Ashes, Ashes

Liquid Death

- c h a p t e r   t w e n t y   t w o -

If Emma thought she'd been ill when she'd first admitted to her crimes to Molly, she didn't know what to think of what she was currently going through. If she were forced to choose a word (something she'd rather not think too hard on, due to the fact her head felt as if it might explode at any given moment), she would say she was dying.

Yes, she'd felt somewhat sick for about a week at this point in time - but now it had worsened significantly, and she couldn't see any particular reason why she felt so dreadful to begin with. She had never felt quite so limp and useless, and it terrified her. Her body was rebelling against her, and for no reason she could see.

She could hurl just out of the way her heart was palpitating and her vision was blurring. She didn't have the faintest idea what was oing on, and that couldn't help her in any way. Emma tried to calm herself down, but when there was so little reasoning for whatever was happening to her that she couldn't help but continue to panic.

There was no viable reason for her to be sick - or at least, she couldn't spot one. She spent so much of her time couped up within her own flat, and it wasn't as if she'd been passing her cello around. It just didn't make the slightest amount of sense to her, but she wasn't going to think through it. She felt far too dreadful to do such a thing as think through it.

Staying alone in her flat wouldn't help - as far as she knew, Florenz didn't know anything about human illness. If she stayed in this way, then she knew nothing could improve. Emma had to get herself to someone to help her. She needed help, even though she didn't want to reach out to anyone else.

She needed to get upstairs, as long as John was up there. He was a doctor. He could help her. If she texted or called, he would most likely ignore her...but he couldn't very well ignore a sick woman in the flesh, could he? He wouldn't be so cruel to do such a thing, even if Sherlock was right beside him the entire time.

Deciding this was her best shot at not passing out with no one to find her, she mde sure to suck in a deep breath and start pulling herself towards the door. Emma stayed on her feet the entire time, but it didn't take her long to start feeling herself falling over because her knees were too weak to keep her upright.

"What the hell is going on?" she squeaked to herself, as if the words spoken from her own lips to herself could end up being as comforting as someone else's effort. "What is happening to me?"

For a few moments, she remained on the ground on all fours, staring at the ground as if it could give her some sort of answer. She was right in front of the door, and she needed to get out. But could she manage to open the door and then go through from there? Emma felt as if she would sooner end up collapsing.

If she collapsed, no one would find her. She wouldn't get better.

She had to get out of her flat.

With this new motivation, she yanked the doorknob down and crawled out of her flat, not bothering to close the door behind her. She sat down at the foot of the stairs, cursing her decision to buy a flat on the basement level.

Emma began to reconsider her decision to start making a hike up the stairs to get to John. Even though he was most likely the only person who could diagnose her and also aid her at the moment, she wasn't sure she had the strength to climb up the stairs. She had a feeling she'd end up vomiting all over the stairs before she managed to scale them.

But she couldn't stay sitting on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, praying that John Watson would end up coming out of the door and spot her. She just needed to get up the stairs, and then she could be better. She had to convince herself of that much for certain.