Spurned Queen

Chapter 5: Sickness

Lexi

I raced to the bathroom for the third time today as bile rushed up my throat. I heaved all the (minimal) food I had ingested back up into the toilet bowl. The force rattled me like a rag doll as my insides seemed to twist and squeeze in my belly.

I staggered to the sink.

My reflection looked terrible. My hair was knotted and unkempt; my skin was dry and red. My pale, ice blue eyes looked dull and sickly.

I stumbled on wobbly legs.

Two months. It had only been two months since I returned from the parallel world, and my whole existence had tilted ninety-one degrees. A very wrong angle.

My hands trembled as they splashed water in my mouth.

My eyes suddenly began leaking tears. Heat and cold washed over me in waves. The burning white eyes of my witch flashed on and off. As I blinked at my reflection, the sink beneath my fingers cracked, my powers splitting solid marble. I watched my tears splash into the broken bowl and I was forced to admit it.

I was sick. Terribly so.

I had never before, in all my 107 years, fallen ill. If this is what humans went through when they were sick, then humans had some of the worst luck possible.

My witch was in a frenzy, and I felt like she had kindled an inferno in my chest. At the same time, goosebumps crawled over my arms and my teeth chattered. Food absolutely refused to stay down, while spasms of pain ripped their way through my body.

It was torture.

Is this what is called a fever? Malaria?

My head hurt like a bitch.

It was too much. Something had to be done about the way I felt. I could bet my hair that this had never before happened to a werewolf.

I clawed my way to my bedroom door.

"Cindy!" I croaked down the stairs. Speaking felt like sandpaper scraping across my larynx.

"Yeah?!" she hollered back from the kitchen, her voice sounding painfully loud.

"I n-need help," I stammered over the link. "Urgently."

She sped up the stairs, a look of alarm pasted onto her face. When her eyes locked on me, it turned to an expression of pure horror.

"What the hell happened, Lexi?" she hissed.

Black dots entered my vision and I staggered to keep my balance. The floor seemed to sway.

She caught me. "Lex! Okay, stay put. Stop trying to speak, you'll only feel dizzier. Shit, I haven't seen this since the orphanage." I felt her lift my body and carry me back into the room. She laid me on the bed, and I quickly crawled under the sheets.

I shivered, the cold biting sharply.

Something damp and cool and soft was placed on my forehead.

"How does that feel?" She cooed gently.

"N-nice," I whispered.

Cindy wiped my face carefully with the cloths which she dipped in water to keep them cool. She continued speaking in low tones.

Eventually, I actually felt better. The world stopped swaying and the temperature was comfortable.

"What happened?" I asked Cindy. "Do you know what that was? Has it ever happened to you?"

"That is a sickness which occured in the orphanage where I grew up," she informed me. "It's called scarlet fever— or that's what they called it. Almost everyone caught that sickness. Those who didn't either stayed well away from those who did or had already caught it some time before in their lives. It was horrible; several died."