Like a heavy cloth, Neriah’s eyelids lifted with much difficulty. Again and again she blinked as if trying to get accustomed to opening her own eyes. Blankly she stared up at the wooden roofing above her.
For the first moments of her awakening, her mind was devoid of any form of information. From who she was to where she was, for those first moments after her eyes opened, she had no memory of all that.
Surrounding her was a still silence, one that matched the blankness of her mind. Not a bird was singing nor a cricket chirping. Not even the rustling of leaves from the blowing wind could be heard.
It was all silence. Cold empty silence.
And it was in that silence, she turned her head and stared out the small window through which sunlight was penetrating into the house, and the blanks of her mind began to fill up.
And with the filling up of those blanks came a growing fear as she turned her head left and right and found that there was no one beside her. The fear grew stronger as she pushed herself to a sitting position, frantically looking around her even more and when she was certain no one was with her in the room, her heart kicked and threatened to cease.
Her hand held her cloth at her chest level as she tried to calm herself down by saying to herself, "It couldn’t have been a dream. All of it. It couldn’t have been a dream. He came back. He came back to me. It couldn’t have been a dream."
However it seemed the more she declared those words, the more terrified she became. The stiffening silence around her was not helping at all.
Filled with fear, Neriah pushed herself off the bed, praying to the goddess, begging in her heart, "Please, please I beg you don’t do this to me. I’ll die this time. Please let it be real. It can’t be a dream." She cried and made her way to the door, pulled it open and ran out screaming...
"Barak! Bara—" Her screams paused as she laid eyes on Rakavi and Bashan.
"Neriah?" Rakavi hurriedly walked up to her, holding her hands in her own.
"What is the matter child a—"
"M_mother, I_ I think it was a dream. Please tell me it wasn’t. He was right next to me but now I can’t find him. Please Mother, wha—"
"Calm down Neriah, Barak is—" The door to the cottage opens and Neriah’s head turns towards it.
And it was like someone took a bucket of warm water and powered it over her frozen spine. As she saw him, standing there, as tall as ever and this time, unlike the dream she feared she had been dreaming, his eyes were back to their unique golden hue. Bright and almost sparkling.
Her hands slowly pulled out of Rakavi’s hands, and although the distance between her and where he stood by the door wasn’t even up to five feet, she ran.
She ran... with her huge stomach in front, she ran.
Straight into his arms.
And in his arms she remained crying.
She’d shed many a tears pining for him, grieving over him, and even swearing for vengeance. And now that she held him, she still shed tears. She could not help it.
The fear that overwhelmed her when she woke up, brought tears to her eyes. And now she cried because she was grateful that he was not another of her crazy hallucinations.
He was real.
He was alive. After crying for him for almost four months, it was still hard to believe that he really was with her.
...
"C_can we really be here like this?" Neriah asked as they both stood in a lake naked before each other. "What if someone sees us?" She asked while looking around them uncomfortably. More than being seen by someone, she was more scared of Lyle showing up out of nowhere and attacking Barak again.
"For someone who brought the idea of making love in a garden, you sure are being unnecessarily worried." Her insides tickled as he said those words, and her face flushed. It had been a long time since she felt such sweet sensations in her body. That girlish tingle she always had inside her whenever he teased her.
"Do not worry about a thing, Neriah," He cups her face in his hands, holding her gaze steady upon him. "No one in their right mind will enter this forest, and the trees completely hide this place from the cottage that is a good distance away from here. And if your worry is about the restless spirits that haunts this forest then I assure you, you have nothing to worry about. As long as that pouch is close," he points at the pouch that laid on their pile of clothes, "it will be as though the spirits don’t even exist because they want to stay as far away as possible from whatever Rug tied in that pouch." He leaned in close and her lashes fell close as his lips touched her head.
"So just look at me." Her lashes lifted once again, "I want your entire attention on me." As he said those words, her eyes instantly moved from his face to his body and she still couldn’t believe it.
"I still cannot believe it. I really thought it was impossible but you are truly healed." Her fingers traced the scars on his chest. Places where she had caught a glimpse of injuries, now all that was left were scars. Apart from that, he was healed.
"Completely healed." She chuckled with tears in her eyes as her palm rested on the huge scar close to his left breast. "I’m so happy I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe I did it. I’m so glad I was useful to you for once." She mumbled as she leaned in and placed a kiss on the scar.