Margaret: Chapter Eleven

“Whoa!” I shrieked as I caught Seirra’s heavy weight. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared with the sudden load and my feet did a funny flip that caused me to lose my balance and fall backwards—with Seirra’s unconscious body falling right on top of mine. For a moment, my vision turned into plain black—pain rushing through my spine up to my head. Luckily, it wasn’t that far of a fall and although it was painful (at least as compared to being thrown towards a pile of metal crates), I didn’t hit the ground that hard.

By the time my eyes started to register colors again, I tried to wake Seirra up but he didn’t seem to have recovered yet. I stiffened, afraid of the depressing thoughts that suddenly rushed to my head.

“Seirra?” I asked in between breaths. I shook him once, twice. “Seirra, please. Please be alive.” Tears had started to form at the corners of my eyes and I ended up shaking him more violently. “Seirra!” I exclaimed brokenly.

He still didn’t move and desperate fear began to envelop my heart. I slowly wrapped my arms around him and let go of my tears.

My uncontrollable sobs went on for a few seconds before I felt that something was brushing my ear: his breath. A bolt of realization had completely stopped my tears and joy flooded my veins.

He’s alive. Thank God, he’s alive, I thought as I hugged him tighter.

In seconds, I was in motion—or at least in as much motion as our present positions could allow. That being the case, I decided that I could only rely on my strength to push him off me so I could get up and ask for help.

I had to struggle to move him—I’ve always thought he was big but at this moment, I was sure he weighed three times more than I did. It took me three shoves before half of his body finally slid off. After taking a deep breath, I got up and started to drag his body towards the nearest wall.

Once I got him settled in a sitting position, I began to check his injuries. I could still remember how one of his enemies had stabbed him in the gut. Blood covered his clothes and if not for his irregular breathing, I probably would have broken down all over again.

I was up for a surprise however. Despite the torn and bloody clothes, his wounds had stopped bleeding.

“It must be his healing abilities,” I sighed with a small smile.

Closing my eyes, I said a silent prayer of thanks.

“You sure scared the hell out of me,” I whispered, stroking his right cheek.

He looked like the battle-worn soldier he was and despite the filth covering his body, I still couldn’t help but admire his handsome features.

Damn. This isn’t the time to fantasize over his hotness, Marge. You’ve got to ask for help.

I gave my head a shake before I removed my hand from his cheek to reach for the cell phone in my back pocket. Much to my dismay, I lost whatever chance I had to contact Grampa. I may not have suffered any kind of injury aside from a short vision blackout but the fall practically killed my phone. The screen had been broken with some shards falling off and even though I had heard about stories of iPhones still turning on after the screen got broken, mine was apparently dead.

So I came up with a plan B and decided that I could probably leave Seirra here for a few minutes while I look for a way to reach Grampa. I stared at the unconscious man in front of me. I couldn’t risk bringing him to a hospital and lie about Seirra’s identity. Besides, what would I tell them when they ask me how he got wounded? That mermen appeared and stabbed him with a sword?

I definitely need Grampa.

I abruptly stood up and immediately got dizzy. After several blinks, I took a deep breath and was ready to leave. I just hope no one would pass through this alley before I could come back.

“Stay here, ‘kay?” Heck. Now, I’m talking to a person who couldn’t possibly hear what I was saying. Worse, I’ve been doing it for quite some time now. I groaned inwardly at my momentary psychosis then turned my back to him, eager to get moving.

I hadn’t taken two steps however, when a hand suddenly gripped my left ankle.

“Don’t…leave…” Seirra whispered in a rough voice.

My eyes widened in surprise then I dropped to my knees in relief. I hastily checked his pulse and his wounds.

“Seirra? Do you need anything? I can get you a bottle of water if you want. It won’t take me long,” I fussed.

I saw his head move slowly from left to right. Excitement bubbled inside me and before I knew it, I had jumped to hug him like a pleased little girl who just received a birthday present.

“Oof!” he grunted as his eyes opened.

I had completely forgotten just how hurt he was.

“I’m sorry!”

He raised his hand to pat me on the head then said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

“Just…a few minutes…to heal myself,” he said in a raspy voice.

“Uh…Okay.”

I gave him a smile as I sat quietly beside him, hugging my knees. My mind started to wander, thinking about Seirra, what happened, Aquania, Marina, the Crystal around my neck, Grampa, my parents, and so on. Before long, random subjects began to occupy my brain for lack of any more to think about.

Tap, tap, tap.

I crossed my arms on top of my knees then leaned my chin on it.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

“I think…I would appreciate your voice more than the sound of your restless feet,” Seirra told me with a lopsided grin.

My head turned to him abruptly. “What are you talking about?”

“You…are noisy.”

He merely pointed towards the direction of the noise and that was when I realized that in order to stop myself from babbling to him, I began an unconscious tip-tap rhythm with my feet—which probably annoyed the hell out of him.

“I’m sorry!” I exclaimed.

He gave out a small laugh then asked randomly, “How were you as a child?”

“Huh?”

“Tell me about your childhood.” He took a breath then explained, “I want to listen to your stories while I heal myself.”

I wasn’t aware that my mouth had hung open until he said weakly, “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”

“No!” I cried. “I’ll be glad to tell you. What do you want to talk about?”

“You. Your parents.”

“Well,” I began with a laugh. “There really isn’t anything special about my childhood.” I shrugged. “My parents were in the theatre and I’ve always thought I’d follow their footsteps. They died when the theatre caught fire, though.”

I paused and he took that opportunity to take my hand.

“I’m fine. It was a long time ago,” I assured him with a smile.

He nodded then smiled mischievously. “Were you a cute child?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“I want to know.”

“Shut up.”

“I bet you were adorable,” he declared confidently.

I grinned. “Actually.”

Seirra continued to hold my hand as he asked more questions about me, my friends, my family and Grampa. I grew up keeping a lot of things to myself. Not even the friends I had in school knew about my dreams of being a designer. Or a painter. Or both. Everyone knew that I wanted to be a singer and drawing was merely a pastime.

It was, however, easy to let down my guard around Seirra. I felt as if I could tell him anything and he wouldn’t judge me or make fun of me. Well, he did laugh when I told him about the haircut incident when I was eight. My crush back then had a thing for long-haired girls so when the most beautiful girl in class tried to tell him she likes him, I took my scissors and pretended to have accidentally cut her hair.

“Ms. Control and Sarcasm used sadistic measures to get satisfaction? That girl must have angered you quite much,” Seirra commented after a burst of laughter.

I hit his shoulder lightly with my free hand to let him know his laugh was annoying but my slight smile just made him laugh more.

God, he looked a lot more attractive when he was laughing.

And then I noticed he wasn’t even flinching. I ran my eyes through his face and body was totally dumbstruck.

“How long, pray tell, have you been completely healed?” I demanded.

“Awhile,” he replied, struggling for a straight face.

I simply rolled my eyes, playfully slapped his face and stood up.

“Hmph. I’m sure you were just having a wonderful time laughing at my childhood stories.”

“Yes, well. You were quite a funny kid,” he said as he lifted himself up from the floor.

“Whatever.”

I saw him staring at me in a weird way and my tongue couldn’t seem to help but comment.

“What?”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Nothing. Let’s just hope no one’s around to notice us. We looked like we got a little…wild…in some alley,” he murmured huskily.

His words evoked a dozen images into my mind and turned my cheeks pink in seconds. To cover my blunder, I stepped hard on his foot.

“Owww!” he howled. “What the hell?”

“Nothing. I was just being…wild,” I said in a blushing poker face.

“Hmph. I bet you were thinking about something along the lines of—”

I cut off his words by attempting to step on his other foot but I lost the element of surprise and missed it by an inch. I scoffed at him but instead of apologizing, he draped his arm around my shoulders and said, “No need to hide it from me, love. I’m not going to tell anybody just how much you cried when you thought I was dead.”

He got away from me so fast that all I could do was stare at his back like an idiot.

Just as I was about to recover from the shock of being discovered, white light suddenly glowed from the jewelry on Seirra’s right wrist. I saw him glance at it and in an instant, his expression changed from mischievous to alert. Seirra’s head turned to all directions, and then without even glancing back at me, sprinted off towards the end of the street—the one I had run to earlier.

My heart had started drumming in my chest, sending a message of excitement, fear and even sadness. It was the last emotion that alarmed me the most.

The Ardus sword had finally registered the presence of Aquania’s lost princess.