Chapter #11

   Bluren's eyes were closed, but she could feel the scorching light behind her lids. Her hands were laying flat on some sort of table, with stiff parchment underneath. She clenched her hands into fists, crumpling the paper with that satisfying crunching sound. Bluren focused on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. She thought. What position was she in? She wasn't sitting. Slowly she opened her eyes. The light burned down on her. Just now had she realized the smell of antiseptic with a trace of mint in the air.

   And then she remembered.

Bluren's first instinct was to strike, at anything, but she held herself back and strained to remember more. She didn't open the door. She must have fainted instead. It felt as if she had to pull the thoughts out of the air and insert them back into her brain. As if they were floating slowly away from her head. Then she remembered something else.

   Tara.

   She had to get out of this room and find Tara. A thousand possibilities of things that could have happened to her ran through her mind. Did they taker her? She could be outlawed. That one sent a tingling shudder down her spine. She shakily sat up on the table she found she was laying on. Her whole body ached like she had been stung several times at every joint. Bluren looked around. She was, indeed, surrounded by medical supplies. There was a long window on the wall Bluren faced as she sat on the hospital bed.

   When she came out of the sleepy daze she was in, she realized there was someone observing her on the the other side of the window. This someone had big eyes, a matching lilac colored tunic, and was sitting on her own hospital bed. It was understandable why this someone was in a hospital room. She had handprint bruise on her arm, that looked like it came from someone big lifting her up by only her arm. The girl had old eyes, even though she could be no more the thirteen. Her eyes told of knowledge and sorrow and change, all at once, which proved to be taking its toll. The girls mousy hair was in a tight french braided rope that led all the way down her back.

   Bluren gave the girl what she hoped was a sympathetic smile. The girl smiled, too. Now it was time to go. Bluren slowly let herself down from the bed, but so did the girl. That was weird. She raised her arm in the air, and the girl did the same. The girl was copying her every move, but why? Wait. Bluren took a deep breath and looked down at her own arm. There it was, the imprinted hand bruise. That wasn't a fellow patient. It was her reflection.