Beyond his narrowed line of sight, he could hear hushed whispering that first started when he began coughing and seemed to be growing louder with more intensity as he twitched and struggled to move. Panic set in as the whispering grew closer and more frantic, and he desperately began flailing in a futile effort to drag himself away.


    His breathing eased and the spasms slowly stopped; he lay panting slowly as his vision remained blurred.


    Whispers near his ear he couldn’t understand nearly caused him to jump again in shock, but he had no energy left. He was left simply laying there numb, gasping for breath. Eventually, his vision began to clear again and he could see a hand pressing down against his chest, right above his heart.


    Jake began to raise questions he had to the woman across from him, but the effort to talk only brought about another violent coughing fit.


    The woman said in a soothing voice and Jake could see a small, sweet smile peek out from beneath her matted hair.


    After a while, though, she finished her work and pulled her hand away. As her hand left so did the numbing sensation. His body still felt more at ease than before but the numbing sensation went away, replaced by a stinging sensation radiating out from his back.


    She asked, turning to face Jake, brushing the hair from her face to reveal large opaque eyes.


    Jake said hesitantly, both being careful not to agitate his body and fearful as to what her response would be. Sure enough, just as he feared, he saw confusion cloud her face before she turned to talk to whoever was standing behind her, asking,


    Jake couldn’t hear or see their response but when she next turned to face Jake her hand was glowing again, a bright red this time. Quickly, Jake began trying to plead, calling out in a hoarse voice,


    But his terrified cries seemed to fall on deaf ears as the woman lifted her hand to Jake''s head before he could even attempt to dodge or drag himself away. Jake expected horrific pain as he watched the red glow enter from her fingertips into the base of his forehead, but instead, he felt nothing. He was left sitting there unsure of what to do next as the woman kept her fingers pressed to his head for several more seconds, before finally pulling away and flashing him a smile saying,


    “How did you do that?”


    “Simple magic of the mind, I’m more surprised you’ve never seen it before it’s pretty rudimental magic.”


    “You’ve never seen magic before?! I didn’t know that was possible!” The woman called out with an amazed gasp, a look of surprise and wonder in her eye. It was her turn to miss the second part of Jake’s sentence.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    The man knelt next to Jake and locked eyes with him. Jake had expected him to take a stern demeanor with him from the way he approached but instead, he was met with a kindly tone and smile as the man said


    Jake froze up, about to reaffirm he truly had no idea where he was but now, he couldn’t move a muscle. The memory of the monstrous beast that had hunted him through the night, the eye that stared him down with a remorseless gaze filled with nothing but killing intent. He could do nothing except shake in fear now, struggling to even begin to answer the question, to describe what he had previously thought of as an unthinkable monster. Perhaps seeing Jake struggling to speak, the man began to speak again,


    An involuntary sigh of relief escaped Jake’s lips when he heard he’d been found on the side of the mountain. He’d managed to hold on till sunrise. Even if he didn’t remember it he had escaped. It couldn’t reach him anymore. Trying to regain control of his shaking voice, Jake began speaking slowly.


    Jake decided that explaining the process of falling to a new world every sunrise was too complicated for right now, especially since he didn’t fully understand it either, so he stuck to the most important pieces of information for now. Jake doubted his word alone would do much to convince the man in front of him he didn’t need to worry about the monster. Honestly, no matter how much he knew it was true himself Jake struggled to believe it, forcing himself to repeat over and over in his head “It can’t reach him anymore” just to try and calm himself down.


    His shirt was gone, removed to reveal tightly wrapped gauze surrounding the whole of his chest. His entire body looked deathly pale and incredibly sweaty, and he could feel what felt like a rag lying flat across his forehead. The shorts he’d been wearing previously were gone as well, replaced with a pair of simple cloth pants tied via a cloth string belt. They were rolled up fully on his left leg revealing what looked like even more ample amounts of bandaging and gauze than what currently wrapped around his chest, as well as a continuous shimmering field of light that kept his leg numb and lifeless.


    “Shhh, rest now, we''ll talk more later, I promise”


    Leopold watched as LaLa collapsed into a heap next to the kid she’d found yesterday morning. He’d never seen her work herself so frantically as that. He’d been ready to write the kid off dead as he felt what little was left of his pulse fade away, figuring that though it was tragic there was nothing that could be done to save him anymore.


    Looking down at the slumbering kid next to the collapsed Lala, Leopold wondered what the hell could have happened to this boy. The skin of his back was lacerated, which was bad enough already, but his left leg looked destroyed down to the bone. It had taken Lala half a day of unending concentration and physical and mental exhaustion till she’d managed to repair it enough to a point where it could be safely gauzed. Her work wasn’t even over yet, if she wasn’t still constantly numbing his leg the pain would be so immense he’d wake up screaming no matter what magic she cast to render him unconscious.


    Turning back and marching back over to Rick to patrol the area once more for whatever beast had caused the attack, Leopold felt that something about the injured boy passed out in their camp wasn’t right.