What do you mean?" Zephyr asked as his eyes widened in shock. "And how then did I wake up?" Zephyr asked the question that he had been trying to do for a long period during these tormenting moments.
"You are still being eaten, you just tuned out from your 'body'. You stopped thinking about it but you are still in the same void." Kaelan explained.
Zephyr froze after listening to Kaelan speech. If he was in the same void that means he was still within the reach of those monsters. He looked around frantically and felt like the void had gained a new level of quietness and could feel something watching him with the gaze of a predator. He heard a gust of wind and quickly turned taking a battle stance but felt a slash on his back and a huge sensation of pain cover his body as he fell on his knees.
"I fucking hate this!" He screamed at the top of his lungs but that was all in his head. He was quickly brought back to his senses when he fell quick breaths on his face, he looked up to see a chriveled and disfigured face of Circe looking at him with blood flowing down her eye sockets which was ironic. It was like a fresh juice fluid flowing down the skin of a dried date. Haunting.
"Just get out of my face! Just get out of my face! Just get out of my face!!!" He screamed in his mind as his mouth had lost its use. He repeated it monotonously until he felt the presence go.
"How do I get out of this cursed place." Zephyr said as he got on his feet as he regained back the use of his body. "I hate that thing or what ever it is and I don't want to see it again!"
"You just did it," Kaelan said, like that was the simplest thing he could have done, and it did sound simple.
Zephyr wanted to argue but screamed as if it was going to help communicate his thoughts to Kaelan. "What do you think I have been trying to do all this while?"
"Escape..."
Kaelan was right. Out of spite, he tried to wake up, he squinted his eyes to wake up in a dark space AGAIN!
"Wake up my ass!" Zephyr said as he sighed again pushing himself against a soft substance under his head. Scared that he was drowning in some kind of fluid again, he quickly sprung up and a chain reaction followed. He heard some muffled footsteps, and a bright light turned on and assaulted his eyes in the harshest way possible like the light grew needles and was piercing through his pupils right into his nerves, giving him a headache.
"Fuck it, man!" He muttered under his breath and fell back into his pillow. He had not been this happy to be assaulted in such a manner. He quickly sat up again and examined his body, touching his body with his hands with a large smile he did not know was plastered on his face. Joy was emanating from him in large currents. He was happy to breathe again, he was not dead! Not stuck in the body of a young boy with a dwarfed mind!!!
He was extremely happy.
As he was engulfed in his thoughts, happy to have woken up, he did notice a thin blonde woman kneeling on his bed and reaching out for his head as her hands cupped his face. Tears rolled down her eyes as she brought his face closer. It had been nine days since the ritual. He was supposed to wake up after a week, seven days at most, but when the time passed, she was scared. Scared that she has lost her only child to the ritual as per the fate of many others. She wanted to ask if it was successful but she was happy he came back to her. Her son was back.
She planted a long kiss on his forehead and hugged him before quickly sitting up and wiping every trace of tears from her nose leaving her leaking nose as a testament. The Priest entered some moments later and stared at the two of them before taking a seat next to the bed.
"It has been nine days after your ritual, soon ten." He said as he stared at the young man examining him with a very scrutinizing gaze. "Who were you bonded with?"
Zephyr stared at him, looking at his reaction. He was gone for nine days, they surely thought he was dead, 'Had he started the burial arrangements.'
"Was there a pulse?" Zephyr asked in a hoarse voice, which was to be expected; he had not spoken for nine days.
His uncle stared at him before answering. "None. You were not breathing too."
Zephyr sighed as he buried his head into his pillow. "Kaelan, that is all I know about it."
'A long silence followed after a week of fasting and preparation. Talk less of the countless purification rituals before that and nine days of DEATH; all you had from the entity was a NAME? A name that is most likely made up of what is Kaelan in the names of the gods of Jupiter and the Realms!!' The Priest thought as his mind went bonkers with how calm his sister and nephew were. 'I refuse to believe that this is the end of all the effort I put into this. All the time, research, information, blood, and tears I put into this development. I must observe him for a longer period, there has to be more!'
The Priest wanted to question him more but he could not push him further in the presence of his devastated sister. So they just stayed and stared at each other in the silence collecting their thoughts.
A series of heavy footsteps were nearing the room and a lot of commotion with it. There was only one person who could cause this sort of ruckus in the house. Zephyr stared at the carvings on the ceiling. His mom wore a blank expression, and the Priest stood up to take his leave. There was no good in associating oneself with such a man.