Into the Darkness

Chapter Thirteen

“Sasha? Are you okay? Sasha?”

I opened my bleary eyes to Jared’s worried face. I raised my head a fraction, then immediately lowered it again, my cheek resting against my soft down comforter. The squashy material didn’t help my pounding headache. I moaned.

 “Sasha?”

 “I’m alive, Jared, please stop yelling in my ear.”

 “Okay, but do we need to go to the hospital? You don’t look good.”

 Knowing that Jared was prone to over-reacting, I closed my eyes again. “Aspirin.”

 “Yup, sure, you got it!”

 I sat up slowly, my head swimming in dizzy circles, to receive a glass of water and two white pills. After swallowing those down, I steadied myself against the nightstand. I felt like I had a fever. My skin was oversensitive, my forehead slick with sweat, and my body shivering with cold. Every muscle ached to the bone, my hands shook, and my head pounded. I also might…

 I barely made it to the toilet.

 Hanging with my head half a foot from my dinner, I sprawled out, still shivering, waiting for the next wave of…

 “Do you want me to hold your hair?”

 I waved Jared away as I dry heaved. After I finished, another feeling washed over me.

 “Get out, quick!” I screamed, needing to swap ends.

 As Jared sprinted from the bathroom, not arguing with the next wave of bodily fluid to pay homage to the porcelain god, I started a marathon of moaning. I felt like I was dying.

 And if I wasn’t dying, I wanted to.

 “Sasha, we gotta get outta here!” Jared screamed through the door.

 “I can’t go far without creating a very messy trail of bread crumbs…”

 “He’s here! That big one! He’s here!”

 Fear pierced my gut. It wasn’t the only thing. I definitely wasn’t moving. “Who? Which guy?”

 “The one they are all scared of!”

 I pushed the wind out of my lungs in a huge sigh of relief. The Boss. Then I moaned, leaning against the wall in utter misery. Even if it had been Jonas, I wouldn’t be able to do much. I wouldn’t even be able to move off the toilet.

 A horrible bang permeated the door to the bathroom, a follow-up chorus of wood splintering. Male shouting competed with my moans of agony. My vision wavered and my thoughts muddled. I was getting worse.

 The door next to me burst open, the hinges cracking and frame splintering. I barely heard the thud even though I was three feet away, shivering on the toilet. The Boss stood over me, some sort of accusation on his lips, before his eyebrows dipped low over his eyes.

 “While this situation probably couldn’t get much worse, you are certainly making it ten times more awkward,” I slurred, barely able to keep my eyes open. My arms hung loose at my sides, dragging my shoulders down like weights.

 “What’s happened?” He bent to me, opening my right eye with his big thumb and finger.

 “Careful,” I warned, trying to pull my head away.

 I felt my head clutched in his mighty paw before I, once again, lost consciousness.

  

“C’mon Sasha, take a sip. Just a sip, Sasha, c’mon.”

 My head lolled across a large shoulder. I couldn’t feel my body. It was light outside, the sun’s rays filtered through heavy curtains, sprinkling my face.

 “C’mon now, sweetie, drink a little.”

 What felt like skin pressed against my lips, a warm liquid dripping into my mouth. I tried to move away from the salty, metallic taste, but I had no strength. More of the substance oozed between my lips, my throat involuntarily gulping it down to clear it from choking me.

 More dribbled into my mouth, filling it up, before I swallowed again. And again. Warmth started to spread throughout my chest, making my limbs tingle.

 “That’s enough,” a man’s voice said to my right. “She is unused to this. We don’t want her body to reject it. She’ll surely die, then.”

 I knew a moment of panic before sleep gobbled me up.