King Kaneki [Kaneki X Fem. Reader]

Chapter 24

    ...

panting

heavy breathing

    I could feel the heat, it made my skin itch, the tubes of my lungs felt like they were constricting every breath I took and when I finally awoke from my suffocating sleep—-I didn't know who to thank.

    Slapping drummed against my left cheek, my eyes fluttered open at the soft yet repetitive touch, exhaustion still burrowing into my muscles like dead weight. Around me I took in the surroundings of a rocky-cave looking place and a fire in the middle of the tiny dome shaped area. On the other side of the place across the fire—-

was Riven's sleeping form.

    The feeling of enclosure and panicking started to set in all over again until a figures face appeared up close in front of mine.

"Finally awake?"

    The voice was definitely unfamiliar to me, but with their body so close to mine I could feel the warmth of their breath which smelt like mint leaves. "Oh, don't worry about your buddy over there, not surprisingly I had to knock out that big guy three times and I'm not sure when he'll be awake again."

    When my vision had focused somewhat, I could see the ghouls eyes which looked like a dark purple under the shadows casted from the fire that laid behind them. My attention went back over to Riven and anger began to finally bubble on my surface, "is he o-" I breathed in heavily, my throat parched, "i-is he o-kay?"

    Truthfully, I wanted to kill this person before me with everything I had but decided to put rationality first and knew that whatever I tried against them would probably fall in vain.

    "Oh of course he's okay... well, except for a few wounds that is," the figures mentha breath chilled me, and their voice sounded smooth and youthful. "I mean, putting him back to sleep after he woke up wasn't exactly easy, the man put up a pretty good fight."

    Suddenly, my body began to feel numb. Static prickled at the bottom of my feet, like bugs crawling all over my skin I could feel the inability to move a single muscle creep up on me and panic hadn't subsided at the new problem. "What... what did you do to me—-wh-what's going on, where am I, what do you want?" The words fumbled off of my tongue, clashing into each others syllables creating a new language I'm sure didn't exist before.

    Silence entered after my neurotic sentence as the figure continued to stare at me. Before I could predict it, they wrapped their arms around my back and picked me up from the floor. Facing their chest, they wrapped my legs around their waist to move easier which unnerved me even more. Matching to the smell of their breath, they had a type of earthy scent that gave me the idea that they probably traveled a lot.

    I was soon set down closer to the fire, they leaned me against the caves wall and sat across from me behind the fire which, by the lights burning embers, allowed me to finally see the figures face.

    It was a male. He had dark short hair that reached up to his chin and thick yet groomed eyebrows that settled in an amused manner. His lips showed a lack of emotion despite his seemingly witty remarks and his eyes; as the pair of steady orbs stared back at me, I analyzed the irises dark magenta color and the purple rim of bloody wine that surrounded it.

    "You're wondering who I am, yes? You're wondering why I did this to you two." The male spoke, his unamused lips now smiling. I watched him raise his right hand, a blueish-purplish gem snuggled in between his index finger and thumb. "This is a Tanzanite, or should I say: The Tanzanite. It's the only lasting gemstone in existence of its kind and my people have been practically purging for it ever since our fourth generation lost it."