Cold.
Inayah felt a gust of cold night air brush across her body, and she in turn shivered uncontrollably. She felt ill, terribly so, eyelids laden with sickness and her body radiating heat like a brick.
It was the sound of a door slamming shut that forced mild consciousness into her trembling body with a low, struggling moan, she forced her eyelids open. Inayah was staring at something blank, a wall, she realized, and lay there unmoving.
Her head felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton, and a sudden wave of pain washed over her. It was exquisite, and debilitating even for her. It was the worst burning sensation she had ever experienced, even worse than the burn of the poker.
Inayah whimpered as her body shuddered violently, beaded sweat surfacing along her forehead and upper lip. Adrenaline had masked the injury for at least a little while, but now it was biting. In that moment, she wished she could pass out again but her body was fighting to stay awake.
She wanted to move, to turn, but even the mere thought of breathing that caused her chest to involuntarily rise sent a sharp surge of pain. Her body was burning up now, so hot the pillow and blanket all around her felt like an oven and she was baking inside.
Weakly, Inayah tenderly raised a hand and pushed the blanket away but stopped halfway as an electric shock of pain lurched up her side drawing a wretched cry. Her cheeks were wet. Pressing back onto the pillow, she lay there unmoving and waited for darkness to take her.
But even that was inescapable.
Inayah drifted off in bouts of fitful sleep.
She woke at some point to the sound of heavy footsteps just outside the wooden wall, the soft dragging of something, then passed out as the door creaked open.
Inayah woke again, this time on her back with the blankets and sheets drawn away from her body and a warm wet cloth placed over her feverish forehead. She stared at the ceiling in a daze of lucid murky thoughts, unable to comprehend if the ceiling was moving on its own or was it simply her.
She suddenly felt cold, and shivered slightly, clutching the blankets that lay across her lower abdomen and with a weak tug, drew them up before sleeping once again.
Pain is what woke her for the fourth time that day, or had it been day four? Six? The sensation was a sharp throbbing that kept time with her heart, like someone was poking repeatedly with a burning stick. Her cheeks were flushed with hectic spots, eyes watery with the onslaught of a peaking fever.
Then something moved to her right.
Too tired and weak to turn her head, Inayah listened to the figure as he drifted about the room in absolute silence. A soft tickling crept about the length of her chest, descending down to her lungs.
She coughed softly and the movement stopped.
Inayah lay still, somehow unable to ward off the stranger when the movements began to approach her. Her glazed over vision slanted sideways, meeting the face of a man she could not quite see through the mild darkness that drifted in the room.
Had she been well, and perhaps more alert, she would have fought him off however the medicine left her completely at his mercy and she silently prayed he was not a murderer of sorts.
A cool calloused hand cupped her cheek, then slowly drifted up to her forehead. Inayah sighed involuntarily at the welcoming coolness.
As though reading her mind, the figure reached for the blankets draped over her body and carefully peeled them away. Thank you, she wanted to say, but settled for another sigh of relief. Her throat felt brackish and raw.
The cloth lifted off her forehead and the figure withdrew.
Seconds later he was back and dabbing the cloth gently across her flushed neck. The cloth was wet and cold as he smoothed over the hectic skin of her cheeks, up her temples then back to her forehead where he placed it again.
His hand dropped away but he did not move.
Inayah could hear his faint breathing in the silence, feel his intent stare whilst she dipped in and out of consciousness. Just as she was about to finally release herself, she felt his hand slide beneath her neck and gently raise her off the pillow. A sound of protest escaped her as something was pressed against her lips.
“Drink,” the man commanded and her eyes opened, circuiting with unfamiliar golden ones. They glowed in the darkness, melting embers that pointedly dropped to the cup against her mouth.
With a sigh, Inayah opened her mouth just slightly and the cup tipped. The unexpected rush of cool water flooded her dried mouth and her wasted throat jerked with every gulp as she drank greedily. The cup pulled away from her mouth, replaced by a cloth which wiped whatever had spilled down her chin.
The hand that firmly held the back of her neck slowly lowered her back to the bed. Inayah shut her eyes in relief and sunk into the now cold pillow.
Sleep followed swiftly.
When she finally came to again, the room was dark and it was eerily silent. Inayah blinked at the ceiling, then slowly rolled onto her side, squinting through feverish eyes at the room before her.
It was a cottage, an open spaced one with a fire hearth in one corner that had long since died, faint glows of orange burnt out wood silently slumping against each other. A large wooden table, fur coats of all kinds - grotesque looking, hang on the walls, large boots set directly beneath them.
The bed she slept on was abnormally large and soft, stuffed with wool. Three hunting rifles hang by the walls, large butchering knives, bear traps, ropes - it was a hunter’s cabin, she realized.
Something stirred, drawing her attention towards another corner where a silhouette sat unmoving.
The figure was large, darkness itself enhancing his imposing demeanor. His body seemed endless, broad shoulders, long torso, longer legs stretched out before him. He sat on a wicker chair, a burning tobacco cigarette dangling precariously in one hand, the butt glowed in the darkness. Like his eyes which were currently pinning on her with steady discernment.
Despite the sickness, Inayah could tell he was no friend.
She could not speak, only watch.
The man shifted as he raised the cigarette to where his mouth should have been, she could not tell. The butt burned brighter for a flickering second before dying out as a puff of expertly thinned smoke drifted from his mouth, nostrils.
Silence was all that spoke for them.
“Do you wish for water?” The man suddenly spoke, his voice deeper than any she had ever heard - it was rough, grated, and trembled through her still bones startling even her addled brain.
Inayah swallowed the dryness in her throat, yes she wanted water yet for some reason the fear of him disallowed her to request it. She would have shook her head but the pounding between her brows made it impossible.
The man inhaled his cigarette one last time then rose from the chair, it creaked in protest. Whilst upright, the room suddenly felt far too small, yet he moved with graceful agility, as nimble as a cat, towards the main door.
It snapped open and he stepped outside.
With the faint slants of moonlight, Inayah was able to catch a brief glance of his profile; silver hair and a red scar that spread across his jaw upwards to the left side of his face.
That was all she saw before the door slammed shut.
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