Chapter 7

!!!~~~Abduction ~~~!!!

Bran sits up in the hospital bed the next morning reading The Other Side of the Island, white hair askew and eyes darting quickly across the page as he absorbed every word of the book. The sun is peeking through the windows surrounding the small room and the linoleum floors are polished to shine; leaving the rest of the bland room much to be desired. The wooden cabinets sit quietly, unused, since the doctor’s departure to the market this morning and alone in the centre of the bare wall by the door.

Bran finishes the last chapter and brushes away his bangs with slender hands, glancing about and wincing at the brightness reflecting off the floor and into sensitive gold eyes. Setting the book aside, he picks up his sunglasses, cleaning them before sliding them on. Hands reaching up to attempt fixing his hair as he tries to think of something else to do. It had been a short night for him, sleeping and all, so now he was restless sitting here doing nothing in the middle of the day when there was work his father needed help with back at the home farm.

He gave up on his mop of hair and tested his strength by picking up the vase on his bedside. It gave little weight, but he got a pretty good idea on how not to get hurt again. No more heavy equipment for awhile. Plowing is out of the question. Vacuuming might not be so bad, after a bit. Bran groaned. He would be useless to his farm until he healed correctly. Healed, but from what? He asked himself, I don’t remember what happened. I fell, and then… nothing. Lifting his head from staring at his lap, he gazed longingly out the window at the high sun and the long moor. It called to him. His home was here, out in the countryside.

Bran startled. Why had he come across such a thought? Of course his home was here, where else could it be? I remember… A pain in his head doubled him over in bed, grunting with the effort of keeping his screams under check. A sword; beautiful, with a blue flame and glowing sheath. A man… close to my heart, but locked away in the back of my mind! Searing agony shook his body, threw off his glasses as it flung his head to the side, struggling desperately to shake it off. Words I can’t understand in another language, monsters, the Mari Lewd, bones dancing in a horse’s skeleton wrapped in blood-red ribbon streaming from its rib cage charging me and another, maybe it was Will-

“Aaaaaahh!”

Bran cried out, clutching his temples in fear as the darkness rushed into his thoughts, clouding his judgment and reaching greedily down into his deepest desires, clawing their way under his control. Blackness, hunger, power, tempted him toward it, but he shoved it away with the last of his strength and crumpled to the cold floor in a ball, gone into mental shock.

A tall, dark figure appeared over the boy, sprawled on the floor as cold and limp as death and swept him into his arms, gliding away with the white, the boy’s thin hands hanging with gracefully curled fingers over the hostile grip.