Chapter 524: A Clueless Try
Just what the hell am I thinking right now?
What am I doing? What was I about to do here?
It’s something stupid, surely something stupid... I’m always doing stupid things, risky things... try as I might, I just can never help myself.
Sluggish, inert, and literally steps away from total exhaustion... and yet there I was, still trying to take another step forward.
Seriously, I ask any doctor around and I’m guaranteed to get a diagnosis for a chronic aversion to self-preservation or something... like, I just can’t seem to want to keep myself from wanting to keep risking myself.
And the more that urge continued to rise within me, the tighter Adalia seemed to cling to me.
She had pretty much encased my entire arm around hers, coiled up in a stiff uncompromising embrace. I could feel the cold of her skin pressing against me... her petite and slender frame so supple, so soft... and so deceptively gentle, pulling me back with a strength to almost rival Ash’s.
.....
Bare strength alone obviously wouldn’t wriggle me free from her hold, so instead, I tried to grease up her grip with words.
“I’m not going to push myself to that extent again, Adalia,” I told her. “I just want to see if I can help somehow.”
Instead, she only clamped down on me even harder. “Liar...”
“I’m just worried, alright? I don’t know much, I don’t know what I don’t know, but look at her, really look at her. She might not – ”
“She will...!” sounded a sudden stubbornness echoing with her voice. “She will... I promise she will... so please... just stay... here... stay with me... here...”
Looking at her now, hearing her now, somehow, Adalia just felt so... small to me, so vulnerable. I don’t know why it struck me as so profound all of a sudden but it just did.
“It’s no use, Adalia,” Mom said, quietly intruding in on us. “This is my son you’re trying to hold back here, you know? Though I’m sure he appreciates your adorable attempts... you’ve already lost the moment you tried.”
Adalia made a faint sound – and if reluctance and doubt had a noise of their own, it’d probably be that.
“I... don’t want him... to die...”
“And believe me, neither do I,” Mom replied, throwing a quick sympathetic smile. “But you know, there’s a big difference between not letting him die and not letting him try.”
“But...”
“But it’s okay, Adalia, it’ll be alright,” She nudged her head forward. “Let him try.”
Adalia made that sound again, and every time it just dug a deeper sense of guilt inside me, drilling an aching hole in my heart, made even more excruciating by the look she gave me with her eyes... almost pleading, begging... her usual distant vacant stare now no longer.
But in spite of it all, slowly, the cold of her body gradually began to fade. Her embrace crumbling, her arms falling back to her sides, and all I could feel was the after-sensations of her touch still lingering, tingling all over me.
“I know you’re worried for me, I’m grateful you are,” I said to her immediately, already on the offense to assure and wanting nothing more but to take that look off her face. “Look, I’ll be careful, I’ll be just fine. I promise you.”
“Promise...” She repeated, and already I was regretting my poor choice of words. “Okay...”
Then for the third time in the row, she made that same quiet sound behind sealed narrowed lips, before wordlessly drawing herself back into the shadows, a silent bystander once again... only there, and nothing else
I knew I could wallow in all the guilt and shame I’ve accumulated some other time, so for the time being I set them all aside, and shambled my way to the center of the circle, guided by the dim glow of gold streaking across Mom’s skin like tangled, binding vines.
She watched as I made my way towards her, and once I hunkered myself down right across from her, greeted me with a welcoming smile.
“Nice of you to join me, dear.”
“Happy to be here,” I replied, eager to get started on... well, something.
“You know, it’s kind of strange,” She said with slightly hazy eyes giving a crooked stare. “After seeing and hearing everything that you have... I’m honestly surprised I haven’t been bombarded with questions just yet. You’re not curious?”
“No, I’m just not stupid. You need your focus, so focus.”
“I’m already plenty focused enough,” She dropped her gaze, peering down at Harry’s unconscious face. “All it is now is just a matter of time and patience.”
I trailed her eyes, setting my sights on her malformed, distorted arms still embedded deep into Harry’s chest... seeing that I could feel restlessness in my own arms and hands that wouldn’t quite settle.
“So help... help... how can I help?”
Mom slowly lifted her head, looking back up at me, and I watched in disbelief as she did her best to try and stifle a laugh.
“How would I know?” She asked me back, passing off a cough as a breathy chuckle. “Weren’t you the one begging to try?”
I gave a feeble shrug. “Never said I’d know how.”
“And what makes you think that I would know?”
“Because you’re you, aren’t you?” I said, flailing helpless hands at her. “Things like these, there’s no one who should know more than you do, right? I thought you’d have an idea of what I could do.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint,” She said, lingering with her cheery smile. “But I don’t.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” She said. “This was the entire plan, and this is the last step to it. There is nothing more to do except this, nothing to add, nothing to change.”
For a moment, I saw her wince in pain, but when I looked again, her discomfort had seemingly disappeared.
“And how are you... how is that going so far?” I asked, trying to bury my ever growing worries. “How you are... what are your chances?”
“It’s hard to tell,” Mom frowned. “This parasite had time to cultivate... nearly a full-fledged soul. An hour longer and Harry here would have been completely devoured for good, and because of that very same development, consuming it can be... quite a taxing ordeal.”
Taxing, she says...sweating buckets, paler than paper, heaving in for air even more than I was... it looked a lot more than just taxing to me.
“Perhaps... perhaps your father went a bit too overboard with the prayer... Grieven’s right, he’s surprisingly tough to swallow, for some strange curious reason...” She said, her smile faltering at the corners. “Perhaps six out of eight would have sufficed... ahh, to evoke all eight... but then again... perhaps that’s better. Yes, yes eight is right... eight is safer...”
Her back began to bend, hunching, no longer with enough strength to sit upright, and visibly, she was gasping. All pretense gone, all the pain and agony she was in had all arisen to the surface. As did my concerns.
“Mom, hey...” I reached out towards her, fingers trembling, and to my horror, she was deathly cold to the touch. “Don’t you dare – ”
“Faint?” Yet despite all that, somehow, her smile remained showing above it all. “Scared you, did I? No worries – this pain? It just means it’s working... Grieven has begun latching himself to my soul.”
She says it like it’s something to be rejoicing about, like it’s good news. Maybe in different circumstances, it would be. But in this case... not really.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help you through this?”
“I didn’t say there’s nothing you can do. I just said I have no idea what you can do – you hear me?” She said, her words leaving her so light and feeble. “That’s all I was saying.”
Even still despite everything – she still insists on speaking in playful riddles. God, what’s it going to take for her to take anything serious?
“So I can try?” I asked, grasping at straws at this point. “But I can try?”
“Yes, you can try.” She nodded. “And whatever it is you wish to try, you better try fast...” then she glanced at me again, and for once, in that long yet brief second, I saw a flicker of honesty lurking beneath her dark raven eyes. A flicker of worry. “Because I fear I might have actually bitten off more than I can chew here.”
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