Chapter 12: Quest
It all began at her fingertips!
At first, she thought it was just rage!The ticking! The itch!
But then the burning worsened.Her throat burned, and her stomach churned as if her insides were trying to claw their way out. Sweat pooled at her temples, her skin feverish, damp, and tingling with a sensation that wasn’t quite pain...but wasn’t anything close to normal either.
Autumn sprawled on the floor, fingers twitching, nails scraping against the rough wood. At first, those scratch marks looked like mindless strokes...just angry, desperate marks left by a caged animal.
But then, as the hours bled into days, the patterns emerged.Clawed lines twisted into jagged spirals, overlapping like the veins of a leaf, or perhaps the branches of a dead tree.
She did not remember doing it. Did not even realize what she had been doing until she blinked and saw the same design repeated on the walls, the floor, even the underside of the cot.
Three days.
Three whole days without food. Without water.
And yet...she was not thirsty. Was not hungry.
Just angry. A slow burning, all consuming rage that kept her awake even as her body should have been screaming for sustenance.
"What the hell did he make me drink?" She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, teeth gritted.The silence was worse than the dark.