A/N: Hi. Sorry for the delay. I have to alternate between stories, and this one is really picking up. Again, sorry for leaving you guys hanging!
Dead by Dawn
Chapter 10
What Just Happened?
"WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" screeched Toothless, dangerously close to having a complete heart attack.
"Hiccup? Hiccup, can you hear me?" asked Camicazi, kneeling down by Hiccup's head. He still wasn't responding. In fact, it didn't look like he was breathing!
Camicazi put the back of her hand on Hiccup's forehead, only to quickly pull back. "He's burning up!" she said. She put her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat and check and see if he was breathing, but she noticed something strange. Although his face was burning with a fever, the rest of his body was ice cold. But she still felt a heartbeat. Barely.
It seemed like he was having trouble breathing; his breath coming in labored gasps. There was a blood stain on the pant leg above his right knee, probably from the tumble he took down the stairs.
There was a tremor in his right hand. Camicazi took his ice cold hand in hers to try and steady it, but then Hiccup coughed a bit, and a tremor shook his entire body. His ice cold hand became burning hot.
"What's wrong with him?" wailed Toothless. Toothless looked over Hiccup again and noticed something. "Camicazi," he whispered.
"What is it?" she asked, looking up at Toothless.
"Look at his hand," he whispered. Camicazi looked at the hand she was holding and gasped. Blood was soaking through the bandage, and the edge of the blood stain looked green.
"Help me move him," Camicazi said to Toothless. Toothless laid his wing down on the ground, and Camicazi gently lifted and moved Hiccup onto the wing.
Toothless gently lifted his wing and followed Camicazi. "Let's take him into his room," she said.
They walked into Hiccup's room, and Toothless put his wing on the bed. Camicazi gently lifted Hiccup again and settled him onto the bed. Hiccup moaned as more tremors racked his thin frame.
"What's wrong with him?" Toothless asked again.
"I don't know," said Camicazi. "Stormfly! Run back over to the house and grab that really thick book from the shelf! The red leather one!"
Stormfly nodded and bounded out the door.
"What's the book for?" asked Toothless.
"It's an old medicine manual. It's got about every disease imaginable in there. Sig lent it to me."
Hiccup coughed again, wincing in pain.
"It's okay Hiccup, everything's gonna be okay," whispered Camicazi. She took his right hand and gently unwrapped the bandage. She gasped at what she saw.
The stitches had been dissolved, and the inflamed skin around the wound was slightly green! "What the hell?" muttered Camicazi.
The door to the room opened and Stormfly ran in, carrying a large, worn out book in her jaws. She dropped the book gently in Camicazi's arms, but then ran out again.
Camicazi opened the book and flipped through numerous pages before finally slowing down.
Camicazi muttered something to herself about symptoms, then stopped at a page and squinted at the words. "Here we go," she exclaimed.
"WHAT WHAT WHAT?" asked Toothless.
"This has some of the symptoms, but it's the closest I can find. Okay, has he been really dizzy lately?"
"Yeah. He collapsed earlier. But he told me it was just from heat exhaustion!"
"Okay, and did he tell you if his chest was hurting?"
"He didn't tell me, but I could sense it."
"Earlier today, did he have a bit of a fever?"
"Didn't everyone in this heat?"
"Good point. What else did you notice that was weird?"
"Nothing! Well... I think his heart rate was kinda high, but the only time I could tell was when we were flying, and it's normally high when we fly."
Camicazi put two fingers to Hiccup's neck and checked his pulse. "Toothless, can you count to 15 for me? Just let me know when you get there."
"Okay... Oos, doos, twa, etc." Toothless counted to 15, and by the time he got to it, Camicazi looked worried and pale. She muttered something to herself before saying: "Wow... His heart rate is about 240!"
"Is that bad?" asked Toothless.
"Well, considering the fact that a normal human's heart rate at rest is usually about 70 or 80, I'd say it's pretty bad."
Toothless whimpered, leaning closer to Hiccup.
"All of his symptoms are here. Have you... have you seen this lately?" asked Camicazi, holding up the book for Toothless to see. Toothless squinted at the picture on the page for a second before recognizing it.
"Yeah, we saw one of those today," said Toothless. The picture was of a stalk of spur grass, with abnormally long spurs and a strange greenish color. "Hiccup got one of those spurs lodged into his wrist. That's why he came to see you earlier."
"He did WHAT? He got stuck by one of those spurs? They're POISONOUS! That's why they're green!" Camicazi took a shaky sigh. "How did you get it out?"
"W-w-well, H-Hiccup tried to just p-pull it out, b-but it k-kept deflating whenever he g-g-grabbed it," Toothless choked out. "I-is there a cure?"
"It's okay Toothless. Calm down and let me read what it says." Toothless sniffled, then took a shaky breath and nodded.
"Okay, this disease is commonly called Spurotia. How original. The toxin that causes Spurotia is only found in the green spur grasses on Berk. When the victim gets stuck with a poisonous spur is not when the poison enters the system, but when they try to pull it out. That's probably why it deflated. That was poison in there. The symptoms do not show up until the evening of the Summer Solstice. You already know all the symptoms. The Summer Solstice is when the poison's toxicity level is at it's greatest. You could have been poisoned for half a year and the poison wouldn't have affected you in any way until the sun sets on the Summer Solstice. The second the sun dips below the horizon, the poison is activated, and the victim collapses unconscious. The toxin is paralyzing, and sometimes tricky. Sometimes the symptoms fade away for a while, but relapse twice as hard. Some effects of the poison itself are: coughing up blood, violent tremors, loss of consciousness for extended periods of time, fiery pain in the chest at random times, and of course fever. If the victim is not cured by dawn, then they will die. Their heart will stop the second the first beam of sunlight reaches them. This is when the poison kills the plant too."
"IS THERE A CURE?"
Camicazi was quiet for a minute, reading. Then she smiled... but her smile didn't last long.
"WHAT IS IT?" yelped Toothless. "Is. There. A. Cure?"
"Yes. There are two cures, but it's too late for one of them."
"W-what's the one that it's too late for?"
"Cut off the injection point. The poison's already spread too far, and I'd be damned if I had to cut off his arm too!"
Toothless' jaw was on the ground. "NO! What's the other cure?"
"Um... it's this flower called a Moondew flower," said Camicazi, showing Toothless a picture. The flower was pure white and crescent shaped. Toothless had never seen a flower like it before.
"Is it on Berk?" asked Toothless, seeing as he couldn't read Norse.
"Well, that's kinda where the problem is. It says here that it has been found on Berk a few times before. But it doesn't say where, it only says that the location of this flower can only be found by air."
Toothless' shoulders hunched over some. "What else does it say?"
"It says that the Moondew flower only blooms on the night of the Summer Solstice, and they also die at dawn. It's slightly fluorescent at night, so that should help."
"They only bloom one night a year... and they die at dawn... this is the shortest night of the year... so if we don't find it..."
Toothless trailed off as Hiccup coughed and moaned. He slowly blinked his eyes open.
"Hiccup! Are you okay? What happened?" asked Toothless, inches from Hiccup's face.
Hiccup moaned again before saying, "I got dizzy... and I... tripped... down the stairs..." He had to stop every so often and grind his teeth. Something must have been hurting him, but Toothless couldn't tell what exactly.
"Hiccup, we think you might be poisoned!" Camicazi burst out.
Normally, Hiccup would have argued, but he must have really been feeling like crap, because he said: "Makes sense. I've been feeling like crap all day. So... what was it?"
"The spur," said Toothless.
Hiccup moaned. Camicazi put a cool rag on his forehead. "Is there a cure?" he asked.
Camicazi filled Hiccup in on what she had told Toothless. However, instead of looking defeated like Toothless had, he just looked thoughtful. There was a little inventive spark in his eye.
"Camicazi, there's something next to the stairs that I dropped when I fell. It's wrapped up, but can you bring it in here?"
"Uh... sure," said Camicazi. She ran out of the room, then came back a few seconds later with the object in her hands. She handed it to Hiccup.
Hiccup pulled the leather wrapping off and held it up to Toothless. "Happy birthday..."
It was Toothless' tail fin attachment. It didn't look any different except for one thing: the part where his actual tail fin would go. It looked like there was a skeleton of the left side; just the left side without any aerodynamic fabric.
"Let me see your tail," said Hiccup. Toothless laid his tail on the bed next to Hiccup. Hiccup strapped on the fin like he normally would, but then he took the skeletal part and fitted the ends to Toothless' organic fin. The rods were right over top of the bones in the tail fin. So this is what Hiccup had been collecting metal for!
"Try it out," said Hiccup, already falling back asleep.
"So, what's it supposed to..." Toothless trailed off as he flexed his right tail fin. The left prosthetic did the same. Toothless was controlling his own prosthetic tail fin!
"Put it to good use," said Hiccup in a tired voice. Toothless started to thank Hiccup with all his heart, but Hiccup had already faded away again.
The door to the room opened and Stormfly walked in. She was soaking wet.
"I got some help!" she panted.
"Uh... Why are you all wet?" asked Camicazi.
"I'll explain later! What's going on with Hiccup?"
Toothless filled her in on everything she had missed.
"You two have to find that cure," said Camicazi. "I'll stay here with Hiccup and make sure he's okay."
The door opened again and Luna walked in. "I'll stay too," she said.
"Were you listening from outside the window?" asked Toothless.
"Maybe. But I'll stay with Camicazi and Hiccup and keep them safe. I've just got that feeling that they're probably gonna need it."
"What if we need you for something?" asked Toothless.
"We already figured that one out," said Stormfly. "We send up a flare. You and I shoot up a flare together if we need her. You and Drift send up a flare if there's danger coming."
"Yeah," said Luna. "I'll come if I see a blue and orange flare, and I'll pray that I don't see a blue and green one."
"Sounds like a plan to me," said Toothless.
"You guys should really get going!" said Camicazi. "It's the shortest night of the year! The clock's already started ticking, and you need to hurry. If you don't find the cure, Hiccup will be dead by dawn..."
A/N: Yay, now we're getting somewhere! R&R and I might let Hiccup keep his hand and the left side of his ribcage!