The Curse of Healing
The guards lead you down the twisting corridors. At this point you didn’t need an escort, you could walk this maze with your eyes closed. Not that they would trust you to do that. Your head had ceased its pounding for now, but you feared that would not last long. Not too much further. I wonder how many this time. You turned the last corner coming face to face with the all too familiar black doors. One guard moved behind you grabbing your handcuffs.
“We have a lot of fun prepared for you tonight.”
The words practically dripped off the guard’s mouth. This doesn’t sound good at all. The other guard stepped forward pushing open the large doors. You were roughly pushed forward into the brightly lit room. Your eyes widened as you scanned the room. So many! A slight gasp escaped your mouth. The room was filled with several injured guards and soldiers. Too many to count at first glance. You turned to the guards behind you.
“You can’t be serious?! This many will kill me!”
The guards raised their guns.
“You’ll never know if you don’t try.”
“Besides, if you refuse or fail,” the guard charged the gun, placing it on your forehead, “you’ll die for sure.”
You swallowed hard and turned back to the injured men in front of you, clenching your fists.
“Fine.”
“That’s better.”
One guard backed away towards the outside of the room. He joined numerous other guards which formed a circle along the perimeter of the room. The other guard moved towards you, placing a hand on your handcuffs. He turned to the other guards.
“Ready?”
“Shields up!”
In unison, all the guards activated their shields. The entire room began to glow blue. The guard behind you pulled on your handcuffs, pulling you closer to him.
“Oh, one last thing, if you do fail and end up dying, we’ll just have to punish the boy instead.”
You couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped your lips.
“You didn’t think we noticed, did you? I mean it was fifty/fifty, we placed bets, would you heal him or incinerate him. Guess he got lucky, huh?”
The handcuffs clicked opened and the guard pushed you to the floor. You landed hard on your knees, pain shooting through both your legs. But you refused to cry out.
“Best get started or we might get bored and pay that boy a visit anyways.”
The guard sauntered away to join the others. You slowly stood up moving to the center of the room. Your knees were bleeding and you felt something wet drip down your neck. Your head must not have been as healed as you thought. You stopped in the center of the room and glanced around you. 15, 16, 17. 17. You sighed, that was the most you ever had to heal at one time. What the hell happened up there? You were used to a small number, 5 or 6 at a time. There must have been a huge battle this time. You didn’t have the time to wonder about the specifics, you needed to focus on healing, everything else would have to wait.
You slowly raised your arms out to your sides, once outstretched they began to glow, your eyes matching them shortly after. An aura began to surround the room, finding the wounded, and covering them in an amber glow. You focused on their wounds. Most suffered from non-fatal wounds, however, a few were far worse off. You focused your power on the more gravely injured first, getting them into a more stable position before moving on to the others.
You were about halfway through healing the troops when your vision began to blur. No! Not yet! You shook your head trying to focus harder but your head began to throb again. Stars began to form in your vision and your arms grew heavy. Just a little more. You pushed through the pain but your body gave out crumpling to the ground. Your vision went dark, and your body was too heavy to move. Your head felt like it was about to explode and you could barely breathe.
“This is a real shame, guess we will have to make a trip back to your cell.”
The guard grabbed your hand. No. You thought of Loki. He was innocent in this. You knew what they would do to him. Death would be a blessing. No! You forced your body to move, shoving the guard away from you.
“I’m not finished yet.”
You practically hissed the words at him. You slowly sat up, unable to stand. Just a few more. I can do this! You repeated the lie in your head over and over again, hoping to trick yourself into believing it. You shook your head a bit, regaining some of your vision. You moved to sit cross-legged and brought your arms out in front of you activating your power again. Your body did everything to stop you but you fought through it. Your vision was a blur but you could sense the bodies around you. You focused on each one putting more effort into saving their horrible lives than you had ever before. You grew dizzy, nauseous, and weak but kept going. Tingling began to run through your legs and arms, soon you lost feeling in them entirely, but you kept going. In the end, all you could hear was your own rapidly beating heart, a faint thud, and then nothing.