Shorter days, Longer nights

Chapter 39 || A break

"So why are you really here?" she asked, her eyes fixed on her phone as her thumb slid up on the phone in her hand. My phone. My phone in her hand. The one she took to time my running. Was she... was she scrolling reels right now? 

"I told you," I pushed out, breathing in short gaps. My hands pushed against my knees as I struggled to push the air into my lungs, "powers."

"Uh-huh," she finally broke her gaze from her phone, only to raise a brow at me. I just shrugged my shoulders in response, lifting my body into a straight posture. Although I'm pretty sure I just broke more things in my body than fixed. 

"How exactly does making me run 5 kilometres at 10 in the morning help me sniff better?" I asked, trying to hold my breath a little. To appear calmer than I was of course. 

"Ouch!" I yelled at the hit to my arm. My body definitely did not like the jerk it just made at the hit there. If only Eva would've understood that now.

"Don't change the topic," she retaliated. 

 "Jeez fine," I gripped my arm, looking around for somewhere to sit before my legs said I couldn't anymore. "I needed a break from... well," I hesitated.

"Jaycee??" her brows darted up, and then came the glimmer of amusement. Here it comes, "Why though? the thirsty dreaming getting too strong?" 

"Shut up," I mumbled, fighting with all my will the heat rising to my face. Maybe I could just get away with it under the sun. 

"Ohhh you so have been, you've been dreaming about her," she wiggled those dumb eyebrows at me, backing away as I took steps closer. "And not just any kind of dreaming either huh? you've been going the special route," she giggled. 

"You're very lucky I can't run right now," I glared, trying to appear as stern as I could. It's particularly hard to do when your face starts to turn a bright shade of tomato.

"Alright alright relax," she laughed, sliding my phone into her pocket as she walked over to sit down on a fallen log a few inches behind her. One that I'd never seen before the whole six laps I just ran around here. How did that just get there? "But seriously though?"

"Was that always there?" her brows furrowed at me in response and I had to point toward the log. Her eyes followed and she glared at the thing for a moment.

"The log? Yes?" she gazed back toward me, confusion pursed over her expression.

"Hmmm," I walked over to her, taking a seat to her right. Her body shifted to face me more and I could tell her blue eyes were struggling against the sun with the way she was blinking. They took me back to the first time I noticed that. A smile graced my lips at the memory. "I guess I just... needed a break," I replied. 

"Why?" her expression shifted to one of worry. I didn't want it to. It wasn't that serious of a thing. I wasn't even sure why I wanted this break but here I was anyway. 

"I don't know," I shrugged, gazing toward the sky. The canopy of the forest stretched out, creating a mosaic of the green leaves and patches of the sky. Shafts of sunlight filtered through, creating beautiful beams of yellow light. 

"Close your eyes," I drew my sight toward her, giving her a questioning look to which she gave a reaffirming smile. So I did as she said. "Now clear your head, think of all the noises around you."

I listened to the gentle rustle of leaves, the distant chirping of birds. The flow of water somewhere off in the distance. I felt a twirl of wind around me. My ears perked following the sound until it moved off to the distance, only to be followed by another blow. 

"Paint a picture of everything around you," her voice soft, fading behind my focus.

With my eyes closed, I let my mind wander, painting a picture of the forsest around us. A sort of oil-pastels form of image shaped the forst around me. I repainted the scene I saw before, distorting things in the way I heard them. 

I felt a sense of calm wash over me. The worries and doubts that had been plaguing me had faded away, replaced by a serene stillness. 

"Think of that wooden shack you saw while running back there," I listened carefully to her words. It was as if the voice was coming through my own mind with the way it flowed equally through both my ears. "Imagine you're putting your ear upto the door." 

I gazed at the dark wooden shack in my mind. Horizontal stripes formed a clean pattern throughout the front while a singular window next to the door, indented in with rusty corners. My body suddenly jolted back in shock as I heard the first mutter through the door. I stared wide eyes as the voices flowed through my ears. 

"Big catch tonight," the men cheered out, laughing with gaps as if they were drinking or eating along with the food.

My eyes shot open. Bright yellow stung through my irises as if a direct hit from a pebble into the sensitive ball of my eye. Birds called through my ears as if yelling only centimeters away from my ears. The air felt like chunk of transport smoke, odourless yet thorny to every limb it touched. The world had intensified making my heart throb in my chest, clenching over every muscle in its surrounding.

 I tried to take a deep breath only for the air to feel like it was stuck in my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, my body jerking forward until the ground stuck its thorns into my kness, pressing in as if piercing through the muscles around my bones. I pressed my hands to my ears, squeezing in, only for the press to feel like an arrow shot through my skull. The world was spinning around me.

I felt a rough squeeze on my shoulder, making me fold inward away from the feeling. Yet the feeling only followed, surrounding my body. I felt immense heat seep through the contact, like a press into every inner organ in my system. It pushed me back into a sitting position, my back rested against something. I had a feeling it was Eva but it felt like anything but a soothing comfort. 

"It's okay," I felt the blood rush through my face and around the upper half of my head. Her voice was stiffled, barely audibly over the swirl in my mind. "You're okay. Just breathe," the air felt thick, shallow.

"Eva?" I managed to choke out, my voice barely a whisper.

"Yes, it me, I'm right here," I kept pushing the air in and out, unaware of the steps I was taking. I focused on every push into my lungs and with that every push out. Slowly, I felt the pain receding, the thorniness underneath calming and the squeeze in my eyes relaxing. 

With each breath, the world began to soften around me, the sounds becoming less overwhelming.

I dared to open my eyes again, blinking against the harsh light. It took a few minutes as I flickered my eyes. I sniffed through my nose, finding comfort in the faint fragrance coming off her clothes. My vision was still dimmed, hazy but I could make out the things around me. Eva was sitting behind me, her arms wrapped around me as my side pressed to her front. 

"You did it!" her voice held amusement yet gentleness. It just the right level of comfortable. I felt a sort of relief wash through me despite the grimace that had plastered on my face, resulting from the discomfort in every inch of my body. "You heard!"

"Hunters," I said under my breath, letting the weight of my body lay against warmth. 

"Mhm, hunters," she repeated.