Chapter 20: Safe Yet Shattered

Sound came first.

A low, endless hum, voices, metal, crackling fire, blended into one long, suffocating drone. It pressed against his skull, vibrating in his teeth. Then came smell: smoke, ash, boiled herbs, blood, antiseptic. All of it heavy, cloying, wrong.

Then came the pain.

It slammed into him like a truck.

Jagger’s eyes flew open as his body lurched upright on instinct.

“HANNAH!”

The scream ripped his throat raw. His ribs detonated with white-hot agony. The world tilted, canvas walls and wooden poles lurching sideways. His vision fractured into shards of light and shadow. His hands clawed at empty air, reaching for someone who wasn’t there.

His upper body snapped forward too far. The cot tilted. He went with it.

The thin mattress flipped, dumping him halfway off the bed. His shoulder hit the dirt first, jarring his spine. A strangled sound tore from him as the impact shot sparks behind his eyes.

He ended up half on the cot, half on the ground, tangled in the blanket and bandages. For a heartbeat he didn’t know which way was up. His lungs seized, dragging in panicked, broken gasps that felt like swallowing glass.

The tent spun.

Canvas. Poles. Wooden crates. Shapes on other cots. Pale faces turned toward him, blurred and distant.

“Hey!” a voice gasped near him. “Shit… wait, don’t move!”

Hands reached for him.

He flinched like they were claws.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” he roared, batting them away. His arm screamed in protest, muscles locking, but he didn’t care. “GET BACK!”

His heart hammered like it was trying to escape his chest. Breath scraped in and out too fast, too shallow. His chest refused to expand. His fingers dug into the dirt floor, nails packing with dust.

The world shrank to noise and color.

Green skin. Yellow eyes. Jaws snapping at his throat.

Goblin blood. Hannah screaming his name.

“Jagger!”

He heard his name, but it sounded like it came from underwater.

A figure loomed over him, human, not goblin, but his brain didn’t care. A girl stared back at him, hazel eyes wide, hair pulled into a messy bun, loose strands glued to her forehead with sweat. She wore a black tank top, patched cargo pants, and a look of exhausted concern. Her skin was tanned, bruises speckled along her shoulders.

She reached again.

He scrambled back on all fours, bare feet sliding on the dirt. The blanket slipped from his hips halfway, bandages dragging against his skin. His back hit a wooden crate with a thunk, rattling glass inside.

“Get away,” he rasped, chest heaving. “Get away from me… where are they? Where…”

“Hey, relax.” The girl held both hands up, palms out. Her voice trembled but stayed firm. “You’re okay. You’re safe here.”

’Safe.’

The word didn’t make sense.

His gaze darted around wildly, hunting for threats.

No ruined aisles, no toppled shelves. No shattered glass storefront. No troll footsteps. No tar-black puddles.

Instead: rows of cots. People lying still, bandaged. A pot bubbling over a low flame. Sun leaking through a slit in the canvas roof. The gentle clink of glass bottles.

A tent. A camp.

His brain refused to accept it.

His stomach lurched.

He squeezed his eyes shut and the world behind them turned into a slideshow of nightmares.

The little girl’s mouth tearing too wide, as he laid there fully paralyzed. Tar-black liquid flooding his lungs. The burning orb sliding down his throat. Bones snapping. Skin splitting. Nerves screaming.

His body trembled so hard he could feel the vibration in his teeth.

Then another scene flickered. Goblins screaming as he ripped them apart, their blood covering his whole being.

His own laughter echoing back at him, high and manic and wrong.

He gagged.

His body folded forward over his arms. He dry-heaved onto the dirt, but nothing came up, only stomach acid scorching the back of his throat. A strangled sob escaped, shaking his entire frame. The blanket slipped dangerously low, barely clinging to his hips.

A voice cut through the haze.

“Just breathe!” the girl blurted, kneeling beside him. Her hands shot forward and she tugged the blanket up to cover him more properly.

Her touch hit him like an electric jolt.

He reflexively slapped her hand away with a wild swing.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

Her face crumpled, but she didn’t reach again. She backed up, hands visible, palms open.

“Okay,” she whispered, voice trembling but steady. “Okay. I won’t. You’re just… scaring the other patients. Please, breathe. There is no one here that will hurt you.”

He glanced past her.

A small crowd indeed had gathered. A man with a fully bandaged leg stared at him with narrowed eyes. An older woman clutched her blanket around her shoulders like armor. A teenage boy pressed against the far cot’s headboard, eyes wide.

Jagger’s throat spasmed.

“Wh… who are you? And where am I?” His voice came out cracked, ragged, paper-dry.

“Jane,” she said softly. “My name’s Jane. My group and I found you… unconscious in a grocery store pharmacy. And about where you are…” She eased her expression, almost apologetic. “We’re in a temporary settlement. A small camp.”

He swallowed, throat scraping like sandpaper. When he coughed, the sound was broken.

“How… long is ’a while’?”

Jane rose and moved toward a supply table. She grabbed a water bottle, unscrewed it with quick precision, and returned.

She held it out. “Drink.”

He stared at the bottle.

Then at her.

Then back at the bottle.

Her sigh was soft. “It’s just water.”

He took it, fingers shaking so hard the plastic crinkled. The moment the rim touched his lips, he tilted it back and drank greedily. Coolness washed down his throat, dripping onto his chest, soaking into the bandages. He didn’t care, it was the first good sensation he’d felt in days.

After several long gulps, he lowered it.

“About two days.” Jane finally answered.

Jagger’s knuckles went white around the bottle. His mind raced but came up with only static. Two days. He had lost two days. ’Hannah’s all alone… for two… no three days.’ The thought was so cold, so final, it felt like a physical blow.

“You took a brutal hit. Lynis’s Shield Bash nearly torn you in half. On top of whatever the hell you went through before we found you.” Her gaze drifted briefly to his chest, then away. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Lynis…?” The name echoed, tugging on a thread somewhere in the haze. “Who the fuck is Lynis?”

“Our tank,” she said. “One of my group members. Talks like he’s in a Singaporean sitcom.” She giggled.

Jagger gave her a confused look.

She waved him off, “You’ll understand when you meet him. Anyway, he hit you. Hard. You were… not yourself.”

A blurry image surfaced, his hands around someone’s neck, then someone shouting, “GET OFF HER!” A flash of metallic light. A shield glowing. Impact folding his chest inward. Flying, shelves collapsing, tasting blood.

He shifted slightly trying to get off the ground only to instantly regret it. Pain surged through him, white-hot and blinding. “MOTHERFUCKER!”

He collapsed back with a strangled groan.

“Woah stop moving for just a little, you are not in the best… ’attire’ to be moving around.” Jane said, gesturing to the blanket precariously hanging around his hips. “Your clothes were… bloodied and ripped in many places. We had to cut them off and remove them. So, you’re just wearing bandages. And a blanket.”

Jagger finally looked down at himself.

His torso was a canvas of clean white bandages, wrapped tightly around his chest and abdomen. They were professional, neat, tied with precise knots. More bandages covered parts of his arms. Every inch of exposed skin was a mottled map of bruises, angry purples, sickly yellows, deep reds. Cuts and scrapes dotted his skin like constellations. When he risked a glance down, the only thing covering his lower body was the thin wool blanket.

Heat flushed his neck.

He yanked the blanket around his waist, clutching it like a shield. The indignity was almost worse than the pain.

“G-get off the ground, you’re sitting in dirt.” Jane said, her cheeks tinting with pink as she turned her head.

She offered her arm.

Slowly, hesitantly, he reached up. Her grip was surprisingly strong. She pulled, and he staggered upright, using the cot for support. Every muscle screamed. His vision swam. He gritted his teeth, refusing to make a sound.

He laid back down heavily on the cot, the thin mattress groaning in protest. He pulled the blanket up to his chest, covering himself as much as possible. When Jane suddenly began tucking the blanket tight around him like a nurse. “There, you feel better.”

For a long second, he stared up at her in disbelief. ’Did she just tuck me in?’

Jane froze, realizing what she just did. Her cheek pink and mouth opened in embarrassment, but before she could say anything, the tent flap ripped open.

Porpo stood there barefoot, hair sticking out in wild tangles, wearing an oversized black shirt with a cartoon whale and shorts so baggy they nearly swallowed her. She held a tray of steaming bowls, and her face was a perfect picture of murderous irritation.

“Keep yelling,” Porpo said flatly, “and I’ll kill you myself, ass… hole.”

Her words died down as she blinked at the scene before her: Jane hovering above Jagger, cheeks pink, hands clutching the blanket. The silence stretched.

Jane jumped, whipping around so fast she nearly tripped. “Porpo! It’s not what it looks like! He was… he tried to sit up and…”

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