Displaced

Chapter 63

If pressed to describe where she was, Gabriela Carreno would have found it quite difficult. Descriptions generally rely on sensations, you see, and wherever Gabby was lacked them almost entirely. She couldn't see, hear, feel, or pretty much anything else. Only the rare thought meandering through her dormant consciousness reminded her that she even existed at all.

Said thoughts were immediately pushed out of her mind as quickly as they entered. Gabriela didn't want to think anymore—not now, not ever. She preferred to just... be. It was better this way.

No more killing. No more blood. No more orphans. No more pain. No more.

Gabriela wasn't sure how long she'd been in this formless space, wherever it was. She wasn't even sure if she was alive or dead. Perhaps this was some sort of purgatory? She couldn't say. She didn't really care. If she was dead, then this was where she deserved to be. If she were alive, then this was the closest to death she could get. Either way, this was where she belonged.

Strange lightning ran through her suddenly, the first real sensation she'd felt since the pain of the boy's knife stabbing deep into her chest. The jolt coursed throughout her entire being, filling her with an electric fire that she had never felt before. The energy coursing through her felt strong and mighty, but even though it was pervading every part of her, she could tell that this energy was not hers. No, this was a foreign power within her, and it was forcing her to do the one thing she didn't want to do: wake up.

Her first breath in over a month was a sudden, shuddering, gasp that rocked her entire body before turning into a series of weak raspy coughs. Something was off. Her body felt strange like it wasn't her own. Everything felt far more difficult than she remembered, especially breathing. It was like her diaphragm was barely functioning, though she didn't feel any pain coming from that area. Well, that wasn't entirely true; she felt pain from her torso, just the same pain she felt throughout the rest of her body. Her whole body burned with the same electric blaze that had first infused into her spirit and dragged her unwillingly back to wakefulness, causing her whole body to scream in pain. That said, the pain didn't really bother her too greatly. She'd felt far worse agony than this many a time in the last year.

Her entire body felt sluggish and weak. She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't seem to find the strength to break the crust that had built up over her eyelids. As if reading her mind, a soft, wet cloth gently wiped her eyes, clearing away the dried gunk that had sealed her sight.

Gabby's gaze was first greeted by the beige blandness of a tent cover, its soft color tinted red by the flickering of flames somewhere nearby. Then a familiar figure came into view.

"How do you feel?" Chitra asked, concern painted on her face.

"Wrong..." Gabriela wheezed out, her voice a whisper. "What... happened?"

"Many things have occurred since we lost you, but we can discuss them in a moment. First, you must heal yourself."

Gabby blinked slowly in incomprehension. "Why?" she rasped.

"You are-" Chitra's words caught in her throat. She reached down beside her, pulling up a polished bronze mirror about the diameter of her head. "Look for yourself," she instructed, holding it up over Gabby and slowly tilting it to give the prone woman a good look at her entire body.

The state of her body told Gabby everything. She looked like a corpse. Her skin was pallid and nearly translucent with dark blood vessels running through her body just visible beneath the skin.

That alone would have been enough for her to believe she was looking at a dead body, but her torso was what really did the job. The area from her ribs down to her belly button was covered in stab wounds, revealing torn organs and sliced muscles deep within. Well... that explained why it was so hard to breathe, at least. What it didn't explain was how she could breathe in the first place. She hadn't healed herself, so how was she even functioning at all?