...
Petra's ears twitched to the sound of a crackling fire, her eyes stirring as flames flickered off to her right. Both her hands were incredibly numb behind her; her vision was blurred and refused to correct itself right away. A dull ringing noise persisted in her ears and her head was throbbing above her left eye, but the fact that she was in pain was welcome. Pain meant she was alive.
Beyond that basic concept, however, none of her other thoughts could organize themselves with the dull ache pulsing within her skull. With a few blinks she managed to get a semi-coherent look at her feet in front of her. Her jaw clenched when she noticed the rope that bound them together but that only made her temples hurt.
Then her hearing clued in to the methodic "shick-cling" sound on her left.
Two
