The Boy in the Basement

Chapter 13

"How far away is it?" Liesel asked as we walked down the street. The two of us were delivering washing, but not to our usual place. One of Mama's richer customers was donating some old clothes to a homeless shelter, and they had asked Mama to wash the clothes first. So she did, and now we were dropping them off.

"Not too much farther." I said. It took only 5 minutes to get there. The building was small, and you could tell from the outside that it wasn't very clean. But there wasn't much time to clean it, anyway. Too many homeless in there.

"You must be Adeline and Liesel." One of the workers said when we got there. 

"That's us." I said. 

"Alright, well, thank you for bringing these." She said.

"Do you want help organizing it?" I asked. From what I could tell, there weren't many workers, so I thought that they would want help.

"That would be wonderful." The woman said. "Thank you." We brought the washing to another room and began sorting it. Eventually, a little cat wandered in and began rubbing up against me.

"Sorry about him." The worker said. "He loves meeting new people."

"It's alright, I love cats." I began petting him. He was a little black cat.

Suddenly, a bug climbed onto my arm off of him and bit me. A little red dot appeared instantly. I reached over and scratched it; it had become itchy, too.

"Are you alright?" Liesel whispered to me.

"Ya, just a bite." I replied. We finished helping and then left. The whole time we were walking home, I was scratching that bite. The cat must have had fleas, or something. But it was just a little bite, I could handle it.

I never realized how bad it would get.

The first 5 days were the same. Just scratching. It was the 6th day that made me concerned. At first it was a headache. Not too bad, it's just that it wouldn't go away. But I wasn't about to give up.

When I woke up the 7th day, I was feeling sick. A bit nauseous, and sore. But I went to work anyway. It only got worse and worse, and my boss noticed around 1.

"You don't look so good, Adeline." He said. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"I'm fine." I lied.

"Go home. You need rest."

"Are you sure? I can finish the -"

"I'm positive. Go home." I nodded and left. Going home was a bit of a blur. Next think I knew, I was on the floor in the kitchen.

"Adeline? What's wrong?" Liesel was suddenly next to me.

"G-get Mama." I mumbled. This was because of that bite, I though. I was going to die. This was it.

~~~~~

*Liesel POV*

I had felt fear run though me as soon as Adeline fell to the floor. She was home early from work, and she didn't look good at all.

"Mama!" I called out. "Mama, come quick!"

"I'm busy." She replied.

"Please, Mama, it's an emergency! It's Adeline!"
"Stop Joking, Liesel, I'm busy." She said.

I ran into the room she was in and grabbed her arm. "I'm not joking. Adeline is sick, and it's so bad that she can't even get up off the floor. So I need you to come into the kitchen.

"Fine. You better be telling me the truth." She went into the kitchen and froze. Adeline was still on the floor, barely awake. "You were right..." Mama ran forward and knelt down next to her. "Go get your papa. I ran outside.