Erevan carried Jack back to his room-like apartment and knocked on the door. He waited patiently as seconds went by, but nobody opened it.
“Is Amelia not home today?” he muttered to himself and, with one hand, fished out an array disc. This one wasn’t the disc that controlled the training room. This array disc controlled the large array that encompassed the entire village and thus every building.
With a tap, he unlocked the door in front of him and entered. Indeed, she isn’t home, he thought as his eyes darted across the space before he walked toward the nearby sofa.
He carefully laid the unconscious Jack down and said, “Get some rest. I’ll call Amelia.”
Erevan took out his communication device and called Amelia. It was a short call, so short that he only managed to say, “Come to your room, Jack is—” before she ended the call.
Unfazed by it, Erevan calmly pocketed the device back, grabbed a chair and sat down.
Less than five minutes later, the room’s door suddenly opened.
Gasp… gasp…
An out of breath Amelia barged in, her head snapping left and right as she searched for Jack, but her eyes landed on Erevan first. She hastily walked up to him, saying, “What happe—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the corner of her eye caught Jack lying on the sofa. Her eyes narrowed to pinholes as she took a better look.
Jack’s eyes were closed and his chest calmly rose and fell. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought he was just taking a nap, but the condition of his body, his clothes, and the trail of blood coming from his mouth and running down his chin clearly told a different story.
Panicked, she ignored Erevan altogether. Instead, she quickly and silently moved closer to Jack. She carefully lifted his shirt to check his condition, and when she saw the dent present in his chest and the extent of his injury, she was so shocked that, for a moment, she had no reaction. In fact, she looked frozen.
When her brain finally processed what had happened, her lips started quivering as she tried her best not to cry or make any loud noise that might disturb him. But despite her efforts, small beads of water couldn’t help but form at the corners of her eyes, and sniffles, along with suppressed sobs, echoed in the otherwise silent room.
She had no words and no thoughts. Her emotional state was in such a mess she couldn’t think straight and it seemed the only thing she could do was stare with tear-filled eyes at Jack’s broken body.
Erevan watched in silence from a few meters away. Surprised by her reaction but, for now, he could only wait and let her take her time.
As minutes went by, Amelia slowly regained her bearings. Her erratic breathing calmed, and tears no longer trailed down her cheeks, but the red rims of her eyes testified to how long and intensely she had cried.
In a rush, she used her sleeve to wipe her face. She knelt down to fix Jack’s shirt before gently holding his hand. She had yet to ask Erevan about the situation. It was as if all that mattered was that Jack was alive. Nothing else had any importance to her, not how he ended up like this, nor the reason behind it.
Feeling that now was the right time, Erevan cleared his throat and said, “He was—”
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“I understand,” Amelia whispered. “I only want to know one thing, and one thing only.”
Her words hung in the air, prompting Erevan to let out an audible “Mhm.”
“How long will it take for him to recover?”
She didn’t want to know the past. That didn’t matter to her. She wanted to know the future, she wanted and hoped for Jack to stop suffering and recover, going back to be his old self as quickly as possible.
His gaze left her and settled back on Jack. He looked at Jack’s battered state and said, “His body being in this condition doesn’t show the true extent of his injuries. If that were the case, then less than a day would’ve been enough for him to be as good as new, but…”
Erevan paused when he saw Amelia’s lithe body quiver. Only when she stopped did he continue, “Force has seeped into his body, ravaging him from the inside and slowing down his regeneration. The good thing is that Jack has comprehended Force, so the injury won’t worsen. Before long, the residual Force will be whittled away.”
“But while the process is quick, that’s only relative. I doubt he’ll be able to get up on his own for at least the next week, and it should take another week after that to disperse the residual Force and fully heal.”
Erevan stopped. He didn’t add that if Jack hadn’t comprehended Force, he most likely would’ve died a slow and painful death, as the residual Force would have slowly eaten away at his body with nothing to stop it. Amelia didn’t need to know that, and he obviously wouldn’t say it.
“Two weeks…” she murmured, gently moving Jack’s hair away from his face. “Thanks. I’ll take care of him until he’s healed.”
Erevan nodded. “Do you want me to inform the others?”
“There’s no need. I’ll call them later.”
“Alright, then I’ll take my leave.” Erevan looked at Jack one more time before leaving the room.
Hours passed.
The moon shone high in the sky, but the room remained still and silent as ever.
Amelia hadn’t moved a centimeter from her initial position.
The room was pitch black as she knelt beside Jack, who rested on the sofa. It seemed as if time had frozen for the two of them while the rest of the world continued on as if nothing had happened.
But just when it seemed that everything in sight had become a painting, Amelia finally moved.
She quietly grabbed her device from the Inventory and called Rachel, Cassidy, Thomas, and Samuel, one by one.
When they heard her voice, quiet, seemingly emotionless and broken, and realized it was about Jack, they immediately imagined the worst. But when she said he was injured and would need at most two weeks to recover, they found themselves speechless.
Was there really a need to be so dramatic when he was only injured and could make a full recovery? That’s what they all thought, but nobody dared say it, as she seemed to have suffered a severe blow from the event.
After the four of them, including Cassidy, said they’d come over, she ended the call. At last, Amelia seemed to faintly snap out of the daze that had lasted hours and began nursing Jack’s injuries.
An hour later, Rachel, Cassidy, Thomas, and Samuel arrived to visit. They had come mainly for Jack, but they quickly realized that Amelia was the one who needed this visit more than anyone else.
In fact, what they thought would be a visit of no more than half an hour ended up lasting over three hours due to the state Amelia was in.
It was so striking that when the four of them walked out of the small village, they stopped in their tracks and exchanged glances.
Thomas was the first to speak, his voice low, wary that Amelia might appear at any moment. “Did you guys notice how strange Amelia was acting earlier? I get that Jack is severely injured, but which one of us hasn’t been injured before? Yet we’ve never acted that way.”
“Mhm, it does seem out of proportion,” Samuel nodded. “We’ve all been through countless portals. Our sense of injury has become almost second nature. For her to react like that… it’s not normal.”
Rachel snickered. “Her reaction might have been a bit over the top, but who wouldn’t react like that if their lover were badly injured? Seems to me you should find someone soon and see what it feels like.”
“Heh, anyone else could’ve commented like that, but you? Where’s your guy, eh?” Thomas stepped closer to Rachel and made an exaggerated motion, looking around as if searching for something.
Samuel was about to add salt to the injury, but seeing Rachel’s fingers curl into a fist, he wisely chose to stop himself.
Contrary to him and unafraid of the impending danger, Thomas looked back at her and asked, “So? Can you bring him out for all of us to see or is he too precious?”
“Bastard,” Rachel spat through gritted teeth, raising her fist as if to punch, when Cassidy chimed in.
“Was that the first time Amelia saw Jack so badly injured?”
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