The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) by Gwyndolyn Russell (e reader txt) 📕

"You are the most lucky, unluckiest person I've met." Reynolds chuckled. "You're always getting hurt!"

I grumbled, head down. All I could see was black. Engulfed in shadows. The world felt so cold. Empty. I felt the doctor's warm, soft fingers brush against the scruff of my chin. She lifted my head up.

"You'll be fine, Liam." She said sweetly. "You always are."

One of her hands slipped away.

"Do you know what happened?"

"Captain said there was a power failure."

"That should not have kicked us off the warp path…." She hummed.

"Doctor Reynolds," another voice. One of the nurses. What was his name? Jarrett? Yeah, it was Jarrett.

"Yes?"

"We're still counting, but it looks like we have around seventy cases of hyperoxia."

"Oh, no…." Her fingers brushed from my face. "Tell me that's the bad news."

"Unfortunately, that's the good news."

I stayed quiet. They probably shouldn't have been talking like that around any patient. I didn't want to hear the bad news, so I tried to pay attention to something else.

The entire bay was filled to the brim with people. Coughing, sniffling, crying. Some people shouted for help. For no one being able to walk, it was as loud as a concert. I could hear everyone moving around. Doors and drawers opening and closing. Tools clacking.

I rubbed my face. My head. My hair tickled my forehead. That white light…. I remembered it. How beautiful it was. I couldn't stop staring. I should have been asleep. The glass should have been darkened to stop any damage from happening to me. Yet it didn't. I woke up to see the shimmering light. That unseen beauty. Fenris was there. The shadow in the white field. Angry. Talking to someone I couldn't see.

I could barely hear him….

My head throbbed. The surrounding noise turned to static. A thumping heart took over my ear drums. It ached. Ached so bad I thought my head was going to explode.

I pictured myself in that ocean. The roots of darkness digging under my skin. I grabbed the sides of my head and curled onto my knees. Strapped down to the gurney at the waist, I would go nowhere even though I felt like I was floating in the cold endless water.

I tried to imagine something soothing. Kittens. Puppies. Flowers. All I saw was war. Death. Carnage. Then everything went quiet. Real quiet. I could hear my blood flowing through my body. I looked up into the darkness.

Red lights. Those dotted crimson lights flowing upwards. I could breathe again. As long as I focused on those lights. My chest heaved up as the lights flowed up. Fell as the lights faded.

"Oh, look, Fenris is here!" Reynolds' voice cut through the dark. An angel speaking.

The lights faded from view, but I could still feel Fenris there. Hear his metal hands gently scratching across the metal surfaces to make his way over to me.

He touched my shoulder briefly.

"Are you hurt? Do you need anything?" Concern in her voice.

"Jackal?" Fenris asked hoarsely.

Reynolds was quiet for a good minute.

"Liam is just fine! It's just like when his leg broke!"

Fenris grumbled. His warmth faded slightly.

"Ooh, he's just gonna have to take it easy for a while."

Papers rustled. A prick in the bend of my arm made me retract. Something soft and fluffy pressed firm in the spot.

"What is that stuff over your face?"

I reached for my face to get whatever it was off.

Fenris grumbled again. Metal scratched against metal. I dropped my hand. She hadn't referred to me.

"Here, take this and clean up. Well, go on!" Papers rustled. "Liam, everything is good to go. I'm going to add notes in the system so the Captain will see it. You can look the-- er... I'm going to wrap up your head, do not remove the bandages for any reason. We'll give your eyes some time to heal and see how it is in two weeks."

It sounded like tape being pulled out. Something soft pressed into my eyes. The bandages wrapped around my head tight. It felt like a cast. Reynolds' fingers brushed through my hair, pulling the strands loose.

"Fenris, could you be a dear and watch over him? He'll need time to adjust."

The strap loosened. I floated up. I reached for the gurney to try to stay in place. Instead of grabbing the bar, though, I grabbed something else. Warm metal. A finger?

A gentle tug pulled me through the air. I followed it. Fed up, I pushed ahead to hopefully float down the middle of the hall. I rubbed my face.

People were crying all over. Babies, kids, mothers…. I didn't need to know the numbers. I could hear them.

Incidents like this were rare. Being kicked off the warp drive path was a feat. It took tremendous force. Something intervened. The relays malfunctioned. It did not take power from the ship to travel. All the energy and work came from the relays.

It was simple. The ship connects to one relay. Selects another one to go to. Both fire up and shoot a beam of energy that somehow pierces through the fabric of space and time. They create a wormhole from how I understood it. Then one relay slingshots the ship through the hole, a safe path to travel down. The destination relay catches the ship and stops it. Travel time varies depending on distance. To us, it felt like a brisk nap. In reality, it normally took a day, maybe longer.

I couldn't think of how it happened. The hell did I know about science and physics? I knew enough to know that this was a bullshit situation.

I bumped into something. Whatever it was, didn't seem to have a reaction. I felt a tug at my shirt.

Funny. Without eyes, being in a zero gravity area made it impossible to tell which way was up or down. I was floating aimlessly in a whole lot of nothing. Just a cacophony of sounds that overwhelmed my head.

Eventually, everything quieted down. At least compared to how the medical bay sounded. We must have