Telltale Signs

They were just standing in the middle of the room doing nothing. Her eyes darted back and forth from the door that he had easily walked through. Didn't the knights lock it up well?

To her surprise, after another long and meticulous glance, she saw the numerous locks were slashed in half along with the door wedges to make the door closed tightly tossed about.

With a closer look at the intruder with her heat beating out of her chest, Gwen narrowed her eyes to see that the person was swaying. Were they dancing? Perhaps it was a new trend that Gwen wasn't aware of.

Curbing the thought that was trying to be humorous, she racked her brain for a more logical answer considering that the man could be trying to be light on their feet. 

Honestly, she had no idea. Her eyes darted to the balcony with puffed-out cheeks to try not to breathe loudly. It was a moot point on her side since if the person in her room was a trained killer, she clearly had all the telltale signs of life.

Darting slid eyes over to the French doors with the locks lying obliterated once more, she could jump off the balcony if all else failed.

The intruder didn't have their weapon drawn since the sword was sheathed on their back, and she could see the outline of it well. The sword was large in girth and enormous in size which was a surprise considering that the person was overly huge in proportion. She could never hold such a weapon on her own with her lacking strength.

Touching the blade with the tips of her fingers, she tried her best to get a good grasp of the hilt, sweat beading on her forehead from the careful movements, but she was just a little too far to do so. She needed to stay quiet, but every time she scooted over to the side, the soft rustle of the blankets could be a dead giveaway.

Gwen slowly lifted her body to the left once again, stubborn in her ways, her hand shaking crazily with the contact she made with the object that could be her savior.

She was so close, wiggling her fingers only to freeze when the person took a few steps to the right, inching their way closer to the bed, and she could smell the wet leather along with the scent of blood that drenched the room. 

Biting down on her lips to keep whimpers from coming out, the fear that was settling in was visceral. In a split second when she had finally decided to dash, she couldn't let her decision be ambiguous. She needed to leave now.

Pushing all the covers off her body, she had just gotten up in the bed to take off when the person strode over to the foot of the bed.

Even when she was sitting up, the man completely towered over her. The dark figure loomed over her only to fall on top of her when he collapsed, pushing all of the air out of her body when they collided, rendering her immobile. 

The heavyweight crushed her, making her arm reach for the dagger and go limp as she struggled even further to get the dagger. It was impossible to move over now, and Gwen pushed at the weight, thrashing her feet and arching her back to no avail. She had no idea if this was a tactic, but death by suffocation of body weight was certainly a different way to go.

Nothing else ensued. Dragging in air through her nose, she cast her eyes to the ceiling watching the shadows come and go as the branches bent the way of the wind. The intruder could barely fit on the bed, and she saw how the person's legs were practically at the edge despite the bed being able to fit at least four people. 

She kept on trying to push at the person, but it was trying to push a boulder off of her. Gwen froze when she realized the intruder's chest was rising and falling. Her mouth dropped open.

What? Was he asleep? Wiggling her feet, she sighed and resigned to her fate. It didn't seem as though he wasn't waking up any time soon.

Gwen pressed her hand to the man's chest only to come away wet. She frowned as she put her hand to the window to see what it was because it clearly wasn't water. Dark crimson shone in the darkness, and Gwen gasped. The man was wounded. No wonder he couldn't stand up straight.

Wiping her hands down on her nightgown, she sighed out a breath and decided what she could do. She brought her hand back tentatively down to the wound again at the stomach to feel around.

There was a gaping slash in the flesh from what could only be a sword. Running down his body, she found another wound on his arm that was smaller.

Was he going to die if she left him unattended? Gwen wasn't sure. Then again, there wasn't much that she could physically do when she was rendered immobile.

Gwen debated on calling the knights outside, but there were more problems that would arise in the night after everyone had just retired. She was truly on the verge of shutting down.

The light was starting to pour in outside, drenching the room in a cool-colored, pale glow and it must have been much earlier in the midnight hours than she had first expected.

The sun tended to rise around five in the morning in Solaris considering that they had a full day of sun that greeted them most of the time if not all of the time. 

Her eyes fluttered closed, tiredness seeping into her bones as she tried to fight with her body. Opening her mouth after a split second of decision, she was about to shout out in warning but what came out was only a gust of a yawn. The warm and heavy body on top of her didn't help, instead only aiding her descent to sleep.