Chapter 253: Fever and a Familiar Woman 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

The room smelled of damp earth and old pages, a thin sourness that rode the air with every shallow breath Sophia took. Books lay everywhere—stacked on the floor, heaped on the single chair, falling over across the bedspread.

She could see the random curve of a faded spine, the gold flecks of a title worn thin, a loose leaf pressed between two volumes like a little brown flag. The place was familiar in a way that tugged at some private place inside her; she knew she had been here before. Knew—without being able to say how—that this room belonged to her.

The room was comforting. The feeling beneath her bones told her it was her safe space. But even that thought wasn’t able to fill her with relief. Instead, it filled her with dread.

Her skin was clammy and hot. She tried to move her hand, but her limbs refused to obey her. The linen on the bed felt like it was burning through her skin, but she still couldn’t muster the strength to stand up, to get up. She tasted metal when she swallowed, and each breath came in small, ragged pieces.

A wet cloth lay across her forehead. It was sodden and cold against her temples; the weight of it was the only anchor that kept her from slipping entirely into the dark. She slipped between consciousness, sleep threatening to take over her, but she couldn’t let it—even if the battle was a tough one.

She was halfway between moments—opening her eyes, closing them, thinking she saw the window and then losing it. Time thinned. One breath might be minutes, another could be a second.

Footsteps came then—soft, deliberate, the way someone walks when they mean to be heard but do not want to hurry. Her heart stuttered. She knew that step. The ache in her chest gave a sharp, useless stab of hope; she tried to turn her head, to focus, to see.

The woman sat on the small stool by the bed with no flourish, as if she had always been part of the furniture. The stool groaned slightly beneath her weight. Sophia’s vision was blurry. She could hardly make out how this woman looked. But even with that, she could get some things clearly, like the woman’s hair. It was long and black and extremely pretty.

Sophia felt a tug of jealousy in her chest, wishing that her hair was more like the woman’s own.

"I’m trying to determine if I like you sick or not." The woman spoke calmly, but the voice instilled a bout of fear in Sophia.

She tried to shift, to give space between her and the woman, but her body didn’t obey. It was rooted.

"Are you scared of me?" the woman asked her.

Instead of answering the question, Sophia croaked out, "I’m sorry."

Sophia didn’t need to be told that the woman was annoyed with her. She should not have apologized.

"You’re sorry?" the woman said and then scoffed loudly. "Those words don’t even deserve to be out of your mouth. You wanted to learn to fight, right? Go back out. Go under the rain and continue."

"I’m sorry," Sophia cried out.

"You’re crying," the woman pointed out. "I don’t want to see those tears."

Sophia tried to stop the tears immediately, hiccuping as she did so.

"You know I love you, right?" the woman asked Sophia.

Sophia nodded—or tried to—her limbs felt too heavy to move.

"You will answer me with words!" the woman said sternly.

"Yes," Sophia said softly.

The woman leaned in and removed the wet cloth from Sophia’s head.

"I’m doing everything for your own good. You are only in this place because I love you," the woman said, rubbing her hands on Sophia’s now vacant head.

"Please..." Sophia fought to say the words. "Are... are my friends okay?"

The woman’s hands stilled and she retracted them, then crossed her legs.

"What friends? The ones you were playing with?" the woman asked Sophia.

"Yes, ma."

"I’ve told you numerous times, you should be careful with what you do. Now because of you, two innocent souls are dead," the woman said calmly.

Sophia gasped in shock. She tried to hold it in, but she couldn’t. The tears started pouring out of her eyes uncontrollably.

"I’m sorry," Sophia cried. "Don’t kill them, please. I was the one who wanted to be under the rain. It’s because of me. I’m sorry... I’m sorry."

"What are you sorry for? It’s not like they knew who you were. And besides, sorry will not bring them back after all. You killed them. You don’t get to be sorry after you’ve killed them. After you made them lose their lives just because of your selfishness," the woman told her coldly.

"I’m not going to do it again."

The woman tilted her head. "What are you not going to do? What did you do wrong?"

"I played under the rain. I played with my friends," Sophia told the woman.

The woman scoffed. "Playing with your friends isn’t the issue here, Sophia. You falling sick when I asked you to do something is the issue. You know how much I hate when people around me fall sick, and now you decide to do so."

The woman spoke like Sophia had caused the fever herself. She spoke like everything that happened was because of Sophia and not because it was inevitable, especially when Sophia wasn’t getting much food to eat or even eating healthy at that. She failed to take in the fact that it was her fault that Sophia was sick and not because of Sophia at all.

"I’m sorry," Sophia cried, not minding the fact that everything the woman told her made little sense and that it wasn’t her fault at all.

"Your sorry isn’t going to do anything after all," the woman said as she stood up from the stool. "Better hurry and get well soon. You have work to do for me after all."

Sophia stared at the woman’s back, calling out to her, begging her to forgive her for being sick. She even tried sitting up at some point but collapsed back on the bed. She told the woman she could do what was requested and begged her to let her friends go.

The woman walked out without giving attention to Sophia at all.