Crash—Crash—
The sound of crashing waves echoed in my ears.
Drip—Drip—
Clear water fell on my cracked lips.
I felt as if I had been saved, my parched soul was regaining moisture.
Shadows fell before .
I opened my dry eyes, vaguely seeing the outline of a white dress standing beside .
"Anna?"
I couldn’t help but call her na, but only I could hear my voice.
There was no response, and the blurred outline gradually vanished.
Anxious to sit up, a drop of water suddenly splashed into my eye, moistening my dry eyeball. I blinked, enduring the gritty sensation, and opened my eyes again to see the yellowed ceiling through the hole in the second-floor floor, hearing the rustling wind and rain outside, and feeling the puddles push like waves in the shallows.
The rainwater had revived my withered body;
The few centiters of sunken flooring had saved my life, preventing from drowning in ankle-deep water while unconscious;
The dicine had alleviated so of my ailnts; I wasn’t sure if there were painkillers, antidiarrheal, or anti-inflammatory drugs in them.
I hoped it was the latter because that would an I was overcoming the illness. It should be the latter, as tidal waves of pain washed over .
Enduring fatigue, weakness, dizziness, and the muscle-tearing pain, I sat up from the water, the cold air raising goosebumps on my skin, tempting to return to the warm water, but the corpse-like pale, swollen skin told not to do so.
The sound in my ears was weak and distorted, like a radio with static, so I turned my head and patted my ear, shaking my head like a wet dog shaking its fur. Before my brain was scrambled, a warm flow oozed from my ear canal, and I once again heard the pattering of rain outside, the splashing of water against walls.
Stirring through the water to get up, I found the pills in the dicine box in my pocket had vanished, likely dissolved in the water long ago. All I had left was a wet candle in my pocket.
Searching through the water, I rembered the book but only dredged up so fibrous, indeterminate materials. I feared only a rewind of ti could restore the pills and the book.
I could only hope the dication had suppressed the illness, and waded through the warm water toward the door. Although I was completely soaked from head to foot, my mouth and eyes were still unbearably dry, eyelids like sandpaper against my eyeballs every ti I blinked.
Moistening my lips, I longed for sothing to drink, but the painful ordeal of last night was not sothing I wanted to repeat. Supporting myself against the doorfra, I gazed at the indistinct, sedint-laden clouds, hard to distinguish between morning and afternoon.
It shouldn’t have been short, given that my skin beneath my clothes and on my palms was pale and wrinkled like a corpse washed ashore.
The rain wasn’t heavy, and the damp bluestone path only held accumulated water in its troughs, but in Belfast, the rain could change in an instant. I left the clinic before the downpour started, bearing my weak, healing body back to the Long House.
The houses standing on either side of the road were somber and silent, making uneasy. The leaden lines of rain seed to twist my sight, writhing at the edges of my peripheral vision. Before my unease peaked, I was back at the run-down, filthy, but to , safe and grounding Long House.
I climbed through the window into a dim room. Whether it was a cold or not, I couldn’t sll the room’s stench, or maybe it was because, in the end, only water remained.
Using the faint light filtering in, I walked into the kitchen. There was no hint of light from the stove. Touching the iron cover, I felt it barely warm, kindling a glimr of hope within . Opening the stove cover, I poked at the ashes with a stick, watched as the charcoal-shaped ashes collapsed, the core catching air and lighting up like a burning cigar.
This ant I wouldn’t have to go through the effort of starting a fire with a hand drill again.
The wind outside whimpered through the window fra as I placed dry, flammable cloth and wood shavings as tinder in the ashes, blowing gently until they caught fire, then adding small pieces of wood.
Ensuring the stove wouldn’t go out, I discarded the iron canisters and wooden bowls, which only reminded of pain. As for the kerosene barrel, I was too exhausted to move it, so it remained in the corner.
I moved the makeshift distiller under the eaves for cleaning, then returned it to the stove, placing an iron can to collect rainwater.
Rainwater was safe to drink; as a child, I’d often tilt my head back during rainstorms with my mouth open, but given my unfinished recovery and last night’s looming shadow, I had to distill the water first before drinking it.
I stoked the stove strongly enough to prevent catching a cold or fever.
With ti on my hands, I realized I needed water and food.
Water could co from the rain; as for food, I didn’t know where to start, but with my experience in Love Lorraine, as long as there was water, I could go a few days without food.
The first cup of distilled water filled a clay bowl, and when I lifted the wooden bowl, I seed to sll kerosene, but it was my stuffy nose that prevented from slling anything.
Thinking that if even the distilled rainwater wasn’t drinkable, I wouldn’t survive, I decisively drank the lukewarm water. My body soon ward, breaking into a sweat, with no discomfort, and even cleared my nasal passage sowhat.
I didn’t drink the second bowl of distilled water; instead, I removed my soaked clothes and boots, wringing them dry and laying them around the stove.
Sitting naked by the stove, I felt like an aboriginal in the Tillage Garden. Only then did I realize how bad my condition was.
The palm under the bandages was nearly festering, the gash on my calf, slashed by the staircase, was gaping and grotesque, while the skin soaked to near transparency, any slight movent would send a sharp pain through my chest. I hoped my ribs weren’t broken or my internal organs bleeding.
I was lucky to have found dication at the clinic; it surely included antidiarrheal, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, and pain-relief effects.
The silver ring on my middle finger pinched painfully, so I temporarily took it off. There were many things I couldn’t rember, only that it was significant, so I placed it beside .
The second bottle of distilled water was used to clean my wounds, the third to boil bandages, and once dried, I wrapped them around my calf and palm wounds before drinking the fourth bottle.
The sky dimd again; night was approaching.
As my body gradually ward, I began feeling hungry, sitting by the stove, staring at the dim light outside, fantasizing about fish falling from the sky, wild chocolates growing in the mud, and buttery bread flying in from afar.
This kind of divergent thinking helped montarily forget my hunger and hypnagogia.
Sealing the window, placing enough coal to burn until tomorrow in the stove, I slowly fell asleep by the fire.
Waking briefly, I rely adjusted my sleeping position, listening to the comforting sound of rain gnawing at the Long House outside, and drifted back to sleep.
When I awoke again, morning light filtered into the kitchen.
Feeling much better than the day before, I stretched lazily, but suddenly, a profound fear seized . I saw fine holes on the walls and ceiling, like eyeballs, filtering in faint light.
This discovery made my blood run cold.
All I could imagine was that during the dead of the night, so horrifying creature lurked outside the house, next door, or in the ceiling, watching from the cracks all night long.
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