Does It Matter?

Chapter 15

Dara's mind floated. Every now and then he'd become aware enough to try to push his way towards consciousness, but he could never quite make it and after a few seconds of effort his thoughts would drift apart again and his mind would be lost for what could have been minutes or hours.

His chest hurt and he didn't know why. Every beat of his heart came with a sharp pain that radiated outwards.

The closest he came to full consciousness were the times someone would hold him up and press a cup to his lips. He did his best to swallow, but it was hard to coordinate when his thoughts wouldn't solidify and sometimes he ended up breathing it in and being overcome by an involuntary coughing fit instead.

No matter what they put into him, though, he never stopped being hungry, never stopped being thirsty.

There was a spot on his chest and a spot on his back that itched horribly. There was something in his skin, preventing him from fully healing whatever wounds were there. He focused all of his attention on a single finger and found that he could wiggle it, and then move his hand, and then finally lift his arm and dig his fingers into the thread stitched into the skin of his chest. He felt dampness on his fingers and a sharp pain as he tore at it.

And then there were hands pushing his hand away and he grumbled as he tried, and failed, to weakly resist the restraint. There were voices that were too loud and echoey in Dara's mind for him to decipher, and then he felt the stitches being cut away and the thread sliding out of his skin. He relaxed as he drifted back away from consciousness.

A cup was pressed against Dara's lips, and this time Dara was able to lift a hand to help angle it so that he could drink more quickly without choking himself. He drained the cup of water, and then waited while the person refilled it and drank the next one as well.

"Dara?" a voice asked. Dara couldn't tell if it was familiar. Everything sounded strange to his ears.

"Mm?" he managed.

The voice said something else, but everything sounded too distorted for Dara to make out the words.

The next cup was full of soup and Dara happily drank that down as well, but he turned his head away when another was offered to him. He was still starving, but his stomach was physically full. He was worried he would throw up if he tried to add any more to the liquid sloshing around in there.

He meant to just rest long enough for his body to absorb enough of the liquid out of his stomach to make room for more soup, but when awareness returned his stomach felt empty and he was fairly sure several hours had passed.

The first thing he became aware of was pain radiating out from the centre of Maric's chest and the heat of infection taking root. Daylight streamed in through the window.

What had happened? There had been people in the bushes. Dara remembered pain and blood, probably his own, but not much else. And then... nothing. A nothing that felt like it had lasted much longer than nothings should.

Dara instinctively reached out a hand towards the wound on Maric's chest, and then inhaled sharply in unison with Maric as his hand made contact with Maric's bandaged chest and a sharp pain shot out from the point of contact.

Maric gently tucked Dara's hand away. "Dara? Are you awake?"

Dara tried to sit up, but movement felt unreasonably taxing and after a moment he gave up. "You're hurt. It's infected."

"Don't worry, Dara," Mathers said. He was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room. He was the only other person in there with them. "I'm aware of it and I'm doing everything I can to help him recover."