Trapped in the Fever

I don't know what was happening to me. The last thing that I remembered was sitting next to the stream and watching those images in my head like they were a movie. I had quite enjoyed them too.

However, after a while, I found myself unable to leave that dreamlike vision. And it was no longer pleasant to behold.

The elements that were swirling all around me had started to rage and work together. All of them were working to attack me in some way. The water was pushing at me and slapped against me like waves in the ocean. The fire kept coming at me like it was shooting me. The wind was buffeting me and making it hard for me to walk, and the earth had opened up to create a hole for me to fall into.

Again and again, they came at me until I did finally fall into the hole. I felt like I was falling for a long time before I landed in a heap in the dark. I was just thankful that I didn't feel any pain when I landed. I didn't want to be paralyzed again. I didn't want to have my ability to walk taken from me again.

"Hello?" I called out into a void of nothingness. That was all it seemed like to me. It was pitch black, so dark that I couldn't see anything. "Is anyone there?" I sort of hoped that there wasn't, who knew what kind of person would be waiting for me here inside this place. "HELLO!?" I called out again in a much louder voice.

At first there was nothing. At first it was like I was gone from the world with nothing and no one there for me ever again.

"Addie?" I thought I could hear Arthur's voice as my body shook vigorously. "Addie, you're burning up." My body was shaking again. Was there an earthquake? "Catherine, go get Dad. Tell him that Addie is sick."

"OK!"

After a moment of silence, I heard Arthur's voice again.

"Come on, Addie, wake up. Please wake up." He sounded upset and scared, but he didn't stop there. I could tell he picked me up and my body seemed weightless for a moment even though I was still on the floor wherever I was.

After that it was like all sound and sensation was cut off from me. I felt weightless the entire time and nothing about that changed. I couldn't see anything, hear anything, or even feel anything. It was all just nothingness.

I stayed in that nothingness for what felt like forever. I was beginning to go insane, I think, because I could see the old Addie, the one from earth.

"We're dying." She was sitting there in the big, motorized wheelchair that I used to ride in. "We're dying again and there is nothing that we can do about it."

"No, we're not dying. I don't want to die again." I know that I was whining and sounded like a little kid, but I couldn't help it, I was afraid.

"There is nothing we can do about it. Can't you feel the fever?" After that I felt like my whole body was on fire. I felt like I was literally standing in an oven but there were no flames and no smell of anything cooking.

"It's just a fever. I will just sleep and then I will get better. I just need to rest, that is all." My panicked voice was not trying to convince her though, I was trying to convince myself that I was going to be OK.

"We're dying, Addison, and you know it."

"No, Adelaide. I am not going to die again. I refuse to let that happen to me. I will fight it. I will stay strong. Mom and Dad will do something to help me, I just know it." My voice was shaking, and I was fighting back tears.

"Can they save us though? Do they know how to? We do not just have a fever. We're dying. They need to do something that most are incapable of."

"They will, I know they will." The tears started to flow then. I couldn't hold them back any longer.

"Will you accept the cost of them saving you? Will you take on whatever debt it is that they incur for saving your life? That is what you need to answer before you can wake up."

"What are you talking about? What debt? What will I have to pay?" The old Addie was starting to fade slightly, her wheelchair no longer looked as solid as it was before.

"There is no time to think about it or to explain. Will you take on the responsibility that saving your life will cost? Will you bear that burden as your own, no matter what the cost might be?"

"I will. I swear I will. I don't want to die just yet. I want to live longer. I want to see more things in this world. I don't want to die again."

The moment that I agreed to make the payment, whatever it might be, there was a flash of light. Well, two lights really. They were green and blue and reminded me of my eyes. It shone before me in a slow pulsing strobe for a few seconds before the old Addie started to talk again.

"Your promise has been accepted. Open your eyes Addie."

"What?" I didn't understand what she was saying to me.

"Open your eyes and live."

"How? Aren't my eyes open already?"

"Open your eyes now, Addie." She yelled at me and I was startled for a moment, but I did notice the faintest trace of light around my vision, like someone had a candle lit in a dark bedroom. What was that all about?

I scrunched my face up a little and tried to open my eyes, after what seemed like hours but was really only seconds, I managed to open my eyes and blink at the bright afternoon light around me.

"Mom? Dad?"