Saving Mattie (nh)

Chapter 19: Nine-Nine-Nine

When I finally woke up, the first thing I noticed was the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, writhing in my gut. Hunger. Pure, raging hunger. I groaned, the feeling so intense it was almost painful, as I struggled to sit up. My head spun, my eyes blurry. I didn't know how I hadn't felt the hunger before, I had been unconscious for two days after I'd been... Abducted.

Abducted. The word rolled off my tongue weirdly. It felt foreign, a word that should have never been applied to myself, my life. But it was the truth. I never thought my own mother would be my own abductor.

My stomach churned, and I clutched it, groaning. The material of my now tattered and filthy shirt slid between my pudgy fingers, making me shiver. My head felt fuzzy, like it was packed with cotton balls, but I felt sleepy. I was cold, my fingers and toes trembling. My tongue was also incredibly dry, like sandpaper in my mouth. It felt too large, almost flopping out of my mouth. I'd kill for a glass of water. Something tugged at the back of my mind, but I couldn't concentrate, couldn't pull the thought to the front of my mind. I wanted to remember, strained to pull it up, but my mind would continuously wander to food. Mouthwatering roast beef and gravy, a cup of peppermint tea, starfruit. The flavours darted across my tongue, making my mouth water. I longed to eat, fill my complaining stomach. I couldn't focus on anything else, the hunger making me feel like my insides were shriveling up. I felt hollow, but felt... bloated.

It clicked. My eyes flew open, and I gasped. I was starving, and dehydrated. The pudgy, swollen fingers. The inability to focus. Dizziness. The painful hunger. They were all symptoms. How I had missed it, I had no idea. I learned about this stuff in one of my classes, back in sixth form.

Sixth form. I wondered. It felt like an eternity ago that I was actually there. How long has it been?

No. I needed to focus.

I couldn't concentrate, coudn't comprehend what was going on. Starvation and dehydration had never been a problem to me, even though Mum and I were quite poor. We always had something to eat, be it sandwich or just a piece of stale bread. We were never starving. I suppose the symptoms were so prominent because rather than be weaned off of food, I ate a little less than normal when I lived with Mum, then every day was a buffet of new, exotic food with Niall, and now I was cut off. Completely. My diet had rapidly changed in these past few weeks.

My mind was fuzzy, and instantly I was distracted again, against my will. My eyes focused on a crack in the wall. I felt like my mind was deteriorating, I was loosing the ability to control my thoughts. I was going insane.

My mind drifted once again, against my will. Of course, it drifted to him. The way the light had shone, glinted off his beautiful, blue eyes. How the little blonde hairs had stuck out of his hat. His laugh. His smile. His abitity to make me blush with a glance. The firey feeling when we kissed. Him. He was amazing.

I didn't want to stop recalling the happy memories of him, but I needed to. I needed to figure out how I'd get through this. I had no food, I was parched, and I didn't know how I would even manage to stay alive like this.

***

I was tired. Really, really tired. Hours had passed, and by now my mind was mush. I knew I was in the extreme levels of starvation. Over the past hours, I had lost the ability to spit on the ground, let alone in my mouth, my stomach has begun distending, and I had hallucinated that the crack in a cinderblock was an entrance to a prison (Although I blame that on Dr. Who). I felt so incredibly drained, but I hadn't moved in ages, not wanting to drain my precious energy.

I licked my lips, not even knowing why. Must've been a reflex, I guess. I had run out of spit to quench my chapped lips long ago. They were cracked, on the verge of bleeding, but I kept them still.