Chapter 89: Finding hope
"Ugh..."
Stars were barking and light was bleeding. Darkness was burning and sweetness drifting.
In his sleep, he saw the strangest things he had ever seen, heard, or experienced.
He saw a dog.
Then he saw that dog turning into a monster. Then that monster ate his tail, and spewed out what seemed like a deer.
Fishes had hands and they were flying in a sky that seemed upside down.
He was standing in the sky. Not clouds but actual sky.
There were all kinds of strange things present around him. This was so unfathomably strange to him that everything made strange sense to him.
"Mmm..."
He did not know what was happening in that dream. Colors had smell and voices had taste.
He was there but at the same time, he was being fed grapes from the hands of a three headed fly monster that looked like the most beautiful thing in the world at that moment.
Not only the reality, the very world was distorted.
Reality seemed more real than it ever was. There was pain, he felt as if his head was being cut open, but strangely, he loved that sensation.
It felt as if someone was tickling the best area inside his ears.
"Mummm..."
He continued murmuring in this altered state of mind, and watching him, a smile on his face, Sam closed his head as he took out the sterile surgical equipment.
Rainin’s brain was still functioning seeing how he was still smiling so happily.
Sam would have loved to show him the larvae that he had taken out of his head. But he did not want to traumatise him too much.
The mature ones would be gone in a few days through some more procedures, and a dozen doses of this tea would destroy the remaining eggs inside his head.
He would have to start him up on a detox right after that, but Sam had all that planned out.
The neurocystic parasites are some of the rare things that one could suffer from.
The creatures that he had just extracted from Rainin were rare but found mostly near the oceanic regions.
A very rare kind of, very small fly-type insect beast affects a host, and while they mostly choose Mana-rich beasts, in extremely rare cases like this one, they could also affect a human.
The young offspring of the fly distort various mind functions of an individual, and in cases like this one, they could also produce strange visual alterations.
The mind literally misinterprets different signals and while the other senses work fine, certain senses are affected tremendously.
’Ultimately, it is perceived as a curse, but it isn’t really something too different either.’
Just like how the actual curses are virus creatures of a very small size, the larvae that were present in his head were also a parasite that had unique, almost magical properties.
"Huuuu..."
For the time being, he was done with the procedure so he turned off the different monitoring devices he was using to scan and track the parasites.
In addition to that, he asked Miss Lexie to stop using the protective skill that was binding Rainin on the surgical bench and supplying certain nutritions to his body through the sharp syringe-like thorns that were coming out of the vines.
Furthermore, he burnt all but one of the larvae that he extracted from Rainin’s head and placed the remaining one inside a living lab specimen.
He was going to observe this rat from now on for his research purposes.
"When will he wake up, young master?" Lexie was worried about the boy now that they were done stitching his head close.
The potions would heal the scars quickly but if he woke up abruptly, he might hurt himself.
"In an hour or two at most. He will be too weak to move with force. For this week at least, he will have to rest until we get the rest of the parasites."
The tea that he just had wasn’t good. It was harmful to one’s body even in the short term.
The effects of the tea lasted for over a month if you take it even six times, and every time you sleep, you’d feel that euphoric delirium.
The trade offs weren’t all positive but for someone who had been living a life without darkness, that one month would be effective as a rehab period.
"Alright, let’s let him rest."
In the clinic section of his room, they left Rainin on the bed.
Sam returned to his work while Nyx and Lexie went back to their flower.
Felix was still resting so Art went beside her and fell asleep as well.
-Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiish...
The winds circulating within his room were fresh. The atmosphere was pretty warm as well.
It was a good time to take a nap... at least, for the humans.
"Chirp?"
The peaceful room was a little too boring for the little white bird so, as he looked at the sleeping boy, a mischievous grin appeared on his bird face.
"Chirp~."
While Sam was still working on his own things, Nyx sneaked up on the sleeping Rainin.
He moved up on his body and stood right above his head.
"Chirp chirp. Chirp~."
Then, as he had always done, he poked the head of the sleeping boy.
"Chirp!"
It wasn’t to wake him up, well, technically it was to wake him up but the intention was different.
He just wanted to cause trouble for someone.
"Mmm..."
"Chirp!"
He continued poking the boy’s head and even though the boy was deep asleep, when he felt the strange headache, his sleep couldn’t continue anymore.
"Ugh..."
His eyes slowly opened up and darkness started clearing up on his eyes.
"Huh?"
There was darkness before him. He was actually seeing the dark that one sees when you open your eyes.
"Chirp~! Chirp chirp."
"You little rascal!" Sam shouted at the little blob.
Nyx had run away now that he had achieved his goal, off to find another target to bully.
However, the magic knight who watched this scene, the young man who watched this whole scene, the room that didn’t look saturated with colours, as well as the boy who was watching him right now... everything around him looked much more bearable to him now.
The color wasn’t so bright anymore, and more than anything else, he knew whatever had happened to him, the one responsible for it was this boy sitting before him.
"..."
As he watched his saviour, a teardrop cascaded down his eyes.
"Rainin."
He did not believe it was possible. Until this very moment, he believed there would be no way for him to see the way he used to.
He thought he was going to die that way but, he was wrong.
He was wrong about all of it.
Especially, this boy of the Sungrades...