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Crawling through the mud, exhaustion screaming at him to stop and rest even though it may mean certain death. No, he has to keep going, until he reaches the other side. There is no stopping until he reaches safety.
Wolves biting at his heels, with desire to feed. Terrain that is unpredictable and harsh. Weather that pours rain from the heaven to the point it feels like his skin would fall off or a sun so hot it feels like he would burn alive. He has not had a proper feast even before he decided to make a run for it.
Ignoring the pains in his body from all he had to endure as he crawls and crawls to people that he hopes with everything in his body will help him and not abandon him on the sidewalk. Lights fill his vision as he finally crosses the threshold to civilization. Voices above him talk to each other in urgent tones. Some angry, others with concern.
He does nothing as he finally lets himself go. Darkness fills his vision as hands grab and move him around. What they plan to do is no longer his concern he thinks. He made it! He made it out of that bastards mansion. Out of that monsters reach. Not even in death will he lay another finger on him. He is filled with joy as his mind becomes nothing on the pavement.
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Weeks later his consciousness would finally reawaken. He had awoken before for brief moments of time. Johnathan could finally move his body without piercing pains after everything he had gone through it felt.
The Count’s mocking laughter still resonates in his head but the calm and bright surroundings made it seem so much less horrid than it had previously. It even made it seem less real.
The brides cruel smiles as they hover over him. The Count’s gold. His lizard walking outside of the mansion walls. So much more that happened to him, now feels like it had happened to someone else, like he had watched a very long movie about these cruel creatures torturing someone for their own sick satisfaction.
As he lies in the hospital bed, warm and safe, with soft voices of the nurses echoing from the hallways. He wanders, what if everything he went through was all just a hallucination of some kind.
It was all so horrific and so unreal. Had it been real? Are all the scary things he went through real events? Did he hallucinate them? Is the count even real?
He sits in bed mulling over his thoughts. Heart pounding as he tries to make sense of what happened to him as his mind tries to protect him from the worst of it. In the end he is left with fizzy memories. The ones he still has still do not feel real even with the scars on his body.
Nurses come in and seeing him up, attend to him. Asking him questions and checking his wounds. He does his best to assist as he feels less real and tangible the more he sits in the hospital bed.