The Great Awakening

Chapter 21

Awakening Chapter 21

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AN: remember that this is the first draft. There may be inconsistencies so bare with me. And I'm uploading this with my phone so the formatting's strange

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"Jayden?"

Her voice was distant as he awoke in a dim darkness. Everything was a complete blur that blended the bright orange fire light with darkness of the shadows. He smelled copper, and his head throbbed, threatening to beat its way out of his skull. The only other sound beside her voice was dripping water.

"Jayden!? Can you hear me?"

The vision was clearing now and his senses became more distinct. His throat was dry, and the colors were blending into a more coherent picture. He saw a face. Joanna. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Jo?" His voice cracked.

"Oh thank the lord!" She pressed her hands against his face and pulled him into a hug. The pain didn't feel so bad anymore. After all there were much worse pains. When she pulled away, his cheeks were cold. Wet. Her arm was glazed with a deep dark red.

"What happened?"

"Siris happened," said a rather light male voice. He appeared directly above Jayden, bringing a bowl directly above his chest. "Open up."

Oh thank god! I need water!

Jayden did as he was told, pressing the lips against the edge of the bowl and making way for the incoming water... or whatever it was. Even in the dark, the water held a gray tint, and held a rusty metallic taste. Jayden resisted the urge to spit it back out, even though he swore he was drinking piss of some kind. He took it in, until he felt like he would vomit with an ounce more. "Thank you."

The man didn't answer and it wasn't until he was close that he got a good look at his face. His hair was a blackish brown, flipped over to cover his right eye. His eyelids lacked a double fold, but the most striking feature was that even in darkness, when he was looking straight down at Jayden, his right eye had a crimson red color while the other remained as black as night.

Jayden remained there in Jo's arms until the throbbing subsided and he was finally able to sit up. "Who are you?"

"Xiong," he said rather promptly before his oddly colored eyes looked the side of Jayden's head. "You struggled arrest didn't you?"

"Well it seems you already know the whole story," Jayden joked and smiled. When Xiong didn't return his smile, his own faded. "We were trying to escape."

Xiong only leaned against the cell wall, resting his head back. "Yeah... the place is shit. I get it."

Jayden and Joanna's eyes met before his attention returned to Xiong. "So what are you in here for?"

"Treason." Blunt words. He didn't seem to talk much.

"What'd ya do?" Joanna asked.

"I don't like terrorism." He spat as he spoke his cold, prompt words. "And I don't like terrorists."

Jayden lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head. "So you... tried to kill Siris?"

He nodded. "More than once."

Just how many people were trustworthy? The answer: not much. For Jayden, that 'not much' was only two. Only two people he could trust. Everyone else might have just stabbed him in his back. Or sent him to exile.

"Why haven't they killed ya?" Joanna asked.

"Ever wondered what happens to a bird locked out of its cage, especially when inside of that cage are her children?" His question caught everyone off guard, and there was a moment of silence that hummed until Jayden realized that it wasn't rhetorical.