2004
The fever had been eating me alive for three days.
Three days of shivering in doorways, of stumbling through back alleys like some feral thing, of watching the world tilt and blur at the edges until I couldn't tell what was real anymore.
The sickness had started as a tickle in my throat, the kind of thing that would have sent my mother reaching for her honey and lemon remedy.
Back when I had a mother.
Back when I had anything at all.
Now it felt like liquid fire in my veins, like something with claws had taken up residence in my chest and was trying to scratch its way out.
I pressed my back against the brick wall of what used to be Morrison's Bakery, the mortar crumbling under my shoulder blades.
The building had been empty for months, another casualty of the recession that had gutted our small town like a hunter cleaning a deer.
The windows were boarded up, graffitied with desperate messages.
