The Necronomicon

Chapter Twenty Seven

Darkness.

That was all Meredith could see behind her eyelids — a void of jet black night. She opened them groggily, blinking. The sharpness of the sunshine hit her like a blazing hot knife, and she fought the urge to cry out. Her skin was red raw, burned to a crisp. The sun beating down upon her scarred her skin; she ran her hand along her arms and struggled not to scream as blisters burst all down it. Fluid spilled out all over her, and she pulled her fingers away as fast as she could. Breathing heavily, she sat up.

Too fast — she was left feeling dizzy, her head spinning. Her vision darkened, her skin like fire, screaming loudly. There was nobody to hear her as she yelled Frederick's name. Where was he? Where could he be? Meredith willed her eyes to open — she saw the faint outline of the trees against the sky, the colours all blending together — a blur. She could hardly concentrate on sitting upright; her skin was peeling, falling off her in spirals. Large lumps — bigger blisters than the ones that marred her arms — traced her shoulders and legs. Her face — it was scorching hot.

Meredith was sobbing from the pain. The tears didn't soothe her — she sat in the sun's direct beam. Gasping, she tried to stand — and fell right into the mud to her left. It engulfed her, and she couldn't help but let out a guttural noise as it cooled her skin. She buried herself within it, letting it cloak her, her knapsack discarded, half eaten by the mud. Meredith reached out and grabbed it by one of the straps, chucking it at the soft bank she'd fallen off. Surprisingly, it made it, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she rubbed the soft mud into her cheeks. It eased the pain, and she glanced around her, looking for him. Frederick.

He could not have left her. He would not have done. He loved her. They were in love. She recalled the moments before her collapse, her mind racing. Something had hit the side of her head — it had looked suspiciously like a stick.

Frederick had been walking with a stick.

He couldn't have hurt her. He wouldn't have. No. No. "NO!" She yelled, her voice rattling the branches of the trees, a few drops of mud landing on her tongue. The tears grew, thick and fast, streaming down her sunburned face. The mud clung to her as she struggled to breathe, winded. Frederick. Frederick.

Frederick.

Perhaps someone came and stole his stick, and whacked her over the head with it. Maybe that was why she was all alone, her head aching as if she'd smashed it against a solid brick wall. Frederick was gone — possibly kidnapped — and she was here, nearly drowning in mud, her skin stripped of its natural beauty, her head screeching, her legs flailing, her arms leaking pus, which stained the mud in large, yellow-green streaks. Maybe he needed her, and she couldn't help. Meredith was trapped, stuck here, with the sun falling upon her once fair skin.

There was no place on her that was not boiling; all of her skin that had been exposed to the sun was shrivelled. Her skin was angry — the mud, though soothing, wasn't returning her skin to it's usual pale tone. She could still feel the sun on her scalp; she pulled herself out of the mud and onto the soft bank of grass, clutching her knapsack to her slightly, mud gripping the whole front of her dress. Meredith looked at her bag, rummaging through it. Where was The Necronomicon?

It wasn't there.

Gone.

Her mind ran in fifteen different directions — she couldn't think of what to do. She needed to find Frederick. It couldn't have been him who had hurt her, it simply couldn't have been. Then — someone else. But who?

Someone who wanted Frederick — and The Necronomicon. Anastasia. It could only be her. Only she would do something as cruel and diabolical as this. Had she been following them — and for how long? And where was she now? The pure heat of the sun whipped every particle of her body — she could hardly think. Anastasia must've taken Frederick somewhere. Where, though? Where could she take him? And why? Was she jealous — did she miss him?