Irradiated

Chapter 20: Breakdown

Softness. Bliss. Peace. I could feel it, and it seemed to take its toll in my very conscious. Although I wasn't awake, I could still feel the warmth I hadn't felt in a long while. Even as my body shivered, I continued to be in an utter bliss. Ever so gently, the narrowed slits of my eyes expanded, letting me come back from the surrounding blackness. I woke to see a blank ceiling above my head and realized that I wasn't outside anymore. I let out a soft breath, and as I did, my ribs moaned in pain. The strange thing was that I didn't feel it hurting me. Still, I wouldn't dare move, in fear of hurting something on accident.

The silence around me felt cold and uninviting. I didn't like it. I blinked a few times, pondering over what had happened. The last thing I remembered was hearing someone say something about cookies, good boys, and following orders. That had been the last time that I was awake. Nothing else seemed to come back to me and even though it had clearly happened, I apparently couldn't remember it.

A sudden noise beside me startled my racing thoughts. Once again, I dared not to move and decided to not turn my neck towards the sound in order to see what it was. Instead, I remained silent and cautious as to what it could possibly be. Ruffling. The ruffling of a blanket being moved? It couldn't have been mine. I felt no movement or motion against me. Or was it that my body was numb and couldn't feel anything? Either way, it couldn't have been my blanket. More sounds came through after that. Was someone making a bed?

I finally built the courage to move my head to the right, and to my sweet surprise, I was right. Someone had been making a bed. A pair of eyes met with mine, and the lips far below them spread into a small smile.

"Welcome back." I tried to smile back, but couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I closed my eyes again, only to hear the steady beat of footsteps coming towards me. "Still don't feel well?" I nodded quietly.

"What happened?" I croaked out hoarsely, realizing how my throat stung when I spoke. I coughed after talking and groaned inwardly.

"We don't really know. It all happened so quickly, we barely got the chance to react." Was their answer. I waited for them to speak more, but they didn't.

"Tell me... What you know." I whispered, trying not to use too much force in my voice.

"Muffled voices were coming from upstairs after Angeli ran into the kitchen holding the box of cereal you had. We hesitated as to what it was, and because of that, we wasted precious time. It was a bit too late to go racing up the stairs, since whoever was sent to hurt you already got a major-"

"Hurt me...?" The usual brightness of my eyes dimmed with every word spoken. How much better could it get?

"Yes, sadly. When we realized what had happened, we went out to search for you. We split up and went in different directions to try and find you, but it wasn't until about two hours later that we finally found you lying in the snow, half dead." Derrick's eyebrows were furrowed in sadness, and he shook his head lightly. "It was... just horror..." He mumbled.

"W-why?" He looked up at me, a strange look in his eyes. They glistened sharply before he blinked and it remained, keeping a bold and solid steel color to his eyes.

"Your body was dismantled and shredded. Torn skin hung onto your bones, and we... we could see part of things that should never be seen from a living being." His eyes closed minutely, as if trying to shake away the memory. "Surprisingly, I was able to fix a lot of the damage, but..."

"But what?" He fixed what he could, but what?

"You've lost a vital necessity in life. You can no longer feel anything. As in, you've lost your sense of touch." I stared at him blankly. I lost my sense of touch. How lovely. "I'm not sure if it's temporary, but I'm hoping it is. Of course, there's still other things we need to consider..."