The Labyrinth *editing*

Chapter 6

 Thanks to forest898 for the help :)

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Paris was no better the next day when I woke up. He complained of his stomach ache, and there was a faint smell of vomit in the air, so I knew things had not been any better in the night. I began to get worried for him, and I found out things for the others were not going well either. Esmeralda was suffering the same illness as Paris. Apparently, she had had a small sip of the poisoned water, before she had known its treachery. I secretly hoped that Theseus had taken a huge gulp too, but he seemed fine, to my extreme disappointment. We were all hungry, and were becoming restless for food, though the Cretans did seem bent on keeping us starved. Little could be said to comfort the others, and nothing could be done to heal Paris and Esmeralda. Paris told us all that since he was going to die any way you look at it, he wanted me to kill him with my knife. Nobody said anything, which led me to believe that they all thought this was a reasonable request. I just told him to shut up and get some rest, as not give any ideas to the others. It seemed as the hours passed, our hope ebbed away slowly. I knew by midday that Paris was a goner. It would at least be a non-bloody death for my friend, who was too young to die. The sickness combined with the hunger and weakness was too much for tiny little Paris. Esmeralda seemed well on her way to the same thing. It was a horrible feeling, watching my friends die before my eyes, while I sat there, helpless, unable to help them. Maya tried anything and everything to heal them, but there was almost nothing. Leon found a few measly dried up leaves in the corners of his pockets in his chiton that may have been healing herbs at one time, but their healing juices had long since been lost, but Maya made them eat a few anyway, that did nothing. I wished Tiana were here. She could whip up a remedy out of nothing. That was how genius she was. But Tiana was home. I was not. We were hungry, so hungry, and thirsty as well. We were skin and bones, and our tongues would not moisten. Maya shakily announced that the best thing to do for Paris and Esmeralda was to try and keep the rats and roaches away from them. That was all we could do. Maya also said that maybe it would help if Paris threw up, and some of the infection with it, but his stomach was so hollow, there was nothing in there to dispose of. Esmeralda said she had already thrown up, but it did not seem to help. Paris was shaking uncontrollably, and when he tried to stand up, his knees buckled and his hands shook so badly that he looked as though he were shivering. I was sure Paris was going to die any second now. Then, a miracle happened. A Cretan official barged in, with a rough basket of bread. Well, it wasn't really bread. It was some sort of hard, lumpy, stale stuff that might have been bread once. He called it tack. But he set it on the table that had been in no use for the last week, and told us not to fight over them. We rushed to the table, except Paris, who tried to crawl before Maya plopped him back on the bed and told him she would bring him one. We all grabbed one and held it like gold. Once everyone had one, including Paris and Esmeralda, we found one extra. Even though nobody said so, we all knew that everyone else was thinking of fighting for it. But then Maya took charge of it, which nobody argued, because Maya was not the greedy type. The roll was too hard to break in half, so Maya asked for my knife. She cut the roll in half and gave one half to Paris, and one half to Esmeralda, since the sick people needed more strength to fight off the illness. We all knew this was fair, but we couldn't help thinking how nice it would be if we had had it. The tack was dry, hard and salty, so it did nothing to quench our thirst. I wanted to save some of mine for later, but I devoured it all without meaning to. The tack was a life saver, but we still needed drinkable liquid. The Cretans all thought we had a barrel of water, so I didn't see why they should bring us anymore. Maybe they will come in here later and find only dead people. Then they will have nobody to bring to the king. I hoped they would be beheaded for that. That night, we all lay down, our bellies, not full but at least partially satisfied. When I woke in the morning, I found nothing had changed. Paris still shook. I crossed the dirty floor to his bunk and sat there, stroking his hair out of his face and held one of his shaking hands, trying to calm them. He reminded me so much of little Hector, and maybe that is why I cared about him so much, just like he was my little brother. He was only ten, and easily one of the smallest ten year old boys in Athens. Paris seemed dead to the world, and did not seem to sense me there. I sat by his side because we all knew he was dying. Maya sat by Esmeralda, and we comforted both of them. The water was dubbed the Water of Death. Paris woke occasionally from a fitful sleep, sweating, shaking, panting, and ashen faced, murmuring indecipherable words, but they sounded frightened nonetheless. A day passed. Esmeralda got worse even than Paris, who didn't seem to be showing any progress, but was not getting noticeably worse. In the afternoon of what felt like the 100th day aboard, while the cabin more was hot and stuffy than usual, Maya had a nervous breakdown.