Famine by Laura Thalassa
Chapter 5
I don’t die. Not that day or the next or the one after that.
I don’t know why, out of all the many people in Laguna—people who had good, enviable lives—it’s my miserable one that gets spared.
Those first several days are a fever-filled blur. I am certain I dragged myself outside to the well to refill the pitcher at some point, and I managed to hoist myself out of bed to go to the bathroom, but the memories are fuzzy. I only remember eating once or twice.
It has to be roughly a week before my fever subsides. My head finally clears and my stomach is cramping with hunger, despite the awful, rotting smell that fills the room.
Ugh. I want to die.
Pretty sure death would be easier than bearing this horrible pain, but for whatever cursed reason, I’m forced to live through it.
A memory tugs at the back of my mind, of a hand on my shoulder and something whispered into my ear—
But then the memory is gone, and it’s not coming back.
I push myself up to a sitting position.
For the first time in nearly a week, I see my surroundings clearly. There’s the trunk at the foot of my bed with some of my more interesting toys and costumes, there’s the closet that’s crammed with soft, skimpy outfits that tease and reveal all the most tantalizing parts of flesh. On the windowsill are my collection of plants, most now wilted. And then there’s the vanity, lined with glass bottles of perfume and makeup. It’s as though my room didn’t get the memo.
The world has ended. Get with the program.
Pushing off the bed, I force my achy muscles to move, wincing at the agonizing pull of my wounds. Even now, the pain is terrible, but I can bear it enough to focus on other things.
Like the fact that at least two other rooms I walk by are filled with Famine’s frightening plants, more of my fellow housemates lying limp in their clutches, their bodies badly decayed.
Fear and the overpowering smell drive me outside. I take in several lungfuls of air then, gathering together my courage, I wander into the tavern next door, looking for food.
There are more plants, more dead people, more horror. I keep my eyes down and mostly hold my breath as I make my way to the kitchen.
I have to work around another twisting tree as I search for food, ignoring the dead cook. Decomposing bodies, I’m quickly discovering, are nightmarish things.
I’ll never be able to wash away the sight of them.
Most of the tavern food has gone bad, but I quickly grab what little remains, and then I leave.
That night, I sob as I wash my wounds.
Partly the tears come from the pain. Several of the cuts are deep and they’re still infected. But another part of it comes from the fact that I cannot escape the rotting city that surrounds me. There’s death in the streets and inside every building, and I feel like the horror of it is going to break my mind—if it’s not already somehow broken.
And then I cry for the women I worked alongside—for Elvita who sheltered me, and Bianca and Cláudia and Luciana who, if they were here, would’ve helped me tend to my injuries, just as the women did every time a client crossed the line.
And then I cry for the other girls, dead in their rooms or strung up in the trees somewhere else in this city.
I cry until my head pounds from the effort. When it feels like I have no more tears left in me, I draw in a long, ragged breath, then another.
Each breath feels like a small victory. I shouldn’t be alive, I really shouldn’t. And with every breath I take, my resolve hardens.
I’m going after him.
Even if it means certain death, I’m doing it.
That evil fucker made one huge mistake coming here: he didn’t make sure I was dead.
And now he’s going to pay for it.
