Floating in a sea of nothingness, Felix pondered on the last words he heard, or more accurately felt before coming here.
'What happened back there?'
He was sure he wasn't dead, as he could still feel his body. The feeling however was muffled, like he was hovering in a liquid of sorts.
Trying to move, he felt the same as when he was in the river.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him.
'What happened to Aysha?'
Felix was sure she got away, even if he didn't see it, yet the feeling that maybe something hadn't gone as planned still lingered.
He didn't know if this place could be left, but he needed to find a way. He needed to make sure she was fine.
He tried to focus, yet a blinding pain went through his mind, as though restricting his thoughts.
That however wasn't enough to break his determination. Focusing on Aysha's face, he ignored the increasing pain between his eyes and tried to reach out to her.
Just before that happened though, his fingertips touched some sort of wall, preventing him from continuing. He pushed himself as much as he could, a faint ethereal blue light conjured in his palm and striked the obstacle and shattering it into thousands of shards of light.
Suddenly, Felix felt his body being pulled upwards, insides burning. Yet he remained as calm as he could. Closing his eyes and emptying his mind, he reached for the unknown.
***
In the orphanage's infirmary, Felix laid on a bed, with Aysha and a tall, muscular bearded man next to her, talking.
"Why were you two that deep into the forest to begin with?"
"I already told you, we went to a river there." Aysha seemed to be on the verge of tears, both angry at the man beside her, and at herself.
"You already saw, there wasn't even a hint of water around you. It's not that embarrassing to admit if you were fooling around." The man chuckled slightly, but soon regained his composure.
"I understand that the shock of seeing someone close on the verge of dying is not something for the faint of heart, so I guess I will have to wait for this one to wake up." He looked at Felix, his eyes closed, seemingly peacefully sleeping.
They did not utter another word for a while, when at some point Felix woke up, covered in cold sweat.
Aysha was starting to drift off to sleep, however when he awoke, all her drowsiness disappeared.
"Are you okay? What happened back there? Where did the river go?"
The sudden barrage of questions flooded Felix's mind, that was still recovering from its experience in the space from before.
"Good morning kid. Or more accurately - good evening." Turning a bit, he saw the man sitting next to his bed. confused, he raised an eyebrow.
"I'm sorry, but who are you exactly?"
"I was the one your little friend here brought to help with the Viperwolf, or at least I was supposed to, but when I arrived you were unconscious and the beast had its limbs and head torn from the body. It was a harrowing sight, this one nearly threw up when she saw the scene."
He patted Aysha's back, who shuddered when she remembered the scene.
"Do you have any idea could've happened?" Felix had a sneaking suspicion that this was somehow connected with the mysterious voice he had heard, and maybe this man had found clues to its nature there.
"If I had to guess, some adventurer who didn't have anything better to do stumbled on you by chance, slew the beast and healed your wounds, because when I got there, they were already healing, even though from what I saw the cuts were deep into your body."
While this surprised him, Felix acknowledged this was way more plausible than some disembodied voice swooping in to save him.
When he heard about his injuries though, he looked at Aysha's chest. Maybe a couple of hours before he would've been embarrassed to look at that area, seeing as she was developing into a fine young woman, nonetheless at that moment he didn't notice or care about that matter. What he tried to look for were the cuts left by the beast's claws when he pulled her, yet he could see nothing.
Noticing his gaze, Aysha blushed and squirmed on her chair.
"Trying to see under, eh? Guess I should leave you two younglings to each other. Oh, by the way, the place you two decided to get all lovey-dovey had a large concentration of magic energy surrounding it, you could go by the church for an evaluation, who knows how your bodies reacted to it."
The man laughed loudly and got up, leaving Felix and Aysha both flustered.
Trying to ignore his comments on their relationship, Felix sat on his bed, wondering.
'Maybe what he was talking about is somehow connected to what happened to me.'
He looked at Aysha, her face in her hands, the man's words clearly on her mind.
"Hey, you think we should take his advice and go to the church?"
Receiving no answer, he got out of his bed and sat next to her, which caused her to recoil slightly.
"You think his guess is correct? Because I don't think that is what happened."
Still not getting a reply, he tilted his head slightly and tried to look at her face, but was unable to do so.
"well, guess I'll go to Andres and share with him what happened, see you at dinner."
Getting up, he looked at her one last time, before sighing and leaving the infirmary.
Behind him, still sitting, Aysha's face was bright red, repeating under her breath a simple sentence.
"Me and him? No way. Me and him? No way. Meandhim? Noway. Meandhimnoway."
She didn't know what had gotten over her, yet the feeling was just too intense.
After a couple of minutes, she finally regained most of her composure and got up, that thought now engrained in her mind.