Seven Souls |Updates Fridays|

34 Nyka Larkin

_Nyka Larkin_

He woke up in a cold sweat, his skin tingling and stinging. It felt as though he had been beaten bloody with a club all over his body, and sitting up as fast as he had was not helping. The boy brought his good hand to his face, rubbing his sore throbbing eyes and temple.

"Byrne, he is awake," Ingrid said as she rushed to the boy.

Nyka gazed at her with grey eyes, taking in her features, it took him a moment before his body would allow him to speak. He felt nauseated and slow in the head. It was annoying. "What happened?" He asked her.

Byrne approached them now, taking a seat next to Nyka. "You tried to heal yourself and then it went wrong... a bright light came from your bandages and you screamed until you passed out..." he explained a bit reluctantly.

It came back to him now, slowly, the details of what had happened. He swallowed and looked at the bloodied bandages on his left arm. Slowly Nyka reached for it, peeling back the sticky bandages with a conditioned cringe, but he felt less pain than before- it was more of a tender feeling now. He was slightly confused at what it was he saw under his bandages.

Extending farther than the burn had was what looked to be white veins, and the closer they got to the burn the bluer they became. A light blue, but the odd hue was still there. His skin was discolored, a lighter color now. The blue looked like lightning across his skin, and suddenly he wished to see his skin without the grease and honey. He wished to see all of it.

"Stream, I need a stream. I have to wash it," he decided aloud. "I want to see it."

"I don't know if it is well enough to be washed, Nyka," Ingrid warned him.

"It is fine. It does not even hurt as much as it once did," He told her, but a second thought told him that perhaps the pain he had felt last night was making this pale in comparison.

Ingrid and Byrne shared a look but before they could decide anything, Nyka was pushing himself up off the ground onto shaky legs. Byrne stood quickly and caught him when he nearly fell over. "Nyka," Ingrid complained.

"I want to see it," He repeated himself.

"Aye and ya will, but yew've got to be able to use yer legs if ya want to get down to the stream." She reasoned to the boy.

"Aye, and I can," He told her stubbornly, making his way to where he thought the stream was.

"It is that way," Byrne advised him with the directional gesture of his hand.

Nyka blushed and turned to the correct direction and stumbled along with the Byrne's aid. Ingrid mumbled something under her breath as they went on now, headed to the stream. It was a struggle but soon they made it there.

Luckily enough, the stream was calm enough to see his reflection in. They set to silent work, slowly peeling away his bandages, the tender skin was nothing compared to what it had used to be. When it all was finally off he took a rag handed to him and washed away what he could from his skin, revealing the webbed burn scar that traveled from his elbow to half of his chest and upper back.

He viewed what he could by himself before his eyes came to the water to look at his reflection. It was faintly blue and white, bits of it looking like lightning. An unsure feeling fled to his gut as he stared at himself. Ingrid touched his good shoulder trying to get his attention but Nyka's eyes were on the reflection of his scar, his feet long since going numb in the cold creek water.

Next he heard Byrne's voice but it was muffled. Nyka was no longer listening, he was in a world of his own as he focused solely on the scar, searing its shape into his mind. It was surreal, a strange thing to him. It almost didn't feel real... it was a reminder to him now, the people after him took his grandmother... his father... and his mother would have likely lived too if they were not after him. The people after him had ruined his life from the very beginning. Why was he still running? Was it not time to stand his ground?