NOVEL WEB Chapter 16: Despertare
"Somnus vitae, rudis sik... sik..."
That word is so hard to pronounce! Thought Gwen. Even so, she kept trying.
"Sikhtar... Sikhtiear... Ah, what the hell," and walked off across the room.
It takes a lot of care and discipline to perform the spell. One wrong word and maybe Ben's head would appear glued to his right thigh. So every word needed to be said with perfect diction; every hand movement needed to be performed with the delicacy of a watchmaker; every particle of magical energy needed to be channeled in a surgical manner. Primum nocere, as medicine says.
"Somnus vitae, rudis sikhetaerdür, expirs sar thurr... Not thurr, dhurr..."
And he walked back across the room.
The young woman was apprehensive. Although she studied every detail of the book, she could not predict exactly how effective the spell would be. What if it got worse! No. This was not the time to think about that...
But what if?
She looked at her unconscious cousin lying in the hospital bed. According to Dr. Lünderg, Ben might wake up after a few hours. He didn't. He could wake up after a few days. It has been two days and nothing so far. Months? Years? It was impossible to predict.
He thought about his grandfather. The pain in his eyes. The guilt. Grandpa Max always took care of us, imagine the pain he must be going through right now...
She thought of Kevin. A hard shell on the outside, but soft at heart. He didn't know how to deal with situations like these. He already lost his father, his mother, now his friend...
He thought of himself. Ben was more than just a boring, show-off cousin. He was his best friend. It was because he had found this crappy watch that they were able to have the most amazing adventures! He found out about his anodite nature. He met amazing people and exotic worlds. And all this was about to end...
No.
It wasn't.
Gwen stood at the foot of the bed. She adjusted her posture. Both hands palms up, one on top of the other, not touching. She closed her eyes. He began to levitate.
The violet glow of his eyes flooded the room as soon as he opened them.
His hands made a circular motion, drawing a circle of magic.
"Somnus vitae."
The circle grew in size, covering Gwen and Ben's entire bed.
Gwen's hands moved in a symmetrical motion, drawing geometric shapes. New shapes appeared drawn in the air and delicately positioned themselves around the room.
"Rudis sikhetaerdür."
On his forehead three small circles appeared, one inside the other. The circles began to rotate, each on a constantly changing axis.
"Expirs sar dhurr."
Around Ben's head, three hexagons were drawn in the air. They each rotated in one direction, with the young man's head acting as the central point of rotation.
The room was bathed in a violet glow, accompanied by white and pink beams that drifted through the room.
Slowly, Gwen returned her hands to their original position. She stretched her neck, moving her head back and concluded:
"Despertare!"
A metallic sound like a large bell echoed through the room. A white luminosity began to cover Gwen's body, turning her into a huge silhouette of light. Suddenly the luminous form began to twist and distort, being sucked into the moving circles that had previously occupied Gwen's forehead. Then there was silence.
In the room, no sign of magic or spells. Just Ben and the medical equipment keeping him company.
***
When Gwen entered the interior of Ben's mind, at first she feared she would find various Sumo wrestlers battling each other, video game characters, or secrets that only the internet history had the displeasure of knowing. After all, we are talking about the mind of a teenager in full hormonal prime.
But this is not what she found.
Gwen was in Bellwod, her home town.
Of course, it was not a Bellwood like the one in real life, because if you paid close attention to the horizon, you would see that the image would distort or even disappear. But other than that, it was all the same.
In fact, something very important was not the same either: there were no people.
Gwen walked through the city, through the commercial area, walked along the avenues and even highways, walked through parks, and passed in front of her school. And in every place there was not the slightest sign of people.
Several times he called Ben's name, but received no answer.
He headed towards the residential neighborhood, maybe he would find some clue at his cousin's house.
As soon as he turned the corner and entered the street, he noticed the presence of the Rust Bucket parked in front of the house. Deja vu? Aside from the fact that it was daytime, the image of the parked trailer reminded him of the night Ben had his first crisis.
Not thinking about that now...
Gwen approached the trailer. On tiptoe and with her hands helping to filter the light around her eyes, she looked around for someone inside the vehicle. Nothing.
As she walked towards the door of the house, she watched the windows from a distance, with no sign of the residents' presence. Even so, he pressed the doorbell as good manners dictate.
Two arms came out of the house as soon as the door opened and pulled her by the shoulders into the house. Closing the door soon after.
Gwen prepared a mana ball in her left hand, ready to fire. What stopped you was recognizing the owner of the arms.
"Ben!" she said.
"Shh," with a finger over his lips he called for silence.
"What?"
Ben looked through a crack in the living room curtain. With one hand he waved a "wait" at his cousin. He needed to make sure that the area was safe.
"I needed to make sure that the area was safe," he said, although I had already said so.
"Safe from what?" she looked at the surroundings.
From above ― destroying roof, furniture, and perhaps some of the moral integrity of both cousins who screamed at the sudden appearance ― a creature falls in the center of the living room. Its appearance was difficult to comprehend, but its form was large, bipedal, with a broad chest and arms. Its head and legs were tiny compared to the proportion of its torso. Somehow, looking at the creature caused discomfort.
"Safe from that!" shouted Ben.