Elda's POV
It hurt... It hurt everywhere... My entire body felt like it was engulfed in relentless pain. I thought pain had become my most familiar companion ever since that car accident when I was fifteen. Like some hellish reaper come to claim me, it had never left my side since that day.
I had wished for death countless times - prayed for release from this earthly suffering. But now, as death finally approached, I found within myself an unexpected will to live.
"Elda, hold on!" Penelope's voice reached me through the haze, thick with tears. I forced my eyes open to find myself cradled in her arms, the world swaying as if we were moving in a vehicle.
"Elda! Elda! Stay with me! Can you hear me?" Her tears fell onto my face like warm rain, some dripping onto my lips where I could actually taste their saltiness.
I must have been dying. This had to be a hallucination. Because taste - real taste - was something I had lost at fifteen, along with so much else.
