Aftermath

I woke up to the small and familiar sounds of running computers. My eyes opened slowly to see the bright white, sterilized walls that I had long since called home. I didn't remember how I had gotten back here from that hell hole I had thought I would die in, but it was oddly comforting.

I tried to sit up, but pain seared through my sides as I did so. I reached down to touch them, and found long cuts running up them, clearly having been from the surgery I must have gone through while I was unconscious. That was when the bell overhead went off, and summoned one of my guardians to my bed.

"Welcome back," Carlos said as he walked up. I looked up at him, and realized that my eyes hadn't fully adjusted yet. His form was a blurry haze, and it took most of what little energy I had to pull him into focus. "You've been under for about a week now. You're lucky that we put that tracking device in you. You surely would have died had we not been able to recover you."

As he spoke, the final moments before I passed out came back to me. Things quickly made sense. I had nearly destroyed myself trying to fight that darkness. I nodded to him to show my understanding, unsure of whether or not I could manage speech.

"Healing you was not easy, though," Carlos continued. "Your internal structure was in pieces. We may need to find a way to reinforce it for the future. But for now we could reconstruct it. Lots of screaming throughout the process, so you're gonna need to be drinking plenty of liquids now that you're awake. No banshees, though, luckily. Then we'd all be dead."

He passed me a cup filled with a blue liquid that I couldn't identify, which I downed in an instant. It wasn't the first glass like that, and it wouldn't be the last. But I knew that whatever it did to me I'd make it through. It ran its course through me, leaving a freezing cold sensation that made my hairs stand on end, but the soreness in my throat quickly faded.

"Can you speak now?" Carlos asked me.

"Yeah," I responded, weaker than I wished. "Mostly."

"So you defeated the Shade, correct?"

"I don't think so," I explained. "I repelled it, and I'm pretty sure I harmed it. I could see it tearing. But I think it's still out there."

Carlos frowned but nodded, making a note on his clipboard which he always held on to. "Back to the drawing board then, eh, Sarah?"

I shook my head again. "That was the first time I tried to use anything you've given me to its full extent. The tests were not enough. We don't have the capability to withstand what I've become. I need more fieldwork."

"You know we can't do that. It's too dangerous. The Shades could..."

"The Shades are what I'm here for," I retorted, cutting him off. "And can we talk about that for a second? Could we have chosen a more cliche name to give them? Shades? Really?"

Carlos looked down at me with the most bitter look of contempt I had seen yet. "Can you think of something more fitting?" he asked.

I couldn't. I already knew that. So I said nothing.

"You're not fighting the Shades again until we know you're capable of winning and surviving. It's taken too long to build you. We can't go through this process again with a new one."

Before I could respond there was a loud pounding that rang through the walls. A light flickered, and a new coldness shot through me - the ice cold gaze of despair. "They're here," I whispered.

"They must have followed your scent after your encounter," Carlos said, panicking for the first time since I had met him. "We have to get you out of here before..."

He turned back to find me already forcing myself off of the bed. My legs were shaking and I could barely stand up straight, but I was up.

"No, Sarah."

"Time to get back to work."