Resisting The Reaper
The next couple of weeks were the worst Bailey had ever experienced. She had hot and cold flushes continually, first she felt burning hot and then she felt freezing cold. The flushes came fast and strong and she was exhausted but she couldn’t sleep. She kept coughing, hacking up thick green and yellow gunk from her throat and she found it difficult to breathe, the spit in her mouth was thick and disgusting, her tongue felt swollen and coated with slime. There was a weight on her chest. She couldn’t breathe through her nose and she could hardly breathe any better through her mouth, and she felt weak. Her eyes watered and she began sneezing constantly. When she did manage to get a few hours sleep nightmares plagued her and she more then once woke up screaming for Stranger.
Stranger hated feeling so helpless, but he did everything he could to keep Bailey calm, every time she began to panic, the coughing struck with full force and Stranger began to worry that she may be in such a panic that one of these times she wouldn’t be able to catch her breath.
He made sure she rested and drank enough, and after the first couple of nightmares he refused to leave Bailey alone, staying continually by her bed, talking about nothing and everything, always in a low, soothing tone. Bailey seemed only to be completely calm when Stranger was there, either talking or stroking her face, his snout buried in her hair, or even just so she could hear him breathing.
And then, thirteen days after Bailey had first become sick, her fever rose alarmingly. Her dreams became delirious and she could not tell what was real and what was not. She saw things that made her deathly afraid and she screamed and tried to get away. But Stranger’s voice forced it’s way through the living nightmare and held back the dreams. Bailey latched onto that voice and shivered.
Stranger held his Bailey desperately.
“Please Bailey, don’t die.” He murmured, “Don’t die and leave me alone.” He closed his eyes and pressed his nose into Bailey’s hair, smelling her warm, familiar scent. Tears leaked from under his eyelids and Stranger sobbed, holding in a howl of grief and rage. Over his Bailey’s smell, was the smell of death. Stranger growled and hugged the weak human. “You will not take her from me.” He growled ferally. “She is mine and you will not have her.”
At the door of the bedchamber, Daimen held a quietly sobbing Alika while Haigar held his little sister.
The night passed slowly and Stranger refused to move. And eventually, Bailey’s grip of life strengthened and she began to recover. She slept without the nightmares and breathing came easier. Her temperature lowered and she no longer shivered. Bailey would get better, Gershom assured, Bailey would recover, with time.
Even as she got better, Stranger became worse, the strain finally began to tell upon him and take it’s toll. While Bailey had been ailing, he had not left her side, he hadn’t eaten and he hadn’t slept well either with Bailey’s bad dreams and it was slowly wearing him out. No matter what Alika and Daimen said, they could not make him move, take food or drink and now he was suffering the consequences, slowly deteriorating before their eyes.
When Gershom came to check up on Bailey a few days later, he saw Stranger’s poor condition as soon as he laid eyes on him. He looked tired and older and greyer, he had dark circles around his eyes and the green in them wasn’t as bright and iridescent and he looked in need of a decent, square meal.
“You can’t go on like this Stranger.” Gershom admonished sternly, “You’re not invincible you know, making yourself ill by not looking after yourself will not help Bailey or you. Do both you and her a favour and go get some rest, Bailey’ll be fine.”
“I can’t leave ‘er on ‘er own.” Stranger insisted mulishly.
“You haven’t eaten properly in weeks!” the healer said, “You haven’t even got a decent sleep, you’re wearing yourself out Stranger. How do you think Bailey would feel when she finds out you became ill because of her? Think about it Stranger.”
Stranger would not listen and when Bailey finally woke up properly for the first time, she found Stranger just as ill as she had been. With much the same thing she had had. But a Steef strain of the flu virus. And just as Stranger had for her, now she stayed with him, he did not dream as she had, but relived memories that he had otherwise wished to forget…
Bailey stayed with him and soothed his fevered fears, but unlike Stranger she did not starve herself of victuals or sleep. So she retained her health while Stranger fought his illness. Bailey knew, with some deep down instinct that there would be a reckoning soon and things would come a head and she would need her strength. She knew that there was an enemy to be fought here, and if she didn’t fight and win, then Stranger would die.
It came one night, a few days later, Stranger had been weakening steadily, his breathing wheezed and rattled in his chest. Bailey sat on a chair by the bed, her arm across Stranger’s chest, head resting on the other arm and sleeping in a light doze.
Something made her stir, a sound that she didn’t hear, a breeze she couldn’t feel, something not entirely of the living world. Bailey raised her head.
A black mist hovered by the bed, a mist that moved slightly by an otherworldly wind that snagged and tugged at it like black robes. Bailey knew why he had come and what he had come for. Stranger lay on the bed, cold and pale, his breathing all but gone. Bailey tightened her grip on him.
“You can’t- can’t take him.” Bailey said, shaking her head.
“He belongs to me now.” The spectre hissed, not unpleasantly, but with finality.
“He belongs to
me.” Bailey snarled, “And you can’t have him. I will fight you if you try to take him from me.”
“You will lose.”
“Nevertheless, I will fight you. I will not give him up so easily. I will not let him go, not now. I will not let you have him.” The phantom seemed to cock his head thoughtfully to one side,
“I demand something for his life.” It said at length,
“You will have it.” Bailey said, “You shall have your life for a life, but you will have to wait.”
“I will not wait overlong. There is a war coming.” Bailey nodded slowly,
“If I have not given you your life when you ask for it, then you can take mine.” The spectre was silent for a moment then;
“I will agree to your terms, you understand little one, a deal with me is binding.”
“I understand.”
“So be it. Until the time comes…” the black mist faded and Bailey was left alone.
Stranger’s chest suddenly rose and fell with a natural rhythm as he breathed deep again, colour came back to his pale furry cheeks. His fever faded, his forehead was dry.
Stranger was recovering.