FEARLESS

Chapter 5

finally..

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

Chapter 5

I wake up in the middle of the night completely sick. More sick than I ever remember being. I can taste the saliva too salty in my mouth. I stumble out the door and puke in the cold winter air. My lungs feel like they are freezing as I try to suck air in. My head feels like it is being split in half. I puke again.

Chocolate.

That is the one word running through my mind.

What did Olen do to me? Try and kill me.

I go in and out all night. Inside when it’s so cold I can’t stand it anymore and back outside almost immediately to throw up again. I try and eat some dried beef. No good. It reappears within minutes.

Why did he do this to me? I ask myself.

It's starting to get light. I know I'm delirious. I can hardly stand because the night has taken its toll on me. I feel so weak. I must pass out then because I'm not aware of anything until I suddenly wake up and see Olen staring down at me. I look around and realize it must be the middle of the afternoon.

"Mallory! What happened to you? You look awful." Olen says his eyes full of astonishment and viewing my messy state with a strange mixture of disgust and care.

My eyes flutter. Is this just a hallucination? He of all people should know what's wrong with me. My mind must not be working properly. I can't make sense of anything.

I can feel his hands on my face. Gently moving the hair from where it is stuck to my mouth and cheeks with vomit. He finds a cloth and using the bucket of water begins washing my face.

This doesn't make sense. Try and kill me than nurse me? I am way too confused.

I'm in and out, but mostly out of awareness. Finally I feel strong arms lift me and that's the last thing I remember until I wake up in a room that is completely white.

There are metal bars and contraptions around me and a needle with some sort of green liquid dripping down a tube from a bag into my arm. I rip the needle from the tube inserted into my arm. My mind feels so foggy. I hear something beeping and then Olen is standing there in front of me grabbing for my arms. I want to fight but I have no energy. He holds me down while someone dressed in all white with a mask on puts the needle back into the tube. I don't resist. I can't resist. Olen is still pinning me down as the thing in white stands back.

"Mallory, promise me if I let you go you'll sit there and rationally listen to me and NOT try to rip the needle out again?" Olen asks in a calm voice.

I nod and the pain from that small movement is excruciating.

"Okay" He lets go of me and sits on a stool with wheels.

"I don't know why you got so sick but I'll start from where I do know.” He stops and looks up at me. “Wait, what did you do after I left last night?"

I try to answer that I didn't do anything but slip out to the river and fill my water pail but I can’t seem to form words. Olen must have been able to see this because he says never mind he'd just go on.

"I didn't escape from the subways I was sent up there." He keeps our gazes locked waiting for my reaction.

I'm totally puzzled and manage to ask a question.

"What about the food and impatience?"

He looks around and then with a scared light in his eyes looks straight at me