A/N – Thank you, once again, for all of your wonderful reviews, especially the long ones. I really appreciate it when people have taken the time to criticise my writing – I'm just masochistic like that! Sorry for the long wait for an update. Life has been incredibly messy recently.
Also, I had to do a great deal of unpleasant research for this chapter. I hope it doesn't make you feel too ill!
Thanks for reading. Reviews are great – Ellen
Ariadne knew from experience that waking up in a room with bright, neon lights and white bed linen was never a very good sign.
She'd made this observation through years of careful study – she'd always been a clumsy, often sickly child and had been rushed to hospital sporting various broken bones and embarrassing rashes that made her adult self cringe.
Blinking back watery-eyed tears, she glanced around, struggling to get her bearings.
She was in a hospital all right – a ward of some description – with around seven or eight beds crammed into the narrow room. Each bed was occupied, although she seemed by far the most able bodied; no one else was sitting up, all lost in various stages of unconsciousness.
With a jolt, she realised the next bed was occupied by Cobb. He was still asleep and Ariadne couldn't help wondering where he was. Had he not arrived yet? Was he in Limbo, with Mal, James and Phillipa? He looked peaceful, wherever he was, and Ariadne found herself reluctant to wake him from his blissful slumber.
But if she didn't, around two thousand people would lose their lives, including herself, Cobb, Eames Yusuf and Arthur. Arthur. ..ignoring the twinge she felt when she pictured his pallid, unconscious face, she leant over to nudge Cobb – wake him up from his sleep.
She didn't make it.
As her arm extended – suddenly seeming a great effort – she felt a retch in her stomach and, without thinking, vomited onto the pristine laminate flooring.
For a moment, everything seemed to slow down. Her gut ached and strained, anchoring her to the present. She gasped, heaving over the side of the bed. It didn't make sense; you couldn't get sick in dreams.
Could you?
The door on the other end of the corridor banged open, having been pushed by an elderly nurse wearing a crisp blue uniform. She was carrying a trap laden with a set of formidable-looking medical instruments but, seeing Ariadne leaning over the side of the bed, she set it down on the countertop, shaking her head as she did so.
"My, my, Ariadne," she said, moving over and helping to lower her back into a more comfortable position. "Not again, eh?" She grabbed a small plastic bowl from the bedside cabinet and held it in front of her now dripping mouth. "Let's mop you up." Without waiting for an invitation, the nurse reached over onto the bedside table and picked up a clump of tissues, using them to wipe the drippy, sticky and generally rather unpleasant substance from her chin.
"What..." Ariadne began, before feeling another unpleasant retch and vomiting heartily into the bowl again.
"That's it..." The nurse was rubbing her back in nice, soothing circles. "Get it all out of your system."
"After a few more minutes of vomiting, Ariadne felt a little better and, having managed to last a minute without puking into the bowl, braved a question.
"What's happening to me?" She asked, her voice scratch and sore.
"Just the usual symptoms," the nurse replied, wiping her hands on a towel. "Nothing out of the ordinary."
"What is the ordinary?" Ariadne asked, hysteria building up in her throat – so much so she thought she might puke again. The nurse squinted at her.
"Are you feeling alright, Ariadne?" she asked.
"Well, considering I've just puked no less than five times, I'd say that was a pretty stupid question!" Anger coursed through her veins, as if suddenly ignited from somewhere behind her stomach. Her arms burned, as if on fire. She glanced down and had to stop herself screaming.
All the way up her arms were a collection of hideous-looking blisters. Her skin was a disgusting shade of purple and, as she touched it, it felt weepy and doughy underneath her fingers. Her outburst forgotten, she blinked back tears.
"What's happening to me?" She whimpered.
"It's necrotizing fasciitis," the elderly nurse replied, seemingly unperturbed by Ariadne's previous fit. Her eyes seemed warm and forgiving, as if this was an everyday occurrence. "More commonly known as 'flesh-eating disease'."
Ariadne felt her stomach lurch again and, instinctively, reached for the bowl. The nurse was there already and had it ready just in time.
She wasn't sure how long she lay there; time seemed to blur together, with no distinct events to distinguish a minute from an hour apart from the occasional vomiting spurt. Her body felt exhausted – ironic, really, considering she was in a dream three layers thick – and she felt the almost constant desire to shut her eyes.
Cobb hadn't woken up yet. Every time she decided to reach over to wake him, her mind was swamped with nausea and she was paralysed for a few minutes as her stomach emptied itself into the yellow bowl she had come to loathe.
The nurse had left a while ago, although she occasionally flitted back into the ward, carrying formidable-looking medical equipment. At one point, she seemed to check on Cobb, recording his temperature and checking his pulse. These didn't look like particularly good signs. As Ariadne leant over to get a closer look, the saw that behind the bedclothes - dislodged by the nurses' activities - his chest was bare, covered only by a small bandage that did nothing to disguise the gaping, oozing sore consuming his left shoulder. The skin was puffy and swollen – a similar colour to her forearm and seemed to be expelling a strange sort of green mucus.
"Will he be alright?" she asked the nurse, her voice hoarse and bitter with the taste of vomit.
"I don't know," the nurse replied, swilling the thermometer in a glass of antibacterial cleaner. "We'll just have to wait and see."
While Ariadne was in great pain – her arm felt like it was going to fall off – it was clear that, whatever her own ailments, Cobb had it a lot worse.
