Re: Aelin and Open
When Cosima first woke to bright light and the smell of salt and the sound of the ocean, none of it quite processed. Her body accepted the comfortable change, the drastic improvement from hypothermia and exhaustion to a pleasant, resting state.
Her body accepted without fanfare, too, for the first time in months, health. Breathing without struggling; everything working as it ought to.
Her mind, on the other hand... She came more awake, and memories arrived--the island, Susan Duncan, Charlotte, terrible cold, and once again when she was sure she'd reached the end, Delphine.
"Delphine?"
And she came more awake, and that was when panic set in. No cold, no tent, no Charlotte, no Delphine, no cure, no.... No anything that made sense.
"Holy shit," that was her commentary. She lay, in the base layers she didn't actually wholly recall being stripped down to, flat on the warm sand. Not quite freaking out, but magnificently close. This didn't feel like delirium or hallucination. Clearly she was missing some crucial memories, between point A and here. Her job had to be to figure out the pieces between. It took her a few long minutes to sit up, and the tupperware was the first thing she fixed upon. She opened it, read the note, and swore.
It was, by far, the loudest sound she'd made yet--and it seemed to inspire motion somewhere down the beach. Cosima hadn't noticed anyone else until now, but there was another woman some twenty or thirtt yards away, who'd just turned toward her. And... Was she armed?