Erica

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It was wet, cold and it was painful.

Loud noises and blurry faces could be heard and seen as she drifted in and out of consciousness before finally succumbing to the darkness as a whole.

For the first time in a long time, Erica finally felt at complete peace. Nothing bothered her, nothing hurt her while she was in this state. She never wanted to leave it.

When she finally awoke from this much needed slumber it was if all the physical pain and heart ache flooded into her all at once. It caused her to take a sharp breath and her eyes shot open.

She was alive.

How unfortunate...

Taking note her surroundings, she was in an unfamiliar room on an unfamiliar bed all bandaged up and treated. How strange.

"Here take this." A soft voice startled her.

It belonged to an elderly man with gentle grey eyes and a long whitening beard. He held out a mug filled with a strange smelling herbal liquid towards her.

"I apologise, I did not mean to startle you." He gave a gentle smile and urged her to take the mug from him, "Do not worry, it will help you with the pain. I would have given it to you earlier but unfortunately you were unconscious so I feared you may choke."

Erica was very unsure and wary of this man. He was a complete stranger, so she made no move to take the mug from him but instead tried to shy away like a frightened animal pushing herself to the opposite edge of the bed and holding the blanket up against her like a shield. She forced herself to ignore all the pain that the movement brought.

Upon noticing this, he gave a tired sigh and brought it to his lips taking a small sip of the liquid before offering it to her again.

"See, it's not poisonous. I won't hurt you."

Still unsure of the man she made no move. Thankfully he was patient with her.

"How about I leave this here for you and you take it when you are ready, but I must warn you, the taste will be even worse when it's cold." He placed the mug on the bedside table and stepped away.

Erica was watching his every movement still very unsure of the man, but something told her deep inside that he meant no harm, so she hesitantly reached for the mug.

Her hands were shaking as she gently brought the mug to her lips and gulped down the awful tasting liquid. She still did not fully trust the man, but she was in too much pain to really bother about that anymore.

He took the mug from her once she was placed it back on the table and disappeared out of the room saying he would be right back.

Erica gave a sigh in what felt like relief. The liquid had tasted awful as all medicines do but she was grateful that she had taken it while it was still warm like the strange man had said, otherwise she doubted she could ever have managed it without vomiting it all up.

Slowly she forced herself to lie back down again but she never let her guard down once, she would not let herself.

It took a few minutes before the medicine began to kick in and true to the man's words, it did indeed help with the pain. It had a strong numbing affect and helped her with the discomfort.

She glanced at her hands noticing how each of her fingers had been individually treated and wrapped so delicately. She had almost forgotten in all the chaos that the Countess tortured her this horrible way. A shiver went down her spine at the memory. If only she could forget.

"It must have hurt a lot." The same man from earlier now stood at the door watching Erica.

Her eyes moved to him before looking away and trying to cover her fingers as if in shame.