The surroundings are dark.

  Azalea grapples with herself to shake off the unpleasant feeling that plagues her chest.

  “Blank… My mind feels blank.”

  She cannot feel her limbs. Her body feels heavy but at the same time floating. As she regains consciousness, she feels the cold liquid enveloping her whole body. Muddled sounds reverberate as she desperately grasps for something to hold on to.

  “The subject is gaining consciousness!”

  Her mind is blank. Although, she is having this fluctuating sensation of wanting to destroy something, the unpleasant feeling of burning rage.

  “It’s cold.”

  “The anesthetics have little to no effect on her!”

  “We’ll be in big trouble once she fully awakens!”

  “Put her back to sleep! HURRY!!!”

  Obscured voices of several people ring while she slowly opens her eyes. The blurry sight greets her as some liquid obstructs her vision. The noise grows even louder.

  “Calm down,” a composed voice overpowers everyone else’s. “You all know Hol’s weakness by now. Cut off her oxygen supply.”

  She can barely see a number of people beyond the liquid and transparent glass that enclosed her. Soon, the subdued sounds of beeping machine starts to become clearer and louder. With her blurred vision, she can see wires and needles sticking in her body. She feels like she has lost control over her own arms because moving them feels extremely heavy. She reaches out in front only to feel the smooth glass casing.

  “This is taking too long; the subject might get her strength back sooner.”

  “Draw more blood.”

  She wants to break out but she cannot seem to muster any strength.

  “But we don’t need that much.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “U-understood-!”

  She begins to breath slower but deeper, gasping for more air. Her vision is darkening once again. The little senses she barely got back is leaving again.

  “I can’t breathe…”

  She wants to fight back but her strength is being drained away.

  “I can’t… breathe…”

  ∞×∞

  As her mind drifts back deeper into slumber, she starts to remember the circumstances that brought her into that situation.

  It is a memory she does not want to keep remembering but it keeps replaying in her mind due to a certain unpleasant feeling. Once it starts, it is hard to stop. The dread brought by her helplessness in certain situations is aggravating her.

  “I’m dead tired…”

  It has only been a few days since she left Aesbyl. She tried hard to lose the bounty hunters that were chasing her to take her head. She has gone deep into the mountainous area in the north-western part of the country of Osnar. There, she was just planning to quickly pass by however curiosity got the better of her. She noticed a part of the forest, where a demon territory is supposed to be located, is decaying. Er’Mojoso is an A-rank plant-type demon that specializes in poisons.

  Azalea decided to make a quick investigation and let the Hunter’s Council know about it. Unfortunately, upon looking into it closely, she realized that the situation is more serious than she originally thought. It turned out that the matter needed to be dealt with immediately. It is a difficult battle but at the same time the hunt also proceeded smoothly. She completed it at the same morning she started it.

  “So tired…”

  At this point, she has once again exhausted herself. She has no physical wounds however she has inhaled great amount of poison. It will not kill her however her health will be very low as Hol tries to get rid of the poison in her body. She is constantly running a fever while her body is healing herself.

  “I feel awful… It’s hard to breathe… My throat is dry…”

  Despite being sick from the demon’s poison Azalea continued to travel.

  When she is on her way to the nearest village, she has noticed groups of seemingly trained people following her. Their exact number is unknown. One group do not feel like the usual bounty hunters that have been chasing her around. Because of this, she decides to take a longer way to get to the village. Engaging in another battle in her condition will not be favorable. She tried to lose them on the way. However, it turned out that they are more skilled than she calculated because even though she tried her best to lose them, she failed repeatedly. One group seems to have split into two groups, taking turns to attack her. There is another group the only gets close to her location but never makes contact. She manages to get away before the battle gets serious. She needs to save up her strength and recover.

  While they take turns ambushing her, they also disturb monster territories and lure them towards her. These tactics eventually lead her to meeting and takin Q with her.

  She thought going to the nearest city to hide in the crowd would help her get away. She must find some stealthy space and hide herself. Unfortunately, the exhaustion of running away from the bounty hunters, fighting the demon and then once again running away from this group is kicking in. She has not gotten any decent rest for as long as she can remember. This group has anticipated this.

  She ended up slipping while jumping around from building to building of the city’s outer Zone-0. She then falls in some dark and filthy back alley. Old boxes, fruit peels, rotten food, wrappers, dirty pieces of papers or flyers, and more random garbage surrounded her.

  “Shit-… It smells rotten.” Those are the first words that came out of her mouth while she struggles to register the situation she got herself into. “Not very sanita-” She mumbles before she coughs up the blood. Her consciousness is fading away. “Gurgling my own blood late in the afternoon isn’t my idea of healthy either.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  From a distance, in that narrow alley, she feels a number of men marching towards her location. They have been tailing her since noon. She tried her best to lose them. But what are the chances that they might have been following her long before this day?

  She is lying motionless in that pile of garbage. Men in black arrive one by one. They are wearing a modern light armored suit, definitely meant for combat, human versus human. One of them looks straight down at her.

  “Give me a break…”

  “Azalea Blakewood?..” He asks with voice so deep.

  Azalea looks up with weary eyes, almost half asleep. She smiles, “I have no idea, I’m just a talking trash.”

  The man smirks before swiftly landing a kick on Azalea’s abdomen.

  “Holy shit-!!” She curses silently as her body curls down in pain. “M-my ribs… not this kind of break!”

  The man then pulls her leg before flinging her towards the wall.

  He sneers. “Mhm. Target acquired.” He takes out his communication device then proceeds to dial. “It’s fine even if she’s half dead, right?” He put his foot on Azalea’s head gently pressing on it.

  Azalea’s vision is starting to darken. She cannot move anymore as if all her strength has been drained away.

  “I haven’t caused any severe damage.” He sounds enthusiastic and bragging. “The package will be delivered in the arranged place within two hours.”

  Because Hol is slowly putting her to sleep in order to repair all the damage on her body, they are able to capture her with little to no fight at all.

  “When I wake up…”

  Before falling into deep sleep, the feeling of rage erupts but is contained inside her.

  “You’re fucking dead.”

  After that she can only remember herself waking up and then losing consciousness again several times in that laboratory.

  “I can’t breathe…”

  She wakes up half awake, feeling groggy in an unfamiliar place. She feels like her mind is floating while her body is encaged.

  It hurts.

  It hurts.

  It hurts.

  It hurts.

  It hurts.

  Fuck!

  Fuck!

  Fuck!

  It fucking hurts…

  Everything hurts.

  ∞×∞

  That time she is only able to escape with the help of Qin, Merchant Li’s son, and Renan, her master’s trusted friend. After losing contact with her, they are able to trace her whereabouts with the help of Q. That sabercat, no matter how much she tried to let it go and leave it behind, it always popped up and followed her as though it always knew where to find her.

  She also gets the feeling that it is the same for her. They just always know where to find each other. For that time, she feels greatly indebt to the little furry fellow.

  She remembers being awfully angry during that time that she blew up the laboratory after stealing all the data they gathered about her and their study about Hol. Even though she is sure that there is a back-up storage that the researchers must have already taken as they desperately run away from her overwhelming wrath, she still made sure that nothing of that place will ever be usable for them again. As a result, she left the laboratory in dust and rubbles.

  “Serves them right,” she tells herself as she recalls the unpleasant memories.

  Fortunately, her misfortunes bore some good things. She has given the data she stole to Qin and Rennan. They studied it for a while before bringing it to the blacksmith that crafts her staff and armor. It is currently being put to good use as it is being very helpful in crafting her customized new armor and weapon. With that data they could improve the seals and she will be able to fight with fewer repercussions when she unleashes her full power. Though those stuff will most likely go through tremendous trial-and-errors before she can actually make use of it.

  She is only lucky back then. Help came on time and they are able to find her. She sure does not want to go through that again.

  ∞×∞

  During her solo adventures, for her going to sleep has become harder.

  Sometimes she can no longer tell whether she is awake and is going through another hellish situation… Or maybe, she has fallen asleep and cannot break out of this nightmare.

  Sometimes she does not know anymore, why she is running away… and who or what it is she’s running away from.

  How long has it been since she had an uninterrupted sleep?

  The last time she had one was not a pleasant experience.

  No. Lately, every time she falls asleep was like waking up from a nightmare to face another nightmarish reality.

  This time again, she slowly opens her eyes. She still feels numb from that seemingly unending lurid dream. She ponders without moving a muscle trying to stay as calm as possible.

  Her breathing is slow.

  There is a throbbing pain in her right arm.

  She gathers her thought trying to make sense of her current situation.

  “Time can be tricky whenever I fall into deep sleep.”

  A familiar ceiling greets her, a soft bed in a bright room. The scent of bread and coffee lingers in the air. She lets out a deep breath. Her heartbeat races while the thought of not knowing what has happened while she was unconscious plagues her mind. Her breathing becomes heavier as she realizes that she have no idea how the world around her has changed this time.

  She feels like every time she falls into deep and long slumber, the situation around her changes for the worse.

  It might have started that time. When she woke up in the middle of the night and heard her mother argue with an unknown man. Then they have to move away. She was unsure whether she will see her father again. Her mother said no word of reuniting; she only smiled while her eyes looked incredibly sad. Sometimes, she could hear her cry softly when she wakes up in the middle of the night.

  Then, there was that time she and her mother got into a traffic accident. The next time she woke up, her mother has passed away. She was not even able to get a glimpse of her corpse.

  There was also that time when she desperately looked for help to save her friends in the orphanage. Due to exhaustion and to Hol’s mechanism that puts her to deep sleep to focus on completely healing her body, she lost valuable time. When she regained her consciousness, it was already too late.

  Maybe because of all those unpleasant experiences she has become afraid of falling completely asleep.

  Pulse is a great help, but it is a double-edged sword. It protects her as much as it cuts her.

  Since she learned and mastered Pulse from Master Lone, she never fell into deep sleep again; with the exception of the few times where she had life-threatening injuries while completely exhausting herself. It became worse when the incident in Aesbyl made her unable to turn it off. Those were scary experiences for her, just like that time she was caught and then taken into the laboratory.

  Waking up always makes her feel heavy inside, like dark clouds has accumulated in her chest. She wakes up anxious and internally panicking; taking away the feeling of “rest” as soon as she opens her eyes. Then, thoughts of having to deal with the world that has changed while her time has stopped resurface in her mind.

  “Was there ever a time when I felt refreshed after waking up?”

  It seems that she cannot remember the comfort of rest anymore.

  For her… No one would ever understand how frightening falling asleep is.

  After few minutes of blankly staring at the ceiling while gathering her thoughts, she finally pulls herself up to sit on the bed. She knows the place well. This time she is sure that she is in her room in Lillian’s place, the third floor of Mellow Out Café.

  However, there are still some things she cannot shake off.

  She can feel her hands shaking but she tries to conceal the feeling of terror within her. Her right arm is throbbing with unimaginable pain, but she tries to ignore it. The room has not changed much since she was last here. Well, except for one security camera in front of the bed. She notices the IV cannula attached to her arm. Meanwhile the throbbing pain on her left arm becomes more and more apparent that she cannot just ignore it.

  She observes the tone of the light that breaks through the curtains’ gap. By the color of it, she concludes that it is probably late in the afternoon. She needs to look for her phone, or anything that could tell the day and time.

  She turns to look around, when she notices a man sitting beside.

  “Good morning, Azalea.”

  Her eyes follow the source of the sound. “E… van… cross,” she mumbles, her words are almost inaudible.

  He smiles at her.

  Evan looks relaxed. His posture on the chair gives off an aura of relief. The way he looks at her displays sincere delight.

  It makes her wonder, what is he doing here, in Lillian’s place?

  For few seconds she dozed off. Her mind just feels blank, not knowing how to react. Of all people, he is the one to greet her first. Upon waking up, he is the first person she gets to see first. She does not know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

  While appearing as natural as she possibly can, she looks the man in the eye. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A month.”