Through The Ascension Room***Book One COMPLETE***

CHAPTER NINE ~PART TWO~

CHAPTER

                             Nine

    Only a moment of silence passes before Valde’s painful screams echo out through the cove. I quickly scramble to my feet. I fight and stumble through the sand over to Valde. I drop to my knees and try to see  the extent of the damage done.

    “Alex?” Cynthia is in shock. She stands motionless in the sand with a horrified look in her face. I want desperately to be able to comfort her in this moment. Let her know that this is not her fault, but Valde grabs ahold of my loosely draped jacket and pulls me into his screams. I can feel his pain at this point as he yells into my ear. His body thrashes, spraying waves of sand in my face.

    “Oh my God, what happened?” Tristis is shouting in confusion and frustration. His panic stricken face is pale white as he paces back and forth repeatedly saying, “Oh my God. Oh my God…”

    “Alex?” Cynthia says again, just moments away from bursting into tears. I can’t help her right now.

    I look back down at Valde’s body and notice his violent thrashing is limited to all his body except his left leg. His hands periodically fall downward to touch it. Then he brings them right back up with a howling growl of intense pain. His cries grow louder and more distressed every second.

    “What are we going to do? Oh my God…” Tristis continues to pace as if his constant moving is keeping the reality from setting in.

    I reach down to his leg and begin to slowly draw up the pant leg. Something I did must have hurt Valde because he immediately sits up and his body tenses as if he is being electrocuted. His eyes are clenched tightly shut and his cries are broken up by his gasping for air. The intensity of this moment makes me want to puke. I again try to move the bottom of his pant leg up to expose his leg. I do it in a quick, fluid motion, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. Gurgling half cries and what seems like almost a laugh comes belting out of Valde’s lungs. His body bends and folds like a gymnast as the pain continues to torment him.

    A rush of the chills shudders through my body and my eyes burn with intensity. A jagged-edged bone sticks protruding out of Valdes leg, allowing his leg to bend in unimaginable ways. Thick blood pours out of the wound glistening in the light of the full moon, quickly creating a pool of blood where I’m sitting. A sense of helplessness and despair begins to set in.    

This is all my fault. There’s nothing I can do.

    I can hear Cynthia’s gasping pleas for this all to just go away. For it to just be a horrible nightmare. “Alex, please…”

    “We need to get someone to help us.” Tristis says finally rejoining us mentally. “He’s going to die if we don’t do something quick.”

    My mind races with the consequences. The repercussions. We can’t just pick him up and rush him back into the building. We need to do something right now.   

But there’s nothing I can do…

    “Alex…”

    “Oh my God…”

    “Tristis! Come over here now!” I yell cutting through all the chaos and noise.

    Tristis moves through the sand and plops down next to me and the severely wounded Valde.

    “Cynthia, go get Dr. Finley. But do it quietly. Don’t wake any of the others. Especially not Richard or Hilt or even Percy.” Cynthia takes a deep breath looking one last time at the mangled mess on the ground that is now Valde. “Cynthia!” She turns her gaze to me and our eyes meet. Through the tears blurring her eyes I begin to see the calm and composed Cynthia return.