The Knight of Slaughtaverty

Chapter 22 - Hide and Seek

Though I can feel the pain intensely, I know it's not mine.

I am starting to get really good at telling when the excruciating pain I'm experiencing is mine or not, but I'm not quite able to tell when it is physical and when it is emotional. All I know for sure is that I feel like I'm going to die.

My blood is on fire; my stomach is eating itself, and bright white pain seers through my heart like lightning bolts over and over. I would scream if I had the breath to do so.

"How do I block this?!" I sob through clenched teeth, struggling from under my duvet, pretty much falling from the bed onto the carpet, where I lie in a trembling, groaning heap.

I have to get to him!

I'm not sure who he is or why I need to get to him, and why my getting to him could possibly stop this horrible pain; I just know that I have to, and it will. Maybe it's because I could kill the person suffering like this, and then we'd both be pain-free.

Oh dear, I really hope not. I so do not want to start killing other humans! Not even to put them out of their obvious misery.

Crawling to the foot end of the bed, I wrestle myself to my knees and use the bedpost as a support to drag me to my feet. I have to stand still for a moment, my head resting against the thick, carved wooden post supporting the silk-draped canopy while I ride the pain to its conclusion.

When it becomes a little more tolerable, I stagger to my bedroom door, and opening it, I all but fall into the hallway as another wave of gut-tearing pain hits me. Suffering like this brings the memory of Ransford's kiss and the anguish that followed it into vivid focus in my mind. I can remember it so clearly now. Everything I've forgotten comes flooding back, leaving me breathless in its wake.

Ransford's pain was nothing like this.

The pain assaulting me now is a mixture of physical and mental agony, regret, anger, and bitterness. There is a fat dose of heartache in there too, but it is nothing like the pure despairing sense of loss I'd experienced when Ransford's kiss started to become truly intense.

Before my heaven got ripped apart by that horrible pain, the tips of his fingers were finding their way under the bottom edge of my shirt, stroking my ribs, causing cascades of bubbles in my veins and goosebumps to pucker my skin. I have never felt like that before!

Thinking about that kiss helps. For a moment, I was transported to a happy place where no glowing hot pokers were piercing my entrails. The moment my focus shifts to the present, I crash to my knees, gasping while tears stream down my cheeks. I think I'm going to pass out.

I have to get to him!

I crawl to the nearest hallway table and pull myself up again, standing still, trying to find my balance and a way to block the pain dragging the breath from my lungs. Thinking about the kiss brings sharp memories of Ransford's pain to mind, which harmonizes perfectly with the pain currently trying to bring me to my knees again. Thinking of the kiss is not the best way to protect myself against this deluge of misery after all.

I swallow the bile threatening in the back of my throat, and taking a deep breath, I stumble along the corridor, steadying myself by leaning against the wall and intermittent tables and cabinets like a drunk walking home after a bender.

The further I progress towards the source of the agony, the more bearable it becomes, which makes no sense to me. I thought it would become more intense the closer I got, but I can walk almost normally after a couple of laboured turns and twists along the winding corridors.

I've been here before.

I recognize the tall grandfather clock with the metal inlays and the broad-leaved potted plant not far from it. The hallway is much brighter than it was that day, probably due to better light bulbs or my improved vision, but this is definitely the hallway I got lost in on my first morning here.