Just Right (Part 27)
Gretel: Fireflies in the Dark
Screams. The room shifts, flips, swims, nausea bubbling up. I feel the wave wash over me, every nerve ending singing as my belly convulses. I blink. More screams, the room shuddering, spinning. The darkness shifts, bars of light fill my vision. Shapes moving around me, like fireflies blinking in and out of existence. I swallow down the bile and the world shakes apart.
A hornet darts in close, a flash of dazzling red-gold. A sting. A scream. Someone screams. I can hear the agony, smell the fire. Something burning, but I can’t find it. My head aches, my eyes blinking through tears I can’t wipe away. They won’t stop. The screaming goes on. I clamp my jaws down, trying to bite through the pain. My pain. My screams. The burning. Burning me. Oh my god, no!
Ivan! My words are a jumble of vowels. My mouth won’t work. I wave my arms, but they’re helpless, hopeless, unresponsive. I can’t move. But he’s there. Just there. I can see him. We’re in the forest again, where I first saw him. Moonbeams spill through the gaps in the trees, and his face is there…
