Ward of the White Worm

The prediction from Theodore was right for when Olli opened her eyes next it was only briefly to squint into the too-bright sunlight filled room as her head throbbed and body painfully ached. She rolled onto her side away from the window and caught a brief glance of the shadow of a slender woman sitting in a chair nearby but the light on the wall was still too much for her eyes. She squeezed them shut and curled under the thick blankets as she shivered.

The sound of birds outside were like small needles digging into her brain with their loud happy tweeting. Creaking steps hit her like rocks. She pulled the pillow around her head despite its pigeon-like smell and grumbled, but even making a noise with her own mouth was too loud for her.

Warm thick callused hands held her own, pulling her onto her feet briefly. Then she was left laying down again, a filmy grease in her mouth.

She opened her eyes again to a dim reddish glow in her room, but could see little else but blurry shapes that might have been a chair and two people standing nearby. There was a large hand wrapped around her wrist with a finger and thumb pressed beneath her hand.

“Well, the pulse is certainly improving,” the voice sounded distant and was unfamiliar to her.

“Motzy said her complexion was improving and that she was holding down her food as well,” this voice belonged to Theodore she was sure even if it sounded like he was speaking underwater.

“What have you been feeding her?”

“Some bread boiled with beef broth.”

“Very good, very good, I would also advise perhaps a small amount of oatmeal with sherry as well-”

She closed her eyes, managing a short disgusted gurgle that felt warm before rolling over.

She was not dreaming. Olli simply fell into darkness with her mind barely aware of anything at all except for the deep oppressive ache in her body. Sometimes she would float back out of it long enough to see through bleary eyes the shape of a dancing fire, or a chair that an older woman was busily knitting at. She felt something hard push into her mouth at one point and pour warm mushy stuff in. The girl sputtered and tried to yank her head away but only succeeded in returning back to that state of darkness.

But then suddenly she was up.

She was vaguely aware she was wearing some sort of white dress, but her mind was focusing on getting out and finding… the thoughts tumbled away. She had gotten out of the bed at some point and had pushed open the door into a winding hallway that was only barely lit by the sun outside.

She walked quickly even though her legs felt sluggish. Olli felt like she had been in the halls before, but everything twisted around itself like squirming guts. She could not remember what direction she had come from.

Somehow she found stairs. The light from the sun was filtering in as a reddish color, throwing the railing as a sharp shadow that her body hesitated to touch for some reason.

Down, and further down the stairs Olli went. The steps creaked with muffled agony beneath each movement, becoming uneven and swaying her side to side. The sunlight was replaced by sparse oil lamps that looked like bubbles of smudged lights in her view. A rotting breeze ran over her, leaving a rank stench in her nose.

But finally, finally at the very bottom was a door. It stood resolutely and quietly with black wood and a carving of some sort of sinuous thing wrapped around a coffin, with a jumble of letters beneath it. The door handle felt rough, but the metal was cold that made her sink to her knees and rest her forehead against it, the chill pushing over her skin.

The door opened and she slumped downwards, her face smashing against the hard ground with enough force it became numb before she could truly feel the pain. She shakily sat up and looked into the room and found her eyes guided downwards by the swelling in her face. There were more stairs here, going down further into a dimly lit room where the shadows crouched over still bloating bodies. The disgusting smell slapped her in the face almost as hard as the floor had and a sharp pain from her stomach opened her mouth as her entire chest felt like it was squeezing her organs out.

Far below, something large shifted under the bodies, a snapping sound following it along with a wet ripping. The stench made her eyes water and something in the back of her mind told her she had to move. She backed away on her hands and knees, crawling back up the stairs.

Strong hands grabbed her and pulled her upwards, with one last retch that tasted like metal on her tongue she fell right back into the now comforting darkness.