Mostly Normal: Magic Cannot Cure Sickness

Chapter Ten: Goodbye, Color

Natalie groaned, sweat from her fever dropped off of her brow, she felt another roll of nausea wash over her and she sat straight up, not opening her eyes as she turned to the side, vomiting so hard the bile came out of her nose.

"Natalie," said an alarmed female voice, "Lie back down before you die, please?"

Natalie forced her eyes open. She nearly screamed.

"Holy Hera! What the Hades happened to the color?" she asked, nearly hysterical with the fact that all of the color had faded from her normally vibrant world, the only color that she saw was the orange lips of the other sickly demigods laying next to her.

"Lay back down!" the female voice called again, and this time the sick demigod fell back onto her bed.

A gray figure walked over to her bed, the demigod's posture regal. Natalie dimly recognized her colorless face as Reyna's, though the Roman praetor had the lower half of her face covered by a piece of cloth, so she looked sort of like a ninja. "R-Reyna," Natalie mumbled.

"Ninja, oh gods I'm so delirious," Natalie groaned, rolling over and placing her aching head on her pillow.

"Drink this," the praetor demanded, handing her a glass of water and a small pill.

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be commanding troops or something?" Natalie asked, gulping down the liquid as easily as she could, it hurt to swallow, she made a pained face and then wrinkled her nose as her body threatened to send the water back up.

"We're running short on medical personnel," Reyna said quickly and briskly before she went to tend to someone else.

Natalie couldn't bear the sight of only the color orange, so she shut her eyes, focusing on not throwing up. Her head hurt, and she was freezing cold. She shivered violently.

"Apex," shouted someone, "Get Miss Cornnan some more medicine and keep her warm!"

A familiar voice shouted back, "I'll be there as soon as I can. I just brought in Praetor Zhang."

Reyna's voice cursed. "Frank's infected?" she asked, her voice panicky, "Get him to a private ward! We need to put a quarantine on this place."

Natalie shivered, slowly drifting in and out of consciousness, her head throbbed and the words that everyone were saying made no sense, she couldn't understand anything. She curled up and hugged the blanket closer to her. After a moment, her body began to move on it's own, she swung her legs out of bed and began to walk back and forth across the infirmary, she was hallucinating, and she knew it, it was almost like she was in the back of her mind, letting someone else control the wheel.

Someone said something, she couldn't understand them, all she knew was she had to get home. Her brothers would be so scared, wondering what had happened to their sister while she was at Camp Jupiter.

A hand grasped her shoulder, pulling her back from the door, someone was saying something but Natalie could not understand. She tried to shrug off the hand but it was too strong.

"Nia," she cried, wanting to get back to her sister more than anything.

"Bed," the voice said, bringing her back to the bed and laying her down. She was restless as she made an attempt to sleep.

The person that had put her into bed placed a blanket on top of her, it wasn't too thin and it wasn't too smothery, so she snuggled up to it. The scratchy fabric chafed against her skin, but she didn't mind. She was cold. She needed warmth. She needed... Bea.

"I want Bea," she whispered, her throat hoarse and scratchy, forcing her to cough.

The person sighed, "I'll see what I can do," before they walked away, leaving her for the moment. When they returned, there was someone with them, leaning on the person very heavily.

"Bea?" Natalie questioned, the girl nodded and she slowly crawled into the bed, snuggled up to her friend, and they just lay there.

Natalie's headache began to clear, though her vision stayed black-and-white-and-orange, annoyingly enough. Bea's lips were orange as well, though not as vividly. Her black eyes looked alert.

"Stay?" Natalie asked through another coughing fit.

"Of course," Bea whispered, holding her friend closer.