Realm Wraith Read Online Free PDF Page B

nonstop since I came home. He almost lost his father. So stop fretting. You just need to get better, all right?”
    Rayne found it much easier to nod now. His focused just a little more and he could see David standing next to him, still blurry, but recognizable in his mismatched clothes. He wore a tan tweed jacket and green pants, and his messy, dark brown hair flopped over amber eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in quite a while. Beside him Rayne noticed another figure, dressed in darker clothes, but he couldn’t focus his eyes enough to make them out.
    “Who—who’s that?” he whispered.
    “Sorry, who’s what now?”
    “Who’s that with you? He’s standing right—”
    Rayne stopped speaking as the figure, now acknowledged, stood up and approached the bed, standing beside David where Rayne could see them.
    “I don’t know what you mean,” David said. “Levi went into the hall, remember? The doctor will be back shortly. It’s just us for now.”
    But Rayne didn’t need David to tell him that. His gaze froze upon the inhuman specter standing by his friend, a tall, dark creature of shadows and inky fog, with a thin grey face that had little meat to it, just ashen flesh stretched taut over bone, and two curved, black horns adorning the top of its head. Rather than hands, Rayne’s eyes fell upon a pair of sharpened, organic scythe blades attached to each wrist. The being’s lips and eyes glowed with a sickly white light, and as it stared down him, its face broke into a maniacal grin, pulling white lips back to reveal sharpened teeth, and with a deeply disturbing laugh it vanished into a billowing cloud of smoke, leaving nothing behind. Rayne felt a rush of hot air sweep through the room and trembled as it faded, though not so much from the abrupt cold, but from a lingering fear of whatever horrifying entity had just left his presence.
    “N-never mind,” he whispered.
    “This is a bit much for you to take in. I’m going to take Levi home, and let you get your rest. We can talk more tomorrow, all right?”
    “Right.”
    After David left the room, Rayne wondered if he was truly alone. He couldn’t stop shaking at first, but the shock faded over time, and he began to imagine that whatever painkillers he was under had led him to hallucinate. After all, nothing like that could ever be real.
     
    * * *
    A week passed, and Rayne shouldered his slow and painful recovery as best he could. His life was still a muddled mess. He suffered dark and dreamless periods of sleep, always waking up feeling restless and unsettled. David, who normally worked at that same hospital as a junior doctor, would often drop by to check on him. He brought Levi to see him every day after school let out, which lifted Rayne’s mood, removing that lost confusion that plagued him during every waking moment.
    No more grim shadows of death popped in to visit him like that first day, yet Rayne still felt uneasy. Nothing seemed as stable to him as it should have been, as if much more lurked in the dark corners, another intangible world mixing itself with the reality he thought he knew. A fear gripped him, a faint knowing that if he let his guard down for even an instant, he would slip back into that other world, forced to face that incomprehensible landscape and its creatures once again, and this time he might never come back. He couldn’t bear the thought of being trapped in that nightmare forever, and he pushed the thoughts away, and rather focused on his recovery, appreciating his life for what it was.
    The doctors had made it clear he had almost no chance of ever walking again. They’d wrapped his legs up to minimize clotting, and Rayne hated the numb feeling in the lower half of his body, as the rest of him regained function. He would have to get used to a wheelchair. He didn’t care for having to roll around everywhere, particularly with all the snowy weather. The dread of being looked at as an invalid for the remainder of his life