The Mark of a Death Eater : Sequel

Chapter Eighteen

The light didn't take me to where I thought I was going to go.

Instead, I woke up in a small room.

It was dimly lit, but it was enough to see around.

It took time to get my eyes working properly. They wouldn't open at first, and when I finally opened them, I wanted to close them again. I fought to keep my eyes open, finally winning.

Then I tried to sit up and failed miserably. My side hurt whenever I moved and my wrist seemed to be in some sort of cast or plaster. My mouth tasted like something has crawled into it and died.

I had to content myself with scanning my surrounding while reclining.

There was plenty of furniture stacked in the room. There were a few chairs and a small coffee table seemingly in use next to me, and it looked like piles of boxes had been shoved hastily to the other end of the room to make space for the bed I was on. The doorway was free of boxes too. There was a full glass of water next to me. It was so cool, I could see the condensation on it. The air wasn't cool, so someone had obviously brought it in recently. Then there was a small piece of ice in it, probably having melted, so the water couldn't have been there for a long while. It hurt my head to be logical so I tried to stop.

Obviously, my brain would not cooperate.

I started wondering if I'd imagined the conversation between the people earlier. There had been four of them. What had they spoken about? My status as a wizard, my head injury, St Mungo's. Something about Sophia and a wedding, but that could have been my own messy brain making things up. They'd mentioned my scar.

My scar!

I'd taken to wearing a shirt with sleeves that were long and tight under my robes recently, but I remembered my shirt being ripped when I was splinched. I had a different shirt on now. It was a man's shirt: large, flannel and blue. It seemed familiar somehow, but I didn't know how. Everything seemed familiar about this place. The bed sheets, white with circles in varying shades of brown, I thought I'd seen before. The shirt smelled like home. The glasses looked like ones I'd used before. The room gave the distinct aura of comfort, although I didn't know where I was.

I know this room. The thought came suddenly.

I was putting two-and-two together when the door opened.

He was standing there, looking completely real and whole and... alive.

That's the word I was looking for.

He was real and alive and safe.

It couldn't have been real.

His hair was messily tousled to one side, like he'd been sleeping. His eyes were red, like he'd been crying. He looked angry when he walked in, but when he saw me, his face changed.

His eyes were the exact same chocolate brown I remembered.

He looked like what hope felt like.

He looked like home.

It was not possible.

I thought I had died. It wasn't possible otherwise. But then none of it made sense to me, because if I really had died, there was no way Zayn would be looking at me. Because he would be in heaven and I in hell.

Was this my punishment then? Was I doomed to watch Zayn's ghost roam around everywhere while I was in constant pain? Was it my punishment to feel like I was in Zayn's house and have everything seem so real so that I could awash myself in guilt?

Was it not punishment enough that I saw him everywhere I turned? That I had a hand in his death? That I couldn't save him? Was the bad I did so terrible that it condemned me to this?