I couldn't wake up. I willed what little strength I had into forcing my eyes open. They didn't respond. My energy was depleted, my limbs feeling heavy and limp. The only movement I could make was the twitch of my fingers. Everything else was immobile.
My head swam with unbearable pain that stretched across my forehead. It was so much worse than any kind of headache I'd had before. It felt as though my skull had been cracked open, but I could feel every sharp jolt of agony spilling out. I wanted to scream, but my lips wouldn't part to let the sound pass.
A heavy exhaustion travelled through each of my bones, weighing me down further into a deep state of conscious sleep. I wanted to fall back into the black abyss beneath me, but something was pulling me closer towards the surface. Despite the singing pain echoing throughout my body, the first sense that came back to me was my hearing.
Slowly, muffled noises became clearer. Footsteps padded against creaking floorboards that erupted in my eardrums, each step more agitated than the last. It was too loud for me to bear alongside a splitting headache. Each noise was like a bullet hole in my forehead. Inwardly, I cringed at the electric jolts, summoning enough strength to grit my teeth. I needed painkillers—strong ones.
Suddenly, the footsteps stopped, leaving a wake of cold silence. I heard a door click open and shut somewhere in the room, followed by hushed mutterings from what I guessed were two strangers watching over me. The closer I came to the surface, the more I heard of their conversation not meant for my ears.
"Perhaps you can offer me a good answer to who she is and what she was doing so close to my lair," a soft but deep male voice ushered, each word more strained than the last.
A long sigh. "I cannot answer that, Erik. I've never seen her before." A pause. "Has there been any improvements in her condition?" a woman asked in a thick, lilting accent I couldn't place.
A cold hand was placed on my forehead, cooling the feverish skin. The weight of where I lay shifted slightly before shifting again. Wherever I was, it wasn't where I'd fallen.
"Not what I know of," he murmured in a shroud of silk that ran a finger along my spine. "Will she be able to wake up?"
The woman hummed, her spindly fingers, I assumed, caressing the stray ringlets out of my face with a mother's gentleness. "I believe she has a concussion. She should be awake by nightfall at the earliest."
"I was hoping for a different answer," he murmured, not without malice.
The harsh click of a wooden stick on the floorboards made me flinch, the sound piercing through my skull.
"She has done you no harm, Erik. Do you understand?" the woman demanded with a deathly calm. The authority in her tone sent an icy slither down my spine and spread through my chest, forcing my heart to fall to my feet. I hoped to never be on the receiving end of her anger.
A chill filled the silent room. I could almost imagine the stand-off between the two strangers, both glaring and wanting the other to cave to their wants. Erik didn't speak for some time after, which I took as a sign he'd lost the battle of wills.
"Now, I have the girls to look after. Hannibal won't do without them, as you very well know. Try not to make the poor girl scream, would you?" she gently asked him. I pictured her pointed stare as her footsteps wandered away with the bristle of fabric.
He groaned. "Madame Giry, don't you believe I have better things to do than look after a trespasser?"
"At this very moment, no. You may have the director to thank for that," she said with a tsk. She slammed the door shut, a resounding echo hitting the walls and trailing my bones.
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1 | Shrouded In Mystery
Fanfiction| Book 1| "What would you do if you were trapped in your favourite musical?" Annika Knight has a relatively normal life in the twenty-first century-she goes to college, has two crazy friends, and has enough family drama to occupy her nights. However...
