I groaned and rolled in bed.
My stomach was clenching painfully and every time I breathed my lungs hurt. I was half-captured by sleep, dozing fitfully. My mind had refused to relax the night before. I'd been oddly hot and the sweat had forced me to sleep in nothing but underclothes. I had felt sick. I never felt sick. And it wasn't like the familiar morning sickness, either. My entire body felt wrong, like it was fighting itself for whatever reason. As if my body was protesting something I'd put in it.
And so, my sleeps for the past three days had been unrestful. It had been two weeks since Ceseth had started giving me those nutrient-enriched glasses of water. For the first few days, nothing had seemed to change. But as soon as I started feeling sick, I started to question what Ceseth was truly giving me. He'd allowed me to sniff the stuff straight from the vials, and I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't poison, as far as I could tell. He had hit me upside the head when I'd mumbled that.
I shifted and groaned again as a shooting pain went down my abdomen. I shot upright as the pain traveled all the way down my abdomen and stopped in a sharp, jarring pain in my stomach. I almost screamed as I gripped my stomach, breathing heavily. Sweat beaded my forehead and my hair stuck to my cheeks. I shuddered and tried to center my breathing.
You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.
I bent forward, squeezing my eyes shut. It felt like something was trying to rip my intestines out. Or something had shoved a grimy claw into my stomach and was twisting everything around. My heart was thudding so hard in my chest I could hear it in my ears. I honestly felt as if I was going to die. As if, at any moment, I was going to roll over and spasm until death. I clenched my fists and pushed gently against my abdomen. I didn't want to hurt the baby by pressing too hard, but I wanted the pressure concentrated on my entire abdomen. I wanted it to go away. So instead, I dug my nails into my legs.
While for a moment it helped, the overwhelming abdominal pain persevered. Tears came to my eyes and I furiously blinked them away, letting out a frustrated scream. My temples pulsed and my throat constricted until I was certain I was going to die from asphyxiation. Everything hurt. Behind my eyelids all I saw was red.
It had to be whatever Ceseth had given me. Some nutrient he had given me was not working properly with the rest of my body. Or, an even more likely scenario...
I shook the thoughts from my head.
Ceseth didn't want the baby, but he had refrained from even touching me for the most part. So why would he decide now to do something? It hit me then, that if he wanted to get rid of this baby, the best way to do it was not to touch me.
I sucked in another breath.
It was whatever he'd given me.
It had to be.
I heard footsteps outside my door, but I couldn't move. I didn't look up when Ceseth burst through the doorway. I couldn't force myself to struggle as he pinched the pressure points on my neck and cut off my breathing with his large palm. I didn't even look him in the eyes as the pain slowly dulled, and my world faded to black.