The Knife Thrower

Chapter 27

I open my eyes with a start. My heart pounds and my hands are sweaty. I try to recall what I last remember. I was falling, and then blackness. Where am I? I look around at my surroundings, taking in the dimly lighted room, the hard cot beneath me and the single door in the wall. I look down at myself. I look fine, other than a few cuts and scrapes. So if I'm not dead, then what?

I swing my legs over the cot and get up. A strong sense of nausea over takes me and my head throbs so painfully I almost cry out. I sit back down and put my hands on my throbbing temples and shut my eyes, trying to make the headache go away.

"Oh! Your awake." Someone says from the doorway and I look up startled. He is about my age with blue eyes and close cropped hair the colour brown. He leans against the frame, analysing me. I look away, uncomfortable.

"Where am I?" I start, asking him straight out.

"You are safe here." Is all he replies, dodging my question. I am about to ask it again when I am overcome with another headache. I bite my lip from crying out and lean forward, hoping to ease the pain. I hear him walk away and someone else comes into the room. A women, this time. She is probably in her late twenties, with red hair and brown eyes. She rushes over to me and helps me lie back on the bed.

She puts a cold clothe over my forehead and mutters soothing words. Must be a nurse. "Here, drink this." She hands me a metal jug filled with a translucent liquid. I look at her unsure. She smiles and moves it to my lips. I give up and jug it down, grateful for the substance on my dry throat. It tastes like thick, metallic water.

I lay my head back onto the pillow, a dizziness and light feeling taking away the pain in my head. She has drugged me. I try to ask her what that was but my tongue is not working.

"It's okay. Just a little Morphine to help cure yer headaches." She says softly and it is the last thing I hear as I drift back into unconsciousness.

*****

I drift in and out of consciousness, though it feels like I am dreaming. I saw the nice nurse twice again and the boy appeared in the doorway frequently, but only stood watching. When I wake up for the fourth time, the headache is gone and I am fully conscious. I sit up and swing my legs over the cot, waiting for the nausea to hit, but nothing comes.

I stand up on stiff legs and stretch my sleepy muscles. I look down to see I am dressed in a white night dress with no shoes. Heat floods my cheeks as images of them bathing me appear in my mind. In the corner of the room I spot a pile of neatly folded clothes. I walk over and pull up a blue shirt, black pants and white sneakers. I wince at the different colours, wishing for my plain black clothes. But I pull them on anyway. It's better than this stupid night dress.

I slowly open the door and find myself in a hallway. It looks as if it has been carved out of stone, like the little room behind me. I hear the faint sound of chatter down the right corridor so I walk towards the sound. I reach the end of the corridor and there is a wooden door. Should I knock? The sound of random chatter reaches my ears. No, it doesn't sound important.

I put a hand on the knob and twist, stepping into the room. About a dozen faces look back at me, all sitting on chairs facing each other like they are in a meeting. Woops. But I stand my ground. The nurse who gave me the Morphine earlier stands up and asks me how I am.

"Fine. The headache has gone away." I say back carefully, not sure who these people are or if I can trust them. Part of me wants to leave, to go home, but another part wants answers. Looking at all these people staring back at me awkwardly, I decide on the first one.

"If you could just show me the door then I can get going." I say, expecting to see nods of approval and a volunteer to show me out. Instead everyone starts talking at once, arguing and trying to talk to me.

"Silence!" Some one calls out and I follow the voice to see it comes from the boy from earlier. He is leaning against the wall again and staring straight at me. He must be the leader. "Kyra, you can't leave yet."

A chill goes down my spine, but not from his command. He knows my name. I am about to ask when a different question pops into my head, demanding my attention. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"About three days," someone answers to the left of me.

"Where am I?" I ask to the boy again, remembering how he doged my question... three, two days ago? Someone pulls up a seat and tells me to sit. I do as they say and wait for answers.

"That is not important." He just says simply. I purse my lips. He is not making this easy for me.

"Fine. How did I turn up here?" I ask instead, directing my question to the old man who told me how long I have been unconscious. He squirms in his seat a little but finally does answer me.

"We saw you jump of the cliff and we saved you." His voice is rusty and strained.

"How?" I ask the old man but he looks away. I give out a sigh and the women who has been nursing me answers.

"We are inside the cliff. The Divider, well, that's where we are. So we saw you fall from the edge of it and our metal hand shot out of the wall and grabbed you." She says impatiently, spilling out the whole story. Every head in the room turns to stare at her but she just shrugs.

"The girl deserves to know and she won't stop hassling us till we tell her every little thing!" She sends a pointed look at the boy that I can't understand. My mind tries to process what she said. In The Divider?

"How is that possible?" I ask her, seeing she is most likely to give me the answers I want. Her eyes alight with passion and she explains to me in detail the mechanics of the metal arm and how they built this HQ. Though she doesn't tell me what it is for.

"Okay." I say when she finishes. "Another question. Why me? Why did you save me?" Nobody saves a persons life like that without a motive now days. There had to be a reason. It can't be just neighbourly concern. I except the nurse, who introduced herself as Wendy, to answer me, but instead the boy speaks for the first time since he refused to answer my question.

"They saved you for the same reason they saved me." He says shortly, eyes burning holes into my skin, looking through me, into my soul. I stare straight back at him, into his clear blue eyes. My next sentence comes out in a whisper.

"You fell as well?" I hold my breath, not sure whether to feel hope, disbelief or dread.

"Yes." He says, eyes intense. "Nine years ago."