CHAPTER 17: The Fever

Trying to block out the hunger that was tormenting Aella inside proved to be harder than she thought, especially when the ominous figure named Bane kept on dropping fresh trays filled with delicious meals occasionally.

He would come as stealthily as a snake and slip back into the darkness just as fast, before she could even blink twice, he was gone.

She had no idea how he managed to pass the tray into the cell without opening the door but she always found a warm dish waiting for her at the end of the room.

It was driving her crazy.

When she didn't see any food except the ones she packed from home during her risky journey, her stomach had grown accustomed to shoving the hunger behind her belly and it made her stronger in terms of survival.

But seeing a freshly prepared meal and the aroma slipping into her nostrils every dying second made her stomach growl in protest.

She even had to stop her limbs from moving closer by clenching her fists tightly and restraining her hands behind her back.

If you eat, you die.

That was the only mantra in her head that she used to ward off the beast in her tummy but it seemed her mind was more appeased with dying after eating a sumptuous meal than starving to death.

Nine times.

It had been nine times that the figure had dropped a new tray of food for her, the latter always greater than the former. 

It seemed he had upgraded the standard of his cuisine in order to tempt her even further but she wasn't going to relent.

Even if every fibre of her brain pushed her towards the array of food.

Aella whimpered as a wave of nausea hit her for the fifth time in a row.

Her body was pressed against the cold stony ground and she had no energy left in her to pull herself up.

She gritted under her breath as she turned to lay on her back, her eyes facing the seemingly endless ceiling.

Aella groaned out as her body trembled violently.

She knew her body was burning up but she was feeling so cold at the same time.

Staying in the freezing cell with little to no source of heat had taken a toll on her already exhausted body, she made it even worse that she refused to eat.

Tears clouded her vision when she remembered the warm soup she always ate back at home whenever she was coming up with a fever. Will she ever get to taste it again?

Hopelessness gripped her neck tightly, so hard, she found it hard to breathe.

The scent of the herbal soup prepared for her at the other side of the room wafted into her nostrils and Aella sobbed silently.

She picked her body up slowly, knowing fully well that her limbs would fail her in no time.

As she crawled a millimetre forward, her body gave up momentum as her shivering spiked up more than usual.

Fear grasped her heart like a wave of turmoil.

Was she really going to die here? In a chilling coarse cell deserted about thousands of kilometres from home?

Just as a warm drop slipped out of her eyes, Aella felt the rest of her body pushing away from reality.

Her vision blurred before her whole world blacked out.

***

Her listless orbs peeked open just a narrow line as something propelled her bones forward. Aella frowned.

She was staring at an angular jaw of a dainty-made male.

He seemed to be carrying her somewhere because she vaguely felt her weight moving with a pair of arms behind her back and under her knees.

She would have tried to escape his surprisingly warm embrace but she realised she had little to no strength in her to even more a finger.

Pleased by the warmth he exuded, she buried her head into his chest as she let the drowsiness pull her back into a world where she felt no pain or sorrow.

When Aella peeled her eyes open again, she found herself staring right into a whiteboard. Her pacific eyes stared back until she deduced it was a ceiling.

But that deduction set her off in all the wrong directions. Her guard quickly went up. 

What was she doing in a room? Where was she? There was no way she was back at home, so where was this place?

Her limbs regained consciousness as well and she was prompted to move up from the white soft covers that shielded her frame.

She only felt a dull ache at the back of her head but other than that, she felt oddly fine in other parts of her body.

Quite the contrary to how badly she felt before she collapsed in the cell.

The cell?! She was no longer in the cell! Aella looked around in confusion.

Instead, she was now in a pristine room which looked neat and prime to the top. The room was quite empty save for the bed she was in, the wooden table by the side and the fireplace right in front of her which crackled lightly and brought warmth into the room.

No matter what, it was still an upgrade from where she first found herself in.

'Where is this place?'

Aella asked inwardly, her eyebrows knitting with each other.

Then she shifted her gaze to the corner of the room and she felt her entire body still with shock when she saw she wasn't alone in the room.

With his golden orbs staring right back at her with so much intensity, Aella found it hard to think, she could hardly even breathe.

Bane tilted his head and looked at her openly.