Owen felt himself slowly rising, a sensation like drifting through warm, thick water. His mind was hazy, a swirling fog where memories wrestled with a profound, bone-deep exhaustion. He felt a soft, rhythmic thrumming beneath his ear, a steady beat that was both unfamiliar and strangely comforting.
Then, a distinct sensation, a gentle tug on his waist. Something was wrapped around it, an arm, firm but not constricting. His right hand, still clenched from what felt like an eternity of panic, was placed on a shoulder he didn't know, a soft fabric beneath his palm.
He moved, a slow, unconscious shift, though how many steps he didn't know. Each movement was a struggle, his limbs heavy, disconnected from the command of a mind still lost in the depths. At some point, he felt himself lowering, then finally, blissfully, laying on a sofa.
Just something soft, welcoming his weary form. He burrowed deeper into the plush comfort, a faint, almost imperceptible scent of lavender and old paper mingling with something else… something distinctively him.
His brain took a few more hours, long, languid stretches of time, to properly come back online. The fog began to thin, revealing fragmented images: the terrifying whispers, the desperate run, the overwhelming sensation of an abyss opening beneath him. And then, the anchor. A presence, warm and unwavering, cutting through the chaos. As clarity slowly seeped in, so did the growing awareness of his immediate surroundings.
He was in someone's house. A real house, not a crumbling alley or a shadowed street. And he was definitely on someone's sofa. More than that, the person whose arm was around his waist, whose shoulder his hand rested on, was also on the sofa. No, wait. He was leaning on the person, his head nestled against her chest, both his hands wrapped tightly around her waist. He was clinging to her like a shipwrecked sailor to a buoy, his face pressed into the soft fabric of her top.
So, she was lying on the sofa, and he was clinging for dear life to her. The realization hit him like a slow-motion truck.
His eyes snapped open, wide, though he didn't move. A wave of profound embarrassment washed over him, hot and immediate, followed swiftly by a more primal assault: a stench. Yup. He was hella stinky. Days, maybe even longer, of running, fear, and sweat had coalesced into a potent, unpleasant aura around him. The person he was currently glued to must be a saint. Or utterly without a sense of smell.
He swallowed, his throat dry and raspy. What was he supposed to do? How did he even get here? The last thing he remembered was… well, he remembered the terror. And then, her. The unknown woman who had somehow, impossibly, brought him back from the edge.
"Um, hi," he managed, his voice a strained croak. He slowly, hesitantly, raised his head, pulling back just enough to meet her face. His gaze was drawn upward, past the soft, dark strands of her hair that covered most of it, like a protective curtain. It was thick, falling around her face and shoulder, obscuring her features, much like his own hair often hid some of his features.
Teachers never stopped complaining about it, he recalled with a pang of distant normalcy. Sigh.
As he shifted, her head tilted slightly, and her hair parted just enough. And then he saw them. Beautiful eyes, a deep, calm brown, meeting his. They held no judgment, no fear, only a quiet, almost unsettling serenity. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of her lips, hidden mostly by the cascade of her hair. He could feel her steady breath against his cheek, the warmth of her body against his.
In his current situation, sprawled on a stranger's sofa, clinging to her like a desperate limpet, and smelling like a week-old dumpster, Owen had absolutely no idea what to do. His mind, now fully online, raced through a thousand panicked scenarios, each one more mortifying than the last. How long had he been like this? What did she think of him? And more importantly, what was that thing that had condensed in his hand? He slowly, carefully, unclenched his right fist. There was nothing there now. Just a faint tingling, like residual electricity.
The silence stretched, broken only by the gentle hum of a refrigerator in the distance and the soft murmur of their breathing. He wanted to apologize, to explain, to disappear into a hole. But the words seemed to catch in his throat, choked by a combination of embarrassment and a strange, overwhelming gratitude. He had been so lost, so utterly consumed, and she had pulled him back. He didn't even know her name.
[Owen's finally coming to his senses, but he's in a very awkward position! What should happen next in Chapter 18? Should Faith speak first, or will Owen manage to articulate something? What questions will he have about his current state, or about the object that formed in his hand?]