Chapter 46
When she first awoke, Olivia was merely aware of birdsong; that incredible chorus that lifts the heart, the spirits.
That signals the start of a new day. However, it was not really properly light, she remembers.
Day had not yet broken, as far as her sleep-deprived brain could tell.
Was the sun coming up or was it a different kind of light igniting the sky in soft yellow and peachy tones?
She had closed her eyes and listened for a few moments, marvelling at the distinct call of each different bird as it announced to the world that ‘I am here, I am alive, I have survived the night’.
And yet perhaps they had been mistaken, hoodwinked by a false dawn, just as she herself had been.
Then another feeling had overtaken this sense of wonder, quickly followed by another and another; pain, confusion, panic, guilt.
The pain was manifest, all over her body.
In her back, her neck, a numbness in her hands and feet.
A terrible nauseating feeling in her stomach and a sharp, shooting pain in her temples.
Where was she? What was she doing here? Memory, logic, all comprehension of the facts seemed to have abandoned her.
Her surroundings were so incongruous, her brain couldn’t make sense of it.
And then came the fear. The concept of danger flooding her consciousness, lighting up her synapses like a circuit board. She needed to get up, get out. Before it was too late.
She had leaned over then to see Marcus, lying beside her.
To all intents and purposes, dead to the world.
How, she had wondered. How on earth had she found herself here, in this moment, with this person?
A man she hardly knew, who was a mystery to everyone, including himself it seemed, if she was really honest.
Honesty. It is a bizarre, abstract concept to her these days, after everything that has happened.
What would she say to her loved ones if they saw her now?
How would she explain? She couldn’t. There is nothing to say.
Which is why she must get moving now, find a way to escape this dawning nightmare, a spell somehow finally broken by the dreadful situation she finds herself in.
She tries to sit up but her head spins, a bolt of nausea threatening to overcome her, her stomach roiling like the sea so close and yet so far.
She wishes she was down by the beach now.
Always her happy place, in the water, she craves the feel of the waves now more than ever.
To wash herself clean, renew her, to take away these feelings of shame and guilt.
Again she makes to move, to push herself up onto her elbows, to work blood into her muscles, bring her stiff body back to life.
But it is useless. She attempts to open her eyes, to focus on her surroundings, which swim in and out of her field of vision.
Her brain is addled, her senses dulled and she feels her eyes closing again, a bank of darkness engulfing her.
The irresistible temptation to lie, rest, sleep and submit.
To give in to the overwhelming blackness that surrounds her.