Unchained

Chapter Twenty Eight

You'd think as a bomb blows up in my face tha I'm going to fall down to the earth. And crash to die and burn in my own misery.

You're wrong.

The bomb did explode, yes, but it only just threw me backwards. Somehow, I was able to levitate myself even more, floating around, but I was kind of out of it because, well... A bomb just blew up in my face.

I didn't see where David went, and I couldn't hear either because my ears were wringing. It felt like wasps were in my head - buzzing and humming really loud. My vision got all blurry and I couldn't feel my body and all I saw was the burning sun above me.

I breathed in.

I breathed out.

I prepared to fall into the depths of the unconsciousness as my mind went blank once more.

But instead, something forced me to open my eyes.

And hers stare back into mine.

"Avaley," the beautiful hospital woman murmured, running a perfect hand along my cheek. Everything around me just slowed down, and she was the only thing that was good in this world. It seemed that she held the answer to everything - just looking at her gave you peace and content. Yet, the way she smiled at me, it seemed so familiar, as if...

"These times are the hardest," she said, her voice soothing me. I wanted to close my eyes and listen to her speak, yet I couldn't tear my eyes away from her beautiful complexity, her perfect composure and all around being. "But it won't end sooner than it has to." she smiled, and I wished I could smile too, but I could't move. All I could do was stare. "You've come so far, Avaley. Look at what you can do." she smiled again, and my heart fluttered with comfort and happiness. I felt so happy. This was amazing. "Don't ever give up," she said. "It's the one thing you can't do. You have to be strong, not for them, but for yourself." 

I started to feel my toes.

"You can save them, Avaley."

The feeling in my arms started to return.

"Because it's in you."

My luns begun to take in air.

"And we all believe in you."

I blinked.

"Goodbye for now, Avaley."

I opened my eyes.

"Avaley!" someone bellowed in my face. I jerked my head around to wake myself up and looked into the face of David. His hair was messed up and ash was all over his face, but his arms were around me and... We were still hovering. In the sky. And I felt like poop.

"What..." I mumbled, looking around. "What happened?"

"I... That wasn't a real bomb, I swear," David explained. "I put it there to test you, and I said it was a bomb to make you more... Hyped up. Once you got the bomb out of the mall I was going to congratulate you, but then..." he looked like he was about to cry. "I don't know what happened, Avaley. I thought you were dead." and he pulled me into his ches and held me close.

I didn't say anything, I just stared at the city below us. Finally, I breathed out, "So how did I do?"

David pulled himself back and let me hover. "How did you do?" he asked, leaving all emotion aside.

"With the bomb." I said. "I got it out of there, and if only I'd dropped it a bit sooner we'd all be safe, wouldn't we?"

He laughed. "If you don't remember, Avaley, you flew through the ceiling."

"Hey!" I protested. "Where was I supposed to go? And besides, it's not like you were there to hold the door open for me!" My head felt fuzzy, remembering the events and the beautiful woman. It was that kind of fuzzy where you've been reading for hours and now it's time to eat dinner or do chores or something. And I could't stop thinking...

"Are you okay?" David asked, coming closer to me.

"I'm fine," I said, pulling back and holding up a hand. "Just... Light headed."

"It was so weird," David mused. "That thing blew and you seemed fine. I mean, it literally blew up in your face. And you don't have a scar on you."

"You can save them, Avaley." The beautiful woman's voice ran through my head. "You can save them, Avaley." I could save who? And save them from what? That was the exact thing David told me, and look where I ended up. In the sky with exploding bombs.

"What do we do now?" I asked David. I was exhaused. I just wanted to go home and sleep.

"We move on," David said. "I think this has been enough commotion for one day, what do you say?"

"No argument there," I said as we begun to fly down. "Does this mean we're back at school tomorrow?" Sadly, David nodded, and my gut wrenched at the thought of Mr. Hauge and his dirty hands.

"But I'll watch out for you, Avaley," he assured me. "There's going to be a lot of holes to cover up..." Like Mr. Hauge watching us fly into the sky and Sean seeing be hover around the mall... "But we can't just ditch school. We need to act normal."

Normal. "Right," I said. "Normal, I can do that."

But really, could I?