"I don't want to lose you, so please hold onto me tight and never let go."
—A Human Named Chloe, 'The Hollows Of Hiraeth'
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T h e H o l l o w s   O f
H I R A E    T    H
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Jameson hissed for the twenty-third time as a movement strained his wound. I frowned and grimaced, like I had done the other thirty-two times and turned my head to glance at Jameson.

"Are you sure you want to carry on going?" I asked him and Jameson gave me a two note laugh in response.

"Ask yourself that first." Jameson replied next and pondered his statement before actually giving myself an answer to my own question. If we kept on going we would get Jameson—and my leg—help, and it'd probably be safe in the hospital. I rolled my eyes at Jameson's forever lasting logic.

"Fine, we keep on going." I told him and Jameson gave me a short laugh again.

"I never said I didn't want to." Jameson bounced back with a snarky undertone and I sighed.

"Sometimes you're annoying." I told him before taking a left after Jameson's arm directed me to.

"The times when you're lugging me around?" Jameson asked with a contained laugh.

I thought about that for a few moments, "No," I glanced at him for a few seconds to see his reaction, smiling when I saw a grown and an eyebrow raise. "I kind of like lugging you around, it's a change from you lugging me around." I laughed and Jameson joined in.

"I feel like a boss." I pronounced proudly before guiding Jameson over to the only light we had been able to see this whole time. It was coming from a door about five metres down the tunnel—the light at the end of the tunnel.

"Come on," I encouraged a moaning and groaning Jameson through the last leg of the darkness. "Five more steps." I continued coaching him through the last few shadows of pain and, finally, we reached a very stiff door.

"You know, that wasn't five steps," Jameson began as I assessed our situation from every angle, just as he should be doing.

"It was around six or seven." Jameson continued as I tried to ignore him, still trying to work my way around a very unmovable door. At first, I tried to use the handle, but that, as expected, was long gone.

"Let me." Jameson reached forward but I ignored his aid, telling him that I could do it. I heard Jameson mutter something about me being stubborn and afraid of failure before I took to the door. I placed my readied hands on the handle, kicked upwards with a healthy momentum and struck the door. Yanking at the handle and kicking at the door has its advantages, albeit, there was some pain. The handle came off, and the lock broke, and the door came open, thundering into the other side of the wall. And in front of us was our only success today—reaching the hospital.

Without leaving Jameson behind, I went rushing in, calling for help from every angle and corner of the hospital. Nurses and doctors crowded around us, ripping Jameson out of my arms and rushing him to A&E. I tried to follow him, but he got lost in a swarm of faces I did not know. With desperation coursing through my veins, I attracted the attention of the first nurse that I could see and a rush of words fell from my lips. Instantly, she understood my situation: a special one on the loose with a guardian probably bleeding to death. That works.

But she wanted to take a look at my leg first. I tried to refuse her help, but she was so set on her new task that she was deaf to my complaints. So I ended up getting an X-Ray, and I had to explain what happened to my leg. But when we saw my leg bone, we all gaped.

"You say you heard a crack?" The doctor asked. I nodded slowly as the doctor, the nurse and I stared at the X-Ray.

"Maybe it was the cracking of the banister." The nurse suggested.

"Or maybe I have a freaky ability to heal broken bones." I muttered underneath my breath. Yes, despite the pain and the cracking sound, my leg was not broken. Somehow. But it was very badly sprained.

Even though I thought they were lying, I accepted the foot cast and the crutch and left believing that my foot wasn't broken when it very much felt that it was. Before leaving, I had walked up to the nurse again, and this time, she listened.

I was given basic directions and I ran off before fully understanding the required route. However, twenty seconds delayed, I found the theatre room, where doctors crowded around a dead looking Jameson, conducting an operation to save his impaled body.

I stood outside, my breath appearing on the glass as my heart thudded in my chest. The nurses and the several doctors in the operation room were fidgety—as if something was wrong. Please let him be okay. My eyes fluttered shut as I prayed for the one I loved to make it through; I can't lose him—I won't.

A bang had me jumping out of my skin, and I immediately checked if Jameson was okay. He was still looking lifeless, but okay. I turned to my left, seeing a doctor standing by the doors to the theatre room.

"Whats wrong?" I asked him both worriedly and frantically.

The doctor sighed, "He's losing too much blood, we won't be able to save him without a blood transfusion." My heart stopped.

"Then do one." I demanded, nearly shouting at him.

But the doctor shook his head and my frozen heart shattered. "We don't have enough supply of blood for his blood type." I wasn't having it.

"But can't you just give him another group? Isn't that what you do in emergencies?" I fired at him, needing to know that I could do to save him. For the first time, it was me saving him, not the other way round, and I would do it. My heart won't be able to take it if I can't save him.

"Look, we'll try our best." The doctor told me before rushing after a nurse, talking to her with a matter of urgency that only made my panicking heart panic itself into a frenzy.

I turned around slowly, my fingernails already bitten but my fingers only just coming to my lips. I didn't want to lose him. I couldn't. I saw the slightest movement—his hand flinched—and I wish that I could hold it. Keep him safe, somehow.

I sighed before turning back around and taking a seat far away from the theatre room, but not too far, accepting the fact that I just handed Jameson's life over to someone else, and I hoped they would treat it well.

I drummed my fingers against my knee, watching the handles on the clock turn. The sky was in hiding, it was pitch black and I could see nothing but the streetlights out of the hospital window. Then a figure crossed my vision. My eyes flitted over to the doctor I had spoken to earlier, the same urgency smoking out of him as he hurried around, folders falling out of his arms.

I watched as he walked into the theatre room, calling out to a few of the nurses before leaving and walking away, the nurses hurrying after him. I sat back, trying to leave my worries behind and focus on calming myself down. It's Jameson, he's fine.

Somehow, that was comforting. And so I sat on the same seat, restlessly, for the next hour and thirty-four minutes—I counted. Until, finally, that same doctor who still held Jameson's life in his grasp edged over to me with a clipboard. I stood up abruptly, watching as the doctor wiped sweat from his brow, lines of stress contorting his face as it scrunched up.

He smiled at me—is that a good thing? "We have news." The doctor told me. Now for the real question—was it good or bad news?

I held my breath, nodding as if I was completely fine.

"An accessible blood donor was located," My breath hitched.

"We have done the transfusion;" I still held my breath, "he's okay." The doctor spoke, but I had trouble comprehending how one could go from grave worry to intense joy—it couldn't be possible.

"He isn't awake yet, but you can see him." The doctor told me and I thanked him over and over again, barely even scraping the door number before whizzing away, gusts of a fluttering happiness following me, whipping my hair around and raising goosebumps on my skin. He's okay. Jameson is okay.

I burst into the room ever so politely, apologetically giving a surprised nurse a curt nod. She smiled before leaving me with Jameson. He wasn't awake, true to the doctors word, but my heart felt his presence, and from the constant beeping of his heart, I would've already known he was okay.

Something changed in these past few hours, I had felt love, but cursed with guilt as an expense. I had felt pressure, and I had felt scared and in pain. I had walked into here with a bleeding boy, and only just escaped with a beating heart to love.

I said the doctor held Jameson's life in his hands, and indeed he returned it back to its rightful owner—and to me—in a healthy condition, but he wasn't the only one involved in the healing; if only I could thank that donor.

And then, just as if someone had pulled a trigger, that voice shot back into my head.

"Blood is cold and full of flames, it burns with the ferocity of a malicious mystery."

Someone had given their blood to save Jameson. Who the hell would find out about his weak state so soon? And who would give their blood to him?

It seems that I've just uncovered a new mystery.

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I mean it is mystery/thriller so Sky what did you expect you nimbo

#same

JAMESON IS ALIVE
for now

Okay who said that

SKYSON CAN LIVE ON
for now

Okay bye

–hello

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Next update: Monday
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CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR SPOILER:

Skyson
Skyson
Skyson
Skyson
Some tension
Skyson
Skyson
Skyson
Skyson

But don't worry, danger doesn't just get up and leave that quickly 😉