The Necronomicon

Chapter Seven

Meredith woke, and for the first time since eating the berries, felt normal. Healthy. Like herself again. She stood up almost easily, only stumbling once, and shrieked in delight. Finally, she was better.

Bending over, she lapped up some water from the flowing river before slinging her knapsack onto her shoulders and walking off. She wouldn't miss that part of the trip, that was for sure.

As Meredith walked, her movements slow and unsteady, her thoughts turned to the book Elder Watford had given her. She didn't even know its title. Dusting flakes of long—dried mud off of her gown, she opened her knapsack and picked out the book.

It was leather bound, she thought, running her fingers over the material, with sharp letters titling it, and a star etched into the cover under the words. She read the title three times, trying to get the pronunciation correct. The Necronomicon. She sighed, greedily opening up its pages. Boring — it was written in another language. Dropping it back into her bag, she continued on, chewing on a mint leaf.

Meredith had not had any substantial food in weeks, and it was beginning to show. She looked frail, and scarily thin. Her stomach was aching. Someone who knew her well might not even recognise her — Meredith had always been slim, but she'd never been rail—rod thin. The lack of food was beginning to eat away at her — her cheeks were hollowed, her ribcage jutting out, nearly splitting the skin — and she found her knapsack much heavier than she did before.

As she strode on, she peered at her reflection in the stream. She had matted hair, and her face was almost grey. Looking at herself almost made her burst into tears.

In fact, Meredith was almost delirious with hunger. She was dying, starving to death, and she knew it. Mint leaves were not enough to sustain her, but she didn't dare eat anything else lest it be even more dangerous than the berries she'd wolfed down. Another bout of illness and she was a goner. If she just kept walking, she might make it. She would turn back and go home, but she knew it would be overrun by rebels, and they would steal her book — and possibly her life. If only Meredith could judge exactly how near or far she was from the marshlands. All she did was just follow the river, and sip its water from time to time.

And then, suddenly, there was a solution.

Meredith gasped. Just ahead of her, there was a deer. It was grazing, its sleek and shiny fur rippling in the wind. It was dappled with the fading sunlight — it seemed Meredith had woken up towards the end of the day rather than the beginning.

Hunger engulfed her, and she raced towards the deer greedily. She imagined devouring it, and the thought made her almost insane with desire — she needed to eat it.

Eyes set on her prize, Meredith reached out her hands. She was so close she could almost taste it already.

The deer galloped off, and Meredith dashed after it, her knapsack banging painfully against her knees, her arms outstretched, flecks of her saliva studding hte ground beneath her feet — she was so close to it...

There was a loud sound: like a thump. The last thing she did before collapsing into a faint was let out a shrill scream.