บท 58: Chapter 58: Release

The bleeding never did come.

Alessa held vigil the whole night through, watching, waiting, dreading. But after Isaac's feverish fit of delusions, he'd rested peacefully. Then morning had broken, the sun spilling over a jagged skyline, and Alessa's hope had returned.

It'd taken two more days before he was well enough to move, before the fire raging in his skull subsided and Alessa could squeeze enough water down his throat to rehydrate his withered body. But now, five days later, Isaac was almost feeling himself again.

For his own part, Isaac could remember practically none of this. His experience of the past few days floated through his mind in bits and pieces, blurs of color and sensation and smell mingling with wispy tendrils of visions that may or may not have actually transpired. Time melded together, the minutes and hours and days all pouring into one, everything seeming to happen at once but also, perhaps, not at all.