Sitting alone in his father’s kitchen, a cup of black tea almost boiling hot in his hand, Damien was trying to make sense of the past few days. He’d been loath to leave Sam alone in the hospital and fly all the way to London, but the doctors had assured him that there wasn’t much he could do for her at this time anyway. She was still in her unexplainable coma and there’d been no change for over a week now. At least her mother had promised to stay by her bedside, so that was something. This way, he wouldn’t have to feel so guilty about leaving her.

  His father was taking an afternoon nap upstairs in his bedroom, even though he had insisted he was fine and did not need any more rest. This was the strangest part of all. Despite everything that Damien had seen in both worlds, he still could not believe that his dad had been fully healed from a major gunshot wound in just a couple of days. Had they been in Endërland, he could have explained the source of this healing, but here, he had no clue where it had come from, or who was responsible.

  And then, there was Serena, his biggest cause of worry today. He’d called her several times on the number Freddie had given him, but there had been no answer. They had agreed to arrange a meeting over the phone, so why didn’t they pick up? He was now really starting to panic, especially since there was nothing he could do but leave message after message on their voicemail. He could not help but fear the worst.

  When his mobile finally rang, he picked it up instantly.

  ‘Serena?’

  ‘Hello, is this Mr. Damien Adams?’

  The disappointment that the foreign voice provoked in him almost broke him in half.

  ‘Yes, this is he,’ he finally managed to answer.

  ‘Um, hello. This is nurse Randall, calling on behalf of Dr Owen at Chicago General. We have some news for you, sir. Your wife woke up from her coma early this morning and her body functions all seem to be restoring back to normal.’

  ‘Oh, wow, that’s…, that’s great,’ Damien said, finally some good news warming his soul. ‘You have no idea how much I needed to hear that. So, she will be okay, then?’

  ‘Um, as far as her physical condition, we think she will be fine, sir. But I’m afraid she is still catatonic, in regards to her mental state. She is unresponsive to external stimuli, seeming to indicate that her cognitive capabilities are rather absent, or at the very best, dormant. The doctor has approved her relocation to the psychiatric ward of the hospital for the moment, in anticipation of her transfer back to the Chicago Psychiatric Centre later in the week. We just wanted to call and let you know, Mr Adams. Do you have any questions, sir?’

  Damien was still in a state of shock, unable to think clearly. He could vaguely remember later answering that he had no questions, and thanking the lady before hanging up on her. He didn’t know how to feel about all of this. Sam was out of the coma, so that was good news, but apparently she had not made it back whole. What was going on in her world and why had she only partially returned from there? He assumed that’s what had happened. The alternative, even though it had seemed more acceptable to him before, it now scared him. If this was a dreamworld related issue, things might eventually change and Sam could become the person she was once again. But an actual mental condition offered no such guaranty.

  He needed to find a way to get some answers, but how? He’d had no news of Daniel or Hëna, whatsoever. Serena and Alfie had gone off the grid, and The Order, well, he’d never known much about them in the first place, so he doubted he could even find them. Not even Veronica knew how to help him in that regard.

  Frustrated and rather angry at all these things that seemed to have gotten out of control, Damien got up and poured the tea down the drain, dropping the mug in the sink. He then opened the overhead cupboard, where he knew his father stored a few bottles of spirits, and grabbed the first one he could see, an unopened bottle of Jose Cuervo. Good, he thought to himself, nothing like a bit of tequila to get me out of my head for a while. So he poured for himself one glass after another, until he got to that place where nothing really mattered.

  Only, he wasn’t alone in there. A presence he could not yet feel, lurked in the darkest corners of his mind, whispering things he didn’t want to hear, flashing him images he didn’t want to see. A new battle had just begun, a battle that Damien didn’t know he was fighting, a battle he had already lost. And it was only a matter of time before he and the rest of the worlds knew it.

  Continues on Volume III, ‘Book of Joshua’.

  # # #

 
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