When Elizabeth woke from her slumber, she was surprised to be alive. She had survived the fire consuming her the night before!
It was hard to believe she had almost died the night before. She marvelled that she had wanted to die, that she had been prepared to sacrifice her life to a burning deep within her throat, and more so being mute. Slowly, she started to notice voices penetrating her cloud of silence, like a blanket swathed around her.
"Well, madam, it seems to me that from all the symptoms you have mentioned, this girl has the deadly disease, Influenza." affirmed a voice unknown to her. Elizabeth heard a few gasps, and decided it was better to pretend she had not yet woken.
After the relief of being alive had soaked in, Elizabeth's head was once again flooded with worries of death. She did not know much about the Influenza, but one of the things she knew about it was that it was a very dangerous disease, and ,as the unknown voice had just clearly stated, it was a common disease from which many people died. Elizabeth had never been scared of death; her life had been so uneventful so far that she had never had cause to be so. Nevertheless, now that she stopped and thought about it a sinking feeling filled her from head to toe. She would never be able to talk to anybody, or tell them how she felt, or even say a simple 'I love You'. Could death, would death, be a viable and simpler option?
