and when she had finally woken up she had sworn never to eat a meat ball again.

She thought that situation was bad enough, but the length of time that Image had to stay in his healing cell was insane.

“Two days?” Light asked the nurse again just to make sure she had heard correctly.

“His whole magic supply was drained. We’ve never seen anything like it! And believe me, the Med gets some weird cases.” The nurse pursed her bright red lips and fluttered her heavily mascaraed eyelashes.

Light sighed and leaned back into the thick padding of a comfy armchair, wondering what Image, who at the moment looked quite innocent, had gotten himself into. His whole magic drained?, she snorted, That idiot, I guess he really was lying to me when he said he had more than enough magic left! Just a second, she thought uneasily, remembering their earlier magic-related conversation and how Image had told her he only lied about the welfare of his magic stores to girls he was interested in. The fact that Image lied might not be a good thing.

But just as uneasiness took hold of her and Light was on her way to standing up and leaving, Image rolled over in his sleep and blocked her escape by resting an arm on her lap. Ha!, she exclaimed with dread in her mind, a forty-year-old guy trying to make a play on me in his sleep, that’s a first. She glanced at the large and heavily muscled arm and grimaced. This is going to be harder than I thought. Light slowly but surely started to inch the chair backwards. Image’s arm thunked against the side of the bed and his eyes fluttered open. Light swore under her breath and quietly snuck towards the door, giving the bed a wide berth. One hour of her precious time had been wasted sitting by this idiot’s bed and she was regretting losing rock-paper-scissors against the rest of the troupe members, whom she had found at the Med two hours before.

One inch to the door, I can make this!, she thought to herself in encouragement.

“You weren’t thinking of leaving me alone here, were you Light?” Image’s voice sounded like the devil himself: hoarse, scratchy and venomous. 

Light turned around, a smile plastered onto her face. “Of course I wasn’t, dear,” she answered carefully.  “I just thought you might want some fresh air.”

She opened the door and pined for the light-flooded corridor whose white plaster seemed like the finest marble in her current situation. Her mind was filled with images of her dashing out of the door towards the warm summer air, but she knew Image’s future temperament would be far from good if she followed that temptation now. While turning towards Image she released a silent cry for the nurse to order her out and release her to the freedom awaiting her outside. But the chances of the nurse being a Telepath were one in a half-a-million.

“I died, didn’t I?” Image asked his parched lips cracking, while he formed his lips into a smile. “I feel like shit.”

“Yup you did, and you surprised me, just dying like that,” Light bit back the freaky suspicion she had of him. “It was willingly I’m guessing, the way you died.”

Image attempted to edge himself into a sitting position. The attempt failed.

“Yes, I wanted to die and lose a level, of course I did!” he exclaimed sarcastically, “I also wanted my ‘spring of magic’ to be completely dried up!”

While staring at Image in a total loss of what to say Light’s vision slowly started to fade. Not now!, Light exclaimed, Firma don’t reclaim me yet! The next thing that happened was that hearing anything became much more difficult. She felt like her ears were encompassed in a bubble. She heard a swishing that tended to drown out most sounds that she could have heard. These symptoms were the signs that told you something in Firma was trying to get you out of Other, or as it might be in Light’s case, wake you up. No!, Light begged to the force in reality, Give me more time!

Image was on a roll with his speech. His voice was tinted with malice and his eyes glared in Light’s direction.

“Can you guess what consumed my magic? That infant strength without any training? I know exactly why and so do you, because Light you are-“

Light’s vision went dark, her world was silent, the ground under her feet vanished.