The Last Theiro

19

Tessa
•••

Woah. Did he just say that?

Did Alec just say he doesn't know who his looking at?

I stumbled away from him and sunk to the floor, my back sliding against the wood.

I don't know who I'm looking at.

The one person in this world I trusted doesn't know me. I felt alone. And scared.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I mumbled.

Alec shifted his feet uncomfortably and turned his back on me. "You're...you're just different. Ever since you went into The Further it feels like -"

"WHAT?!" I cut him off mid-sentence. "Alec, I don't even remember what happened in The Further!"

Alec finally turned to me with his electric blue eyes. Conflicting emotion danced behind them. Hurt. "It's not about what happened. It's about what you did?"

"And what did I do?"

He pursed his lips, the hurt in his eyes increasing the longer he stared at me. "You tried to protect her." He spat the last word with such disgust that it sent my skin crawling.

"I don't know who she is!" I yelled at Alec, frustrated that he wouldn't tell me anything about The Further.

"It's better you don't know." He shot at me. Tears welled up in his eyes and when he could no longer handle the pain of looking at me, he ran.

"Alec, wait!" I ran after him and into the thick bush.

The sun had already set and I had to strain my eyes to see where I was going. The moon cast an eery light through the tall trees and my eye caught movement in front of me.

I gripped onto Alec's thick leather jacket before we went spiraling into nothing. Through Evanation, I felt Alec's jacket slip from my fingers.

It felt like I was floating endlessly until I stumbled onto something and bent over, emptying the contents of my stomach onto the forest floor. I spat out a mouthful of blood and my body burned with pain. The pain had an unpleasant warmth to it, eating at my stomach. There was nausea too, just enough to make me grip my hair and breath slowly. Pain seared through my abdomen better than a branding iron, my mind conceding to the torment, unable to bring a thought to completion.

I screwed my eyes shut and laid there on the forest floor, waiting for the pain to subside. When the pain was no longer blinding, I slowly opened my eyes to tall trees surrounding me and a pitch-black sky with no stars shimmering in its vastness.

Did I just evanesce?

No, I didn't. Alec did and I grabbed onto him but lost him through the process. That must be the pain of evanating by yourself.

I stood up slowly and swayed on my feet, my vision swimming in front of me. I blinked my eyes rapidly until I could make out the large figure in front of me and I gasped.

In front of me, stood a giant beast with shiny black scales who stared at me with giant magenta speckled eyes.

I stumbled backward until my back hit a tree and held my breath.