432 Ameshorn's Breath ③ ~ Trial ~

In the three days since I developed "Ameshorn's Breath," I never woke up.

According to stories I heard later, sometimes it seemed that they had answered calls or even rinsed water and medicines on their own, but they were also all done unconsciously. My consciousness had completely left the world for decades between falling out in the rain and waking up.

In the meantime, I've been having nightmares.

Nightmare, I don't know if it's the right thing to call it, but it feels like I've been going and going to burning hell burning in vain darkness and crimson anyway. If you sink into the darkness, you will be hit by freezing cold to the spine, and in a scorching hell, you will be broiled by austere flames until you are literally black scorched. I had to spend three days in a world full of pain.

But still, it must have been my consciousness or my soul that didn't splash in the wood dust because I was being touched by some sort of tranquillity between them.

It was sometimes a soft, white light, sometimes a sweet or slight fragrance, sometimes a gentle fingertip feel. My five senses were not functioning correctly at all, but it was even possible to perceive that such a hand of salvation had been offered several times.

Had such tranquillity not existed, I might have been in ruin. So much pain and despair that came to me was immense.

And also, the feeling of being broiled by a scorching flame aroused something called a memory of death without a response.

Burned by flames, rolled in black smoke, and finally crushed by rubble, it is that dreary memory of death.

Only once have I experienced it in a nightmare. That feeling of despair brought me back to life.

The most intolerable thing for me was the memory of that death.

All this will only be possible for people with dead experience to understand. The anguish and despair that should only be visited once by a living human being, that he is not allowed to burn and breathe while he is alive, and that at the end of the day he is crushed by a five-body sneak, is repeated again and again in the nightmare.

Whenever I was annoyed by that sense of death, my consciousness almost broke apart.

It was the presence of white light that saved it.

Even when I was attacked by nightmares before, I was able to return to Ai-Fa by being surrounded by that white light.

But this time, I couldn't take it off. Even if we cling to the white light this time, we will be dragged back to the bottom of hell, teased by the dark and crimson tentacles that have come from under our feet.

In that desperate loop, I once in a while became a visionary of the sights of my hometown.

The figure of my father lying in the hospital room, the crying face of childhood tampering taken to my chest, the figure of the "sagittarius", which burns and collapses without remnants - even such appeared to crush my soul.

Each time, I was screaming in a nightmare.

Put your hands up and you'll never get to that sight. My arms were wrapped in crimson flames or dark nothingness in the first place, and I no longer had a human body.

(If you think this -!) I also don't know how many times I've been caught up in the feeling.

But I'm like, (kill me!) Only the word could have managed to contain it.

Maybe when you say that word, it's the end.

If I give up, my fate will end. The death you once visited becomes real again.

I wanted to live.

Even if I can't go back to my homeland - no, then again, I never wanted to let go of the second hope and happiness I got in my new land. That was the only thought that led me to endure even the pain and despair of darkness and crimson.

That's how I welcomed you, on the morning of day three...

I was finally able to wake up.

◇

I was wrapped in a sweet fragrance.

Then it was also wrapped in a soft feel and gentle warmth.

I thought I was finally able to jump into that white light, and I hugged it, wondering if it would ever let go.

Hope and joy creep up from the depths of the body.

His head was lying, his hands and feet had no power at all, but only the feeling was certain. I was finally able to get out of that hell. Thinking of it that way, I was so happy that the tears were about to spill.

"You're awake, Asta..."

and a gentle sounding voice pours into my ear.

I was happy with the feeling again, and I was selfless and obsessed with its existence.

Little by little, my senses come back to me.

I was surrounded by soft warmth and seemed to lie down.

And he's holding someone's body in his hand. Someone is holding my body gently.

Of course, I didn't have to think about who it was, etc.

When I lifted my eyelids as hard as if they had stuck to my eyeballs, the person as I thought was smiling with a merciful look.

"Isn't it painful?... if you want some water, bring it."

I was still in a state of semi-awakening, so I took it to the body of I-Fa without being able to answer well or feel embarrassed.

"You're like a toddler," laughed Ai-Fa as she held my head in.

I always wanted to taste the temperature, the softness and the sweet smell of Ey-Fa. But after a while, Ai-Fa whispered in my ear again with a pleasant voice.

"Three days have passed this morning, so the high fever that was causing you seems to have finally subsided. Until this morning, however, the nearby women have told me that I should mouth Davila's herbs.... I want to get ready for medicine, so I'm going to keep myself away a lot, Asta."

Unconsciously, the word "no" had been uttered.

Ai-Fa laughed like trouble, and then she cuddled my head all over me.

"It looks like you've really gone back to being a toddler. Damn, he's in trouble."

Would Ai-Fa have been such a motherly person?

Or is my heart still unable to wipe out the remnants of the nightmare and just weak? If I let go of this hand, I'd feel like I'd lose everything again, and I couldn't really follow Ey-Fa's words.

Ai-Fa kept her fingertips nodded at my hair and rubbed her cheeks against my cheeks. Even such tricks did not make me feel like a regular childish or cat, and I felt like a mother who could fool a child of Kinki.

"You don't have to worry about anything. This is what I need for you, Asta."

That's how Ai-Fa woke herself up with a supple act after finally cuddling my body all the time.

There seemed to be little force in my arm, and it would fall on my claws and cloth.

We were sitting together in our bedding.

When Ai-Fa woke herself up from there, she quickly pulled up the blanket that had fallen apart to her chest.

"Wait a minute."

The figure of Ai-Fa disappeared from sight. Even switching positions and following it with my eyes was painful for me right now.

I'm lying down on the left side of my body. In its eyes is the view of the hall of Fa's house, which I miss terribly, even though I am used to seeing it. It seems that the outside world is still raining today, and only half the open windows were stained with gray.

In the house, it's dim. However, from behind my back I could hear the tone of the patch and fire, and the blurry but orange light was reaching this way.

There's a fire in the hall. Speaking of which, even though Ai-Fa said "morning," I didn't feel the cold at all, and I think it was just my usual chest and hips that Ai-Fa wore around me.

I was so unconscious that I didn't even realize it.

Even now, my head still had a membrane on it, and all of my five senses felt like I could not rely on it.

(Three days have passed, you said... then today, of the Tea Moon...)

And so my thoughts are interrupted. I couldn't even remember how many days of the Tea Moon I had lost consciousness of.

"You kept me waiting."

So finally, Ai-Fa returns.

Faster than my eyes could capture that appearance, Ey-Fa's fingertips have been plugged under my head.

"I'm gonna wake you up just a little bit. If it's hard, say it right away."

With my head and shoulders supported, I was held up.

I closed my eyelids powerlessly because my vision was so bright.

"Is it still hard? I've been lying there for three days, so I can't help it."

"No... stay like this for a while..."

After I answered that much, I was a little nervous.

The voice was faint as an old man, degenerating as if it were someone else.

And it hurts like it pulled around my throat. I wasn't aware of it at all, but my body was dry and dry, leaving little moisture in my mouth.

"Wherever possible, I let him drink the water. Even if I was forced to drink it, I would have stuck it in my throat, so I could only have it in my mouth one by one."

Saying in a soft voice, Ai-Fa gently held my head back again.

"I hope you keep your eyelids shut until the blood hits you. After a while, you should calm down."

As Ai-Fa put it, I was stuck with a stand-up phenomenon. From the inside of his head to the bottom of his neck, blood went down, and even when his eyelids were closed, his eyes felt like turning.

In the meantime, Ai-Fa has been supporting my body from behind.

Besides, I sent as much saliva as I could secrete into the back of my sore throat.

"... have you settled down a little? If you calm down, open your eyes and drink some water."

A few seconds after I heard the whispers of I-Fa, it was time for me to open my eyes.

Looks like he could have taken it off the anemia. The dim indoors look the same as before.

And from the back and back of his head, Ey-Fa's body temperature was coming through. Even if he could not see it, it was a warmth that he could be sure was Ai-Fa.

The tip of the wooden spoon is delivered from the side along with the word "water".

I slowly put the clear water dull in the wooden spoon in my mouth.

Cold water creaks down to the back of his throat.

My body didn't stop craving moisture, but if I didn't add or subtract it, I was going to cough up right away.

That's how I-Fa was patient and gave me a sip of water one mouth at a time.

With each mouth, I could feel myself getting back on track.

So I finally realized I was half-naked.

The blanket has drifted down to the belly area again, revealing the floating chest of the abrasive. My arms and back of my hand were tense and thin like someone else's.

In the midst of some sudden anxiety, I put my hands on my face.

The skin is dry from retraction.

Kamado was sprinkled with a water-stained iron pan, which, along with the heat, seems to fill the moisture, but my body was so dry that it wasn't enough.

Plus, my cheekbones are floating amazingly.

From cheek to jaw, the flesh falls off slowly, so much so that the shape of the skull is clearly felt. Underneath my eyes, I had a feeling that I had never felt before.

"I'm fine. As soon as I can eat, I'll be back where I was."

You felt my anxiety, Ai-Fa cuddled me softly again.

I don't have anything on my upper body, and I only wear eye-fa on my chest, so my temperature is transmitted directly to me. That was nothing short of the warmth that brought me peace in my nightmares.

(You've been... warming me up at your own temperature...?

I trembled at my fingertips and tried to touch Ey-Fa's arm wrapped around my neck.

Ai-Fa gently rubs her cheeks around my temples.

"Only once have I also seen Lan's toddler suffer from the disease, after three days of ordeal had passed, the toddler had come to fruition in a crippled appearance full of bones and skin.... but then a few days later, he was running around looking healthy again. That's why you're okay, too, Asta."

"Yeah......"

"So it's time to try the medicine"

Along with the words of such an eye-fa, an object has now been delivered with a wooden spoon that exudes a different scent.

It is a black, inky liquid. I guess the fried herbs are dissolved in water. It was a really strange fragrance, like acidifying the lavender aroma and adding a scorching odor to it.

"I don't think I'm gonna get caught in the throat because I'm crushed, but be careful not to spit it out."

"Yeah......"

I made up my mind and let him open his mouth.

I = fa gently insert the wooden spoon and tilt it.

It was a medicine with intense bitterness and acidity.

The area touched by the liquid is irritated by dullness, and the taste buds feel like they have dried up. This was likely to happen to hit my weak throat if I didn't drink it more carefully than the water.

Even there, Ai-Fa kept an eye on me, without rushing me. I needed a minute's worth of time to drain all the pills that were half of a small vessel.

After a few more sips of regular water, Ai-Fa finally said "OK".

"This will do. Do you want to clean yourself up a little before you lay down again? If it's hard, you don't have to, but your sweat is poisoning the disease, so you should pluck it as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I think I'm fine...... before I do, can you show me Ai-Fa's face again?

After a lot of silence, Ai-Fa peered into my face from the side.

It's a well-tied hair, an eye-fa face I know. I should have just seen it earlier, but I was so shaken up by my unspoken emotions.

"Oh, i-fa... I don't know, I feel like I haven't been able to reunite with i-fa in years..."

"... that's the same thing I do"

Ai-Fa smiled with a grin.

And - Ai-Fa smiled gently, letting tears pass down on its cheeks.

"Sorry, I'm still not allowed to get distracted... but when you call me Ai-Fa, I can't kill my feelings of joy"

"You don't have to kill your feelings."

I still can't think of so much getting into it, I let the words in my head keep my mouth shut.

Then Ai-Fa kept my body supported from side to side, hugging me tightly. It was only slightly painful, but the feeling of happiness that far exceeded it penetrated deep into my body and mind.

"I believed you would survive this trial... but it was since I lost my father that my chest became so painful"

"Yeah......"

"Asta, I..."

So the words of Ai-Fa broke off, and instead began to shake his body small.

When I realized it, I was spilling tears, too.

I managed to lift my powerless arm and turn my hand around Ai-Fa's back.

That's how we were supposed to keep even weeping while we couldn't even speak for a while, just feeling their body temperature all over us.