Chapter 2: Chapter TWO

Mia's body landed heavily on the ground. Before she even opened her eyes, a strange feeling took hold of her. For a start, she was alive. But the atmosphere had completely changed. During the few seconds when the adrenaline completely anesthetized her body, she noticed with skepticism that things were taking a strange turn, to say the least.

She could feel grass tickling her cheeks and feet, the rays of the sun caressing her face, and the pure air of nature entering her nostrils. There was no longer any trace of that acidic pollution to which the townspeople were so accustomed by now. It wasn't quite what she expected when she fell off a rooftop in the middle of town. Was she dead? Maybe she was in Heaven...

After the stupor passed, her aching limbs slowly began to wake up. Her face twisted into a grimace of pain and her muscles tensed from the onslaught of her injuries. She instinctively positioned herself in a fetal position, her arms encircling her waist at the level of her rib cage, where the pain was most acute. The gesture almost made her want to scream, so moving was hurting her.

When her eyes opened, small black dots danced above her head. Her pulse drummed in her skull. The slightest attempt to move was tantamount to slow agony. She closed her eyes again, feeling her consciousness slowly leaving her.

"Lily, do you see what I see?" she could hear through the ringing of her ears.

"Who is it? Do you recognize her?" asked the second voice.

"No idea. Oz, do you smell anything?"

Mia didn't hear the rest of the conversation. Her mind slipped into unconsciousness, exhausted from the pain.

When she finally came to her senses a few hours later, the first thing she noticed was that she was lying in a small comfortable bed and that she no longer felt any pain. It had completely disappeared, replaced by heavy fatigue and the feeling of not having slept for days.

Her eyelids slowly lifted, struggling to stay closed. A thin fuzzy film on her retina made her vision blurry. She felt like she had become myopic suddenly during her sleep.

She tried to get up mechanically to sit before someone stopped her abruptly, one hand gently pressing her shoulder against the soft mattress. Without even seeing the person to whom this member belonged, Mia could feel that it was a female hand because her fingers were soft and delicate.

"Easy, easy. Your body still needs to recover. You looked like one hell of a mess, you know. Nothing that we can't heal, of course, but your body has suffered a lot of trauma."

The blonde recognized the female voice from the clearing before she could even see her face. When her eyeballs adjusted to her waking state and the ambient light, she had to blink several times to take in what was in front of her.

That's it, she was now certain she was indeed dead. It was the only plausible explanation her mind could come up with. The young woman looked like a very normal human at first sight. Brown hair, brown eyes, a thin face, a slender figure, a feminine look. Normal.

If it weren't for a huge pair of twinkling, silk-thin wings swinging from the back of her back, framing her tiny self. They reminded him of butterflies whose iridescent wings reflected all the colors of the rainbow depending on the angle from which one looked at them. With the exception that these were human-sized and not insect-sized.

"What the fuck? Am I in the afterlife?" she muttered, her mouth dry.

"Oh sorry, here."

The unearthly woman handed her patient a glass of water which Mia grabbed as best she could with both tired arms, rising just enough to drink properly. The cold liquid running down her parched throat created a sense of relief in her that relaxed her somewhat. Once empty, the butterfly-woman took it from her and put it on the chest of drawers next to the bed.

"Good. You should rest, but you must have a lot of questions, I suppose. I'm going to explain two or three things to you, then you go back to sleep. For starters, I'm Lily, and no, you're not dead," she said smiling, probably finding her train of thought comical.

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Now that her thirst was quenched, Mia could focus on her thoughts again. She welcomed the details of her interlocutor by thinking for a few seconds in silence, her brains running at full speed. Her only logical explanation had just been refuted. A disguise, then? She sighed, far too exhausted to start working out other theories. Might as well listen to what Lily had to say.

"I'm not sure how you ended up in such a bad shape. Your injuries looked like a bad fall. Several meters. Honestly, if you had been found moments later, you would probably be dead by now. Luckily we were just passing by to pick up some herbs and Oz smelled something unusual... Anyway, it's not important."

Mia obviously wasn't exhausted enough to keep her eyes from rolling in the air. Lily seemed to be one of those people who spouts an incredible flow of words in seconds, while punctuating her story with numerous hand gestures to illustrate her point.

She was going to end up giving her a headache with her overflowing energy. The young woman reminded her a lot of Eva. The thought brought a tender smile to her lips, her mind wandering to memories with her friend. Unfazed, Lily continued on her way, ignoring the blonde's moods."Several broken bones and ribs, some internal bleeding, a bad head trauma, and, as a bonus, a serious hangover," she laughed, winking at her.

To say she felt like hiding under the sheets right now was an understatement. Dealing with a bad hangover wasn't easy enough, but when you ended up in the hospital, or at least what she logically thought was one, because of the alcohol... Mia didn't know if she wanted to laugh to make fun of herself or disappear in shame. She still ended up choosing the first option, but that didn't prevent her from doubting.

That feeling passed quickly when something crossed her mind, defying all logic now that the obvious was hitting her. How could she feel no more pain when, from what Lily was telling her, she felt pretty bad? If she had been so close to death, she should be clinging to life right now, not quietly discussing her misadventures.

"It's... how is it possible?"

"Hmm? How what is possible?" Lily replied, a little confused.

"Morphine? You gave me a lot of painkillers? Is that why I'm super tired and seeing... hallucinations?"

It was as if a light bulb went on in her brain. But yes of course! Everything was explained now. No pain, wings, complete delirium... The experience was very similar to the time when Maxime had brought back some hallucinogenic mushrooms during a party for the group of friends to try out together. The blonde kept a very good memory of it, even if once was enough for her.Lily burst out laughing at her questions. Mia swallowed hard, doubt about the validity of her theory creeping into her mind.

"Oh sure, you've never seen a fairy healing someone, sorry! We haven't used painkillers since... we've never actually used any. It's a human thing," she explained, her voice quivering with past mirth.

The blonde's eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted in disbelief halfway up her forehead, so crazy were the woman's explanations. Had she ended up in a mental asylum? She had the strange sensation that each took the other for a madwoman totally out of touch with reality. Or maybe it was just a hidden camera. In both cases, it was better to go along for now."Im sorry but... where exactly are we?"

"At the Arena. It's... we'll explain it to you later. Look, all you need to know for now is that you're safe and well, and this isn't your home world here. I know this must sound crazy to you, but Vassili will come and explain all this to you when you've regained your strength. In the meantime, try not to think too much and sleep."

The fairy smiled at her and got up to leave the room. Mia didn't take her eyes off her, obsessed with her wings moving to the rhythm of her steps, spinning in the air. The organ was so incredible in detail that she completely forgot her questions. It was just hard to believe that a disguise could look so...real, even with today's technology.

When she was finally alone, the blonde dropped heavily onto the mattress and closed her eyes, deciding to take Lily's advice and abandon any attempt to rationalize what was happening to her right now.

"I'm just delirious, everything is fine" she whispered ironically to herself.

Clearing her mind, she quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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