Immortals | ✓

02 | art

I had been so fucking rude to her. Terribly, horribly rude for literally no reason. I didn't mean to talk to her that way, obviously but something had triggered me to completely and utterly botch up my entire stance around her. And that was the first time we had ever talked, the first time I had heard her talk, the first time I had seen those light cyan eyes up close rather than peaking from the side to get a look, for the first time, I had been alone in a room with her. 

Yet, I had talked to her that way. 

In my nervousness, I had been an absolute jerk and it was as simple as that. I was nervous, it wasn't her fault at all. 

Would she want me to talk to her anymore? I questioned but when despite her desperate attempts to hide her fear, a small whimper escaped her, I couldn't control it anymore. I was by her side in a second. 

"Aethera? Are you alright? Are you feeling any kind of pain?" I asked, trying to get a look at her face which was hidden by her dark hair, falling all over her face and shoulders. 

"I don't like n-needles," she responded, her voice so weak that I couldn't even begin to compare it with the one I had heard in the library. One of her hands trembled over the arm where the drip was attached and her breathing shuddered with every little effort she made to touch it. She was panicking and becoming dizzy at the sight at the same time, her forehead so distressed that she looked like she would have passed out right there and then. 

Suddenly, Aethera wasn't the same girl I had seen behind the glass windows or tables away at the library anymore. 

"Hey, hey, it's okay," I muttered, kneeling down in front of her. I saw her tear-struck face then, barely able to meet my eyes. The fire I had seen in her eyes before when she defended herself in the library, had diminished.  

"What happened to you?" I asked. Had something happened in the library? Was that the reason why only the two of us were in here, laid on the beds, punctured with the drips? 

"I-i don't know. There was this pain in my chest and -"

"Ringing in your ears?" I questioned, as baffled as she was. She looked at me, for the first time since we had been in the library's reading room together. Her eyes were confused, but still in pain. "Let me remove this first. It's clearly causing you more pain than it's helping." Within a second, I removed the drip from her pale arms. She gasped for a split second but then moved away from the needle I had just thrown on the table. 

Her eyes were visibly lighter, her face and stance more relaxed now within the next few seconds. She didn't look in that direction anymore, not even when I passed her a small ball of cotton to wipe a few drops of blood around the area where the needle had just been pricking her.  

"How did you know? About the ringing?" She asked as her breath became more even and I took a step back from my earlier position. 

"Because that's exactly what happened to me too." 

"But, how could it happen to you too -"

Immediately, I heard someone walking towards the room, and I silenced her with a quick gesture. She didn't understand at first but then something shifted in her stance as well as she straightened herself. Barely a minute later, the doctor walked in with the nurse.  

"I see both of you are feeling better already!" Dr Mathers was right behind us, at the far end of the room. 

What was it with doctors and nurses and loud, positive tones? 

"Is everything okay with our tests? How did we get here?" Aethera asked before I could. I sat beside her as Dr Mathers shuffled through the papers in his hands. Aethera shifted, maybe uncomfortable with my closeness so I shifted away before the doc would speak.