Unexplored Worlds: Extraordinary

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Tiffany? What's wrong? You like you've just seen a ghost." Mindy grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it. Her tight grip brought me back from the shock.

Was it really Mum? Or was it just the imagination of my fevered brain?

"I...I..." I mumbled, my head was throbbing and I could barely stand, much less form a coherent sentence. It felt like the hammering in my head was damaging my skull, forming fissures across the bones. I held my head in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut. The pain was unbearable. I wished I could have just died.

The steady pounding in my head started to slowly recede, leaving me feeling light headed. I felt myself starting to slip away, gradually floating away from reality. The feather-light feeling, contrasting greatly from the loaded weight of hopelessness, was gladly appreciated, but I still firmly held on to my consciousness.

The sight before my eyes blurred and spun, sending a wave of nausea across my body.

I felt my knees buckle, my lifeless body crashing to the floor, the pain spreading from my left shoulder like an epidemic in a densely populated city.

Why do you bother fighting?

A voice boomed in my skull, the blast shoving me into the dark void of unconsciousness. The trace of a chuckle swirling into oblivion.

~~~

I woke to find myself on the floor, my supposed housemates no where to be seen. There was an eerie silence around the house, not a sound from any direction.

I relaxed my contracted muscles and was hit by a tsunami of noise.

Cicadas, birds, humans.

"-they're dead?"

I shoved the blanket someone had cautiously placed on top of me, as if they dare not touch my lifeless body, off myself and got to my feet. Other than the black dots dancing before my eyes and the fresh bruise on my left shoulder, I felt fine.

I looked out the window. The mid-afternoon sun had begun to set and the walls of the room were repainted a deep orange.

"Well at least he's stopped whining."

Following the sound of the voices, I was led downstairs to the dining room. Two figures were seated across each other at the mahogany dining table.

"This not a laughing matter, Nathan. What if-" Mindy threw up her hands in exasperation. "She's not dead." Nathan had his hazel eyes focused on me.

"How would you kno- Oh my God! Tiffany! You're alive!" Mindy sprang out of her seat, almost knocking the chair over, and wrapped her long arms around me. I stiffened and refused to return the embrace. "Yes, it seems so."
Prying myself out from her entangled arms, I backed away from her.

"We were so worried! You just started convulsing and then you collapsed but your arms kept flailing about and then we heard a loud crack and then you stopped moving so we thought you were dead and then -" She took a long, deep inhale, filling her lungs with air. "Blondie tried to-" "Wait, where's Marcus?" I held up my hand to stop her.