Waking up in the dead of night, I found myself enveloped in warmth, a thick blanket wrapped snugly around me with Shade on one side and Link asleep on the other. For a moment, I allowed myself the luxury of believing that the horrors of the past hours were nothing but a nightmare, a figment of my overactive imagination. It almost felt plausible, given the absence of any marks on my body, the usual telltale signs of trauma seemingly erased.
The curiosity about what they were—these two who had spent hours tending to my wounds with an intimacy that defied explanation—gnawed at me. They had healed me superficially and in impossible ways, the wounds disappearing as if by magic.
Slipping out from between them, I made my way to the bathroom, a pressing need to see for myself, to confirm the rea
