Beforetime

Chapter 2

Something was tugging at the girl's soaking wet jeans while she was standing before the fire. Lorraine glanced down and realized that for the first time since they came in that Jonathan was with her.

He was hiding from the company present behind her legs looking rather frightened towards the four strangers in front of them. She reached down and grabbed ahold of his hand to reassure him.

     "Oh, poor dear. Would you all stop staring, you're scaring them to death!" The older woman exclaimed. "I am sorry, they don't have any manners!" She stated towards the doe eyed girl. "Ah! I've yet to introduce us to you two! I am Ethel, and this is my husband Charles, our eldest son Casey, and our youngest son Leslie." She said gesturing to the older man and the two younger ones. Casey was the rather burly and well built one that looked as if he could easily take someone down, while Leslie was more slender and sophisticated looking. "And this is Miss Lorraine and her younger brother Jonathan." She explained smiling at the pair of drenched siblings.

Lorraine attempted to smile back when she had the feeling of an oncoming sneeze. The sneeze started like any other normal sneeze but ended with a loud, high pitched "choo" that sounded a bit like a scream. After, the entire family before her looked as if she had just grown two heads.

"Bless you!" A small voice chimed from below her. She smiled down at Jonathan, "Thank y-" was all she managed to get out before she sneezed again.

Suddenly Lorraine was extremely lightheaded and reached out to grab something to steady herself before she were to faint as Leslie rushed over to her.

"It's okay, I'm a doctor." The man explained gently holding the girl up as she feebly attempted to push the strange man away. He guided her to a chair that she didn't notice was there before.

He placed his right hand on her scorching forehead feeling her temperature. "Get a thermometer she's burning up!" Leslie ordered, speaking as if he had done this a thousand times over.

Grabbing the thermometer from a foreign hand and putting it under my tongue, he did a once over of the strange girl in front of him as if what was wrong was written somewhere on her body. After a minute or so, he took the thermometer out of her mouth, "I thought so, fever of 101 degrees." He stated as if he were speaking to another person.

"Let's get you to bed dear." Ethel spoke with a hint of worry. Both she and Leslie led her up the stairs of the house which led to a seemingly long narrow hallway. They brought her into the second bedroom on the right.

It was a small, quaint room from what she could tell, but felt too ill to pay any attention to the details of it.

The next thing Lorraine knew, she was out of her soaking jeans that were on the verge of burning her skin and t shirt and into dry clothing and placed her in the bed. She welcomed the warmth on her freezing body and wanted to curl up in a fetal position to conserve her heat, but was stopped and stayed still in her board straight position. Leslie leaned over her with a damp cloth and patted it over her face while Ethel was fixing the sheets to perfection, which was futile since Lorraine was sure she was to ruin them. Charles, Casey, and Jonathan were at the door, all with worried expressions. Jonathan was hanging onto Charles while sucking his thumb. All she could think about was that that was a bad habit that Lorraine really needed to work with him on.

She turned her face back to Leslie's and looked into his eyes for the first time since he came downstairs only moments before. He had raven black hair with short bangs that swept across his forehead, and cornflower blue eyes. Along with that, he had high cheekbones, a roman nose, however, he didn't have a strong jawline, but he was still handsome in a classical sense.

Her vision started to blur and things seemed to go in and out of phase as she was losing her grip on consciousness. Lorraine attempted to fight the losing battle but to no avail. Her eyesight started to fade and the world around her began to darken until every thing went to black.