"Outwitted (Part sixteen)" an original work of fiction for #365days...

This is today's offering (day 172) for @mydivathings' #365daysofwriting challenge (click here to see her current post)

Today's picture prompt (below) is a Photo by Nikhil Mitra on Unsplash

When I woke it was dark, and I ached all over. My head felt as if it had been hit with an axe. I was hungry and thirsty.

I managed to stand and stagger into the kitchen. In the pantry I found some food. It was local food - probably belonging to the young girl - and it was spicy, odd tasting, and hurt my mouth and throat as I ate it. But I was hungry, so I ate it all. I washed it down with a large jug of water. I found my way into the front room and collapsed onto the sofa.

When I awoke again light was filtering through the windows. My body still ached, but the thump-thump-thump of my head had eased slightly. Slowly, I began to make my way back through the garden and out of the gate in the wall.

The sun was high in the sky before I arrived back in the town. I fell to my knees as I entered the market square. The next thing I knew I was in a bed, and Pewds face was anxiously looking down at me.

“Where have you been?” he said, his eyes bulging, sweat on his brow. “You have been gone for three days!”

I opened my mouth to speak but my mouth was so dry all I could manage was a croak. Pewds fetched water and made me sip it slowly. Eventually I was able to tell him about my adventure, everything that had happened. Well, almost everything.

I decided to keep the girl - and how she had died - a secret.

I told him about Mathilde, about following her to the walled garden, seeing her disappear in the lake. I told her about all the herbs and the power that oozed from the very earth. I told him about the machinery in the house, and my theories about the dust.

He looked at me as if I was mad - I later discovered that I was sick: I had a fever. Even though I thought I was talking sense, I was rambling, and raving. I had contracted an illness. Perhaps it was the water, or maybe the food had been off, or contaminated in some way (even now, when I allow myself to sink into the dark place, I sometimes find myself wondering if the spirit of the young girl had attempted to avenge her death by trying to kill me).

Or perhaps it was the power that had eaten too much of my life force.

At some point I blacked out again. I remember little from the following days, although I remember having black, terrifying dreams involving being buried alive, being crushed by rock and sand.

Despite my garbled words, I must have made enough sense to Pewds to convince him it was worth searching for the walled garden in the hope of finding the necessary herbs to cure me. For that is exactly what he did. He took a team of local men and came back with baskets full of healing grasses, leaves and roots. Without them, he told me later, I would have died.

Perhaps that would have been the best outcome. For everyone.

"Outwitted (Part sixteen)" an original work of fiction for #365daysofwriting challenge