A Peony's Omen

Prologue

Her world was made of blood and pain. And stars. She looked one way, she saw stars. The other way, more stars. She wished they wouldn't disappear so quickly though. She lifted her head and an explosion of stars accompanied the pain. The stars were painful. But beauty is pain. And she'd rather see the beautiful stars than what was going on around her anyway. Sometimes, when the pain dulled the stars would leave, all she was left with was the dull ache between her ears, and the horror around her.

Sometimes that horror presented itself as blood. Blood on her clothes, blood on her hands, blood in her mouth, blood on everyone around her.

Sometimes the horror was low thrumming of med-droids moving around with their sharp needles and emotionless voices.

What scared her the most though was the claustrophobic room whose walls seemed to get just a little tighter with every new patient that had to be stuffed inside, and the sad reality that the number of new victims grew to a point where people weren't dying fast enough from letumosis to make room for newley infected patients.

She knew her time was close. She was in the last stage of the blue fever.

I just wish I could see my family one last time...
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That's it. She was about to die. She felt herself slipping in and out of consciousness. There was blood inside her throat, and no matter how much she tried to spit it out, it came right back. Eventually she was going to fall asleep and never wake up, unless she drowned in her own blood first.
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She was too far gone now to feel anything. At least that's what she thought until she felt fire snake it's way down her esophagus. She tried to spit it out, but something was pushing against her mouth, the opening of a vial. She felt the fire burn through tissue and bones as it spread through her whole body.

Her only wish now was to go back to the painless sleep.
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Quickly her feelings started to come back to her. The fire engulfing her skin got extinguished by the cold air in the room. She was no longer floating, and instead she could now feel the stiff mattress beneath her back.

She opened her eyes.

"Cinder?"
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A/N. I know it's short, but I'll try to make the chapters longer once I get back into writing again. I haven't written any fanfiction in a long time after all!
-CrimsonRubies