"What do you think happened to her?"
"I don't know, one moment she was fine and the next she fainted."
"Are you sure? This has never happened before."
"So you mean to tell me that this is an unusual occurrence?"
"Exactly that."
Everywhere around me goes silent. It feels like I am alive yet not existing like I am somewhere at the same time I am nowhere. On the other hand, I feel this unfamiliar sensation, one could call the sensation I feel floating but how am I sure it is not something else I feel other than floating, after all, I have never floated in the air in all my years of age.
Everything within sight is black, somehow in some unexplainable way I lose consciousness and it is as though I seized to exist without realizing it yet I know.
Once more I see darkness again as the night sky but without the moon and stars, I feel soft materials above and beneath me holding onto my body in a soft embrace.
"Dana! Get in here, she's waking up!"
"Oh my goodness, Aadya! You're finally awake!" I feel someone hold on to my right arm and lightly shake me.
With a lot of effort that I know is not normal I open my eyes, my free left arm comes up to my face to cover my face to shield my eyes from the blinding light.
When I get used to the bright natural light I let my eyes search my surroundings and I am met with the presence of Dana at my right side holding my arm with tears in her eyes and a beaming smile that is directed at me.
I feel a shove at my feet and my attention moves there, Arcotos looks up to me from the floor, his tail wags furiously through the air as he begins to whine and make whistle sounds through his nose.
"Co…" Cough rips through my throat and causes it to burn, it feels dry, a glass of water is brought to my face and I quickly grab onto it and greedily swallow as much as I can at once.
Before I know it the cup is empty but I am far from satisfied, "More?" my head moves up and down quickly representing a nod telling Dana yes to her question.
She takes the cup from my shaking hands, fills it with water which I hurriedly finish, then she pours another and I drink it, then another and I drink this cup slowly till I finish it.
"Arcotos come here boy." He jumps on top of the bed and into my open arms, the smile that appears on my face is inevitable. I ruffle his thick white fur as he licks my face which causes me to laugh in pure glee.
"I've missed you so much." I hold him close to me but he doesn't stay still as he keeps trying to lick me some more.
"I'm glad you're awake Aadya." I turn to my left and notice a very haggard looking Dion, all the emotions come rushing back as this is the first time I am seeing him since we arrived.
The things he did with Aoife and the things he said about me, anger rushes through my veins and I can't even hide the scowl from reflecting on my face.
"GET OUT! GET OUT NOW! AAAAAAAAHHHH!" Screams rip out of me through my mouth as I begin to kick and shake on the bed. I don't even know why I am behaving like this, all I know is that I don't want to see him because he is making me feel bitter emotions.
I feel a pinch on my neck and in a very short moment, my arms and legs begin to feel weak and heavy to the point I could no longer move, however, my mind could not escape the hysterical state it had entered.
My mind could not stop replaying everything over and over again, I feel this overbearing urge to scream but can't, why do I feel this way? Why am I reacting this way?
I have always wondered what I would do when I see Dion, I thought that I would try my best to be as nonchalant as possible till he leads me to my family. Then I will tell my uncle that I no longer want him anywhere near me ever again because he doesn't care about me.
What I never anticipated is throwing a tantrum, it is unlike me to behave this way, I don't feel like me but I am me, I feel different in a bad way, it feels like something is wrong with me.
How did I get here in the first place, I try to think back long and hard and I remember drinking the blood for the ritual and Dana blessing me then nothing after that.
It's as though my memory after that is nonexistent. How is this possible? What is happening to me? Suddenly everything is dark and I can see nothing but darkness.
My eyes fly open and I escape from my deep slumber breathing hard. I search the room with my eyes to find something that looks like a white wolf sleeping peacefully next to me, I try to calm down as I feel my chest rise up and down rapidly.
But I can't calm down my body feels like it's burning from the inside out, soon the door bursts open and I feel the presence of others in the room with me, I can't see and I don't know where I am.
"Please calm down Aadya, we are only trying to help you."
"Aadya? Who is Aadya? Let me go, I say let go of me!" I try to rip my arms and legs out of their hold frantically but they don't let go of me.
"What do you think is wrong with her?"
Who am I? What am I doing here?
"Ouch! Owww my head hurts, it hurts so bad aaaahhhhhh."
Suddenly everything stops, it feels as though nothing moves around me, my eyes are still closed and I feel no strength in me to open them, I hear nothing and I see nothing, I know nothing and I remember nothing.
I feel very afraid of this feeling but yet it relaxes me, strange isn't it?
Without any hesitation, I go back to sleep, a very deep dreamless sleep. It doesn't last long and feels like I only blinked my eyes and I open them to be met with Ambrose's face.
His blue eyes send a sense of calm through my body and I feel the most relaxed since these past four days, his hair is neatly packed up which is unusual from the wild free look it had always carried.
His face beams with so much excitement and I find that strange because it is, who gets excited over someone waking up from sleep. How did I get into my bed in the first place?
I search through my mind for memories of the last thing I did and how I got here but all I can remember is being with Dana in the snow and fainting because everything is blank then, I do recall feeling lightheaded before I lost consciousness, so I believe I fainted.
And it doesn't feel very long ago either, so I definitely fainted for a bit, it should have taken a short moment to wake me up, if this were so then why does Ambrose look overly happy and relieved?
"You're awake, finally. We thought we lost you." What does he mean? I was awake only moments ago outside with Dana carrying out my fifteen years of age ritual.
My thoughts are cut short when he holds me in an embrace, this catches me off guard, I don't know how else to express my confusion of his behavior right now, still, it doesn't stop me from wrapping my arms around his larger frame.
"Dana! Get me, Dana, now!" He lets go of me and yells I assume to the guards outside the door, before I can blink I hear footsteps running away from the door of my room.
My head begins to feel light and I try to fight the strong sensation of sleep that's trying to wash over me.
"Oh no you don't, not again, here sit up, you have lain in that position long enough." Huh? How long have I been asleep?
He helps me to sit up on the soft bed, my back rests against the pillow he propped behind me, he keeps helping me to adjust till he is satisfied with my new sitting position and then he smiles.
I open my mouth to ask him why he is behaving like this and how long I have been asleep but before I could get a sound out of my mouth the door of my room bursts open and in comes a running Dana.
In a very short while she covers the distance between the door and the bed I am sitting on, her arms are thrown around me as she holds me very tightly close to her in an embrace, I am left trying to breathe properly as all the air is squeezed out of my body.
I didn't know Dana is this strong, I try to smile but the embrace begins to hurt my sides badly.
"Dana please you're hurting me." She lets go of me immediately as though my skin burned her.
"Oh my, I am sorry my sweet Aadya, I missed you so much, I thought you would die, in fact, I almost gave up hope, Ambrose kept my faith up."
"Dana please slow down, I can barely understand what you are saying." She sits on my bed while Ambrose stands and I notice how his eyes never leave me, it carries so much intensity and it makes my heart beat faster, it also makes me feel uncomfortable, so I turn my attention away from him and direct it to Dana that is still grinning at me.
"Oh Aadya, you have no idea how dreadful I felt." Why would she feel dreadful, she has done nothing wrong to me.
Her eyes begin to tear up and this sets me in panic mode because I am utterly confused, what is going on?
All these emotions they are displaying in front of me are scaring me but I don't want to voice it out to their hearing because it just might make it worse.
I hope they can properly explain what is going on because it really does seem like I am missing a huge part of the story.
"Dana? Are you alright? Ambrose is she alright?" I look away from a full-on sobbing Dana to Ambrose who doesn't answer me instead he continues to stare at me.
I shift uncomfortably and find that it is taking me more effort than usual to move, why do I feel so weak?
When I sit there looking back and forth between Ambrose and Dana, I realize something, they both aren't going to snap out of whatever phase they are in.
Come to think of it, where is Arcotos? I clear my thought to see if they will realize just how much they are scaring me, oh Boreas these people keep proving to me that they are far stranger than I could imagine.
Why all this fuss over a stranger you have not known for a full moon?
This makes Ambrose shake his head and he wears an expression on his face that tells me he realizes just how much of a fool he made of himself staring at me like that.
He smiles awkwardly at me, I smile because it would be wrong not to, he comes to the realization that Dana is crying. He moves to her and whispers something inaudible to my ears.
Before I could say Boreas, Dana is up on her feet and already out the door without making another sound or acknowledging me as her face was in her hands as she cried.
Well, I have nothing more to say other than she is truly strange.
I notice movement from my side and I turn in time to see Ambrose sitting next to me on the bed he had given to me in his castle.
He adjusts himself into a sitting position just as I am propped up with my back against the head of the bed, he shifts a bit more to sit close to me.
I smile at him outwardly but I swear to Boreas my mind is in utter chaos because my heart is making funny motions in my chest and he smells like the woods and wildflower. It is simply amazing and it is messing with my mind in ways I can't even describe.
"I don't know where to start but promise me to do your best to stay calm and please do try to not interrupt me, ok? I believe you have a lot of questions." These things he is saying are only building suspense and making me anxiously wait to find out what exactly is going on.
"To start with you have been unconscious for the past five years."
"WHAT?!"