Tragic Innocence

Chapter 14: Daunting Endeavor

            Her head throbbed painfully, reminding her of hot lava bubbling within a mountain’s heart.  Pentulla struggled against it, but her body refused to move at all.  Was she still alive?  Why hadn’t she died?  The last thing she remembered was falling into a black pool of what she thought to be death!  Perhaps she was dead and this was only the beginning:  excruciating pain at first before melting into the sweet surrender of nothingness.  She longed for the great tunnel of death to end so she could meet someone on the other side.  She knew he would be awaiting her. 

            Then the nymph could feel the pain intensify in another area.  But does pain really follow one when death occurs?  She scoffed inwardly--impossible!  For one would need a body in order to feel pain!  So, she lived after all!  She tried to move her tongue to speak but was punished by a burning sensation at her throat.  If only awful sensations could be done away with, she could cope with existence!

            Pentulla lay there an agonizingly long while, or so she thought, before her

senses fully returned.  But when that happened, they came to her one by one until the pain around her intensified.  The new sensations she now experienced were favored over the desire of feeling nothing.

            She felt warmth pressing against her cold skin, a tingling impression contrasting everywhere.  Once feeling the heat, a soft crackling noise was heard somewhere nearby as if she had raised her head from above a watery grave.  The air, she felt now with urgency as she continued to concentrate upon her senses, was damp and pungent, yet cool.  Lastly, she was aware of the sweat that beaded down her face.  Then the questions began to pour in.            Where was she?  In the good graces of the above?  Or...  A mental shiver of fear thundered throughout her consciousness.  What had she done in her former life to deserve such fate of seemingly eternal doom?  Was she an innocent maiden that somehow got crossed along the paths of fate, or quite the opposite? 

            The injured nymph attempted to open her aching eyes, but the sharp pain that shot behind her head caused her to relinquish the attempt to view her

surroundings.  An array of colorful bursting sparks spread within her shut eyes.  She whimpered softly from the sensation.                                                                         

            Where was she?  The question recycled itself once more.  What had happened?  Suddenly her mind filled with mysterious cries of anguish and screams of terror.  She shuddered at the intensity of the emotion that filled her bosom.  Was this what had happened before she came to her current status?  Then she somehow remembered that she was supposed to meet someone in death but had forgotten the events that had caused it.

            Mikash!  She tried to scream out  his name once she remembered, but her throat felt like a hot desert.  She only heard herself squeak from pain as she tried to move to no avail.  He was gone, taken by the demon!  She could now see his countenance--the appearance of anguish twisting his handsome face.

            “Hush,” a soft whisper floated gently from somewhere as echoes broke forth.  “Don’t move, your wounds are not whole yet.”  An unfamiliar low voice hovered above the thick air to her craving ears.

            Her tone was barely audible within her pain-stricken lungs, “Where am I?”  The air seemed extremely damp and shatteringly still.  What had happened?  Was she not lying broken upon a vast meadow?

            “Don’t fear.  You are safe.  No one can harm you now.  I am here to protect you.”  The voice hummed deeply.  “If only I…” the voice trailed off into an incoherent mumbling.