Chapter 12-London Fire Catherine

London,

Catherine woke up and howled in genuine misery, seeing her bite mark with fiery veins encircling her arm. Her body was glowing from the inside out. She was frightened. For hours, she lay there alone, crying, and, worst of all, burning.

The morning sun shines through the tiny window, adding light to her hell, and the burns were unbearable and painful, as she had been there all night and no one had heard her screams for help.A sense of grief washed over her at the moment. She's going to die here unattended.

Every minute her heart beat slower, and every second her slow death was near. The distress and burning haven't ceased, but after being in agony for hours upon hours, her mind was no longer her own. The hardest part was the burn took her to the verge of consciousness but never let her fall over into oblivion. She could still feel her body but couldn't move it. So, she lay gazing at the window, awaiting death.

When she thought the pain and burning were the worst of it, a new twinge struck. A harsh bolt shoots from her head and extends to her heart, causing her to arch in bed. Her weary voice finds itself in a howl that leaves her with insignificant force. Her hands clasp her chest when it beats harder than before. She pulls her fists away and shouts in horror at the sight of her arms.

A fiery glow covered her veins, so brilliant that she wanted to cover her eyes, but dared not. It stopped. The Vanished It was the most frightening and the worst experience of her life after so many years of visiting the Land of Nod. Her vision was fading and her eyes were hazy when a raw and luminous heavy tear escaped from them.

She blinks to clear them, but it doesn't work. Instead, she uses her shaky hands to wipe them clean. The substance leaking was clammy and glossy. She squinted harder, forcing herself to see anything, and she saw the outline of her fists, then fingers, with a shiny tar-like substance coating them.

She opens her mouth to cry out, but suddenly, her throat closes up.

Not only that, but she needed to clear her mind. This was awful! So awful that maybe she was still dreaming? Yet, she was in her bed, in her room, and she retreated into her consciousness.

By nightfall, her phone rang.

And though she woke up screaming again in pain, so weak that she couldn't even answer her phone.

Her thoughts were quickening inside her head. She wishes they would slow down so she could breathe, but they won't. Her breaths came in gasps, and she felt like she would blackout. Her heart was throbbing inside her chest. The room spun, and she crouched on the floor, trying to make everything easy, something her brain and body could bear with. She needs to call an ambulance, but the phone was far elsewhere, it's too far away, blackness, wriggling blackness.

She was on the floor in a ball-foetal posture when her door opened with a loud bang. Sean was striding faster towards Catherine's room like there was a cyclone inside him. He was moving like his brain was urging him with the energetic expense of an athlete.

He was anxious. When he was back in London, he contacted her immediately. But he's been calling her phone for ages, and no one answered, so he ordered his secretary and asked for Catherine's address and all the way he called his cousin.

Catherine's eyes were vicious and when he made her sit, she rocked and rocked. Her cries were full of anguish. Her head was a carousel of fears whirling out of control, each one pushing her mind into blackness.

But she stopped.

"Help! It's painful, help!" She mumbled as Sean scooped her up.

"Catherine, it's me, Sean. Are you okay? What happened?" He asked in total panic.

"Can you stop it? And this pain, save me!" She urged him as her vision was blurring.

"Don't leave me, please! Don't go." She drawled as she settled down in his arms, unconscious.

Hours passed.

Catherine was in the same bed as he woke her only a short time ago.

Sean shut her door behind him, then with a steady stride he walked to the bed. The covers were thrown off as she lay shivering. She opened her eyes weakly, feeling tired, but the pain was gone, and she felt wonderful.

Catherine was amazed and confused about what happened.

Sean?

Sean was here in her room? Alone with her? She panicked, but she pretended to act cool.

"Fancy meeting you here?" She mumbled. Sean could feel the corner of his lip hitch up responding to her panicking, covering herself.

"You are weak. You should sleep to allow your body to recover from the shock, "he told her. She nodded. He went to turn away, but she called out to him.

"Wait!" she paused, biting her pale lip, debating what to say next.

"What happened?"

It stunned Sean. He could tell Catherine was in a lot of trouble earlier, but looking at her now, so bright and beautiful as ever, he seemed hopeful.

He stared at her since the look on her face was peaceful, her eyes gleaming with astonishment, and he was taken aback by the sincerity in her voice.

Not only that, but he didn't even understand he had sat down until he went through her cold hand brush against him. He took a bottle of water beside her bed, and he ordered her to drink. "Here, drink this." She seized the water and gulped it down in one go.

A minute passed. She turned to face him. She was gorgeous. For some strange reason, something healed her, something had changed, and gave her a glow more amazing than the sun. Catherine's green eyes have lost their specs of fiery glistening brown shine that burned with the same desire reflected in Sean's.