LITMIR.BIZ

      Emma remembered that she wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time she would jump out of bed in the morning and hit the ground running. And then she…didn’t any more. Her muscles ached, her energy was low, and there was a constant hum in her ears, like a deep voice whispering to her while she slept, constantly whispering, never leaving her alone.

       You’re mine. All mine. I will consume you, piece by piece, and I will never be done…

      Her body convulsed around a pain centered low in her gut, like something was hollowing her out, bite by bite. “No. Please, no…”

      Yes. Oh yes….

      Emma's body was so heavy, lead-heavy, limbs heavier than the floor, even her skin aching and delicate with exhaustion. Something had happened? She had been so tired all week, all month, but this was…this was worse. It was like being pushed toward a cliff and then finally going over kind of worse.

      A laugh sounded in her ear, low and satisfied, and she felt a shiver run across her skin. Was that her boss's voice? She didn’t like that laugh. It wasn’t a nice laugh, and it was in her head, and she didn’t like that, either. It made her tired just to listen to it.

      “Where are the damn paramedics?” Her boss wasn’t laughing. In fact, he sounded panicked. Their construction manager never panicked, not even when all hell was breaking loose…

      “They’re on their way,” a woman’s voice assured him. “Emma.” A hand lifted hers, smooth cool skin touching hers. “Emma, can you hear me? Twitch, if you can hear me.”

      Emma wanted to twitch her hand, but it was too much effort. A sigh escaped her lips, and someone squeezed her hand. “Good girl. You just stay down, and the cute doctors will come and take care of you, okay?”

      Stay down. Yes. She could manage that. Emma stopped listening to the voices over her, and in her head, and stayed down in the dark cool place where she didn’t hear anything at all.

      The hospital bed was too hard in the wrong places, too soft in the wrong places, and too narrow everywhere. Emma was exhausted, but the bed wasn’t letting her sleep. Even after they took the machines away and stopped prodding her and making her look into lights and even after they drained half a gallon of blood for endless tests, she ached too much to sleep. Arms, legs, ribs, even her scalp, ached like someone had taken double handfuls of her hair and pulled for a day and a half.

      The paramedics told her that she’d passed out in the office. The last thing she remembered was reaching down for an allocation request form, then being hit by a wave of exhaustion and hearing that voice—the same one that always seemed to be whispering in the back of her mind these days.

      What had it said? She couldn’t remember.

      Doctor Gan came in, carrying his PDA and looking professionally jovial. “And how are you feeling?”

      “I want to go home.”

      The doctor didn’t pretend not to hear her softly-voiced request, the way the nurses did. “I know. But we still don’t know why you collapsed, and—”

      “And I have insurance, so you want to milk me for whatever you can get.”

      The doctor, who was fifty-something, bald and not as jovial as his expression would suggest, closed his PDA with an exasperated snap. “Actually, I want to figure out what is making you so tired, so you can be not quite so tired, and not collapse again, and not end up in my ER again, so we can keep the bed for someone who’s actually in need of it.”

      They glared at each other, and Emma dropped her gaze first. It was too much effort to argue. Her feet itched, and she rubbed the sole of one against the mattress. Alissa had brought her pajamas when they admitted her from the ER, and the cotton fabric, usually soothing, felt scratchy under the too-thin blanket. Suddenly all the noises and smells were too much, too overwhelming. A headache formed in her left temple, a by-now familiar and unwelcome counterpart to her aching scalp.

      “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, trying to will the headache away.

      The doctor sighed. “I know you want to go home, Ms. Roberts. Very few people appreciate our accommodations. But I can’t in good conscience release you when we don’t even know why you ended up here.”

      They had run their tests and ruled out Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, myasthenia gravis, pregnancy, thyroid disease, heart disease, and an old-fashioned lack of potassium, among possible causes. The overwhelming and increasing fatigue that caused her to collapse seemed determined to keep its origins secret. Emma had done her reading of the pamphlets they gave her: chronic fatigue syndrome, the catchall for anything that didn’t match up elsewhere, was probably the inevitable diagnosis. But Doctor Gan didn’t seem ready to dump her into that basket just yet.

      At this point, Emma would have taken a diagnosis of shingles, if it meant they’d let her go. She wasn’t used to being helpless, and certainly not to being treated like she was helpless. It was unnerving, and made her exhaustion and headaches even worse.

      There was a knock at her door, and a round, wizened face peered into the room. “You ready to give us a little more blood?”

      Emma almost smiled. “Would you stop if I said no?”

      “Vampires aren’t known for their restraint, but for you I’ll make an exception. Hopefully, you’ll let me do my job, and I’ll give you a lolly.” Sean, the phlebotomist, ignored Doctor Gan as he came into the room, a small cart loaded with white-towel-covered instruments, tubes, sterile boxes and deflated bags. His hands were brisk and gentle, and Emma barely even noticed as he took another vial of blood from her arm, adding to the black and green bruises on her skin. As promised, he presented her with a lollypop when he was done. She smiled and let the candy rest on the bed next to her.

      “Please let me go home,” she said, looking up at the doctor who sighed again, this time in resignation. He didn’t have any reason to keep her there, not really, and they both knew it.

      “If you promise to take at least a week off from work, to recover. No work, no running around, straight bed rest and call if you start to develop any new symptoms, and I mean any. Do you have someone who can take care of you for at least a few days?”

      Emma looked him right in the eyes and lied. “Of course.”

      “Dad, please.”

      Her father stood at the window, looking out at the postage stamp-sized yard. Her bungalow was classic Craftsman style, built in the 1920s. Emma had bought it years ago, seeing potential in the rundown building. Her job at Blackbrun Construction had gotten her the contacts—and the discounts—to restore the clean, simple lines to near-perfection.

      Just thinking about how hard she had worked, sanding and painting and landscaping, made her want to weep, now.

      “The doctors said nothing was wrong with you.”

      How would he know, he hadn’t even come to the hospital… She cut that thought off immediately. He had called, twice. And sent flowers.

      “They think it’s chronic fatigue syndrome.”

      Her father wasn’t impressed by the diagnosis. She hadn’t expected him to be. The rule growing up in the Roberts family was “suck it up and shake it off.” If there wasn’t blood or bone showing or something on fire, it wasn’t that serious. Being tired all the time? Not sleeping well? Suck it up and shake it off, girl!

      “Dad, I…”

      She couldn’t

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