Hello! This was a very hard chapter to write, so I hope you enjoy!

EMMA

Anik skilfully threaded the needle and I eyed it apprehensively. I refused to look at my wound where the dagger still was embedded in my abdomen. The pain was excruciating. All I could think of was breathing in… and out. I squeezed my eyes shut, attempting to block out the feeling of a thousand blistering needles digging into my skin. I felt hot and feverish; my breath came out panicked and raspy. I cracked one eye open to glance nervously in Anik's direction. He had finished tying off the thread, and had a roll of bandages, soaked in some sort of alcoholic antiseptic liquid. He seemed slightly nauseous as he stared at my wound. I had started to panic now. My stomach was rising and falling with frantic breaths.

'This – this is good practice for you, huh?' I muttered, attempting a light-hearted joke. Anik gazed at me, his golden eyes piercing mine with his own pain. I knew Anik wanted to be a doctor, but I knew that operating on someone you knew well was something a hundred times harder.

Anik visibly swallowed.

'Okay,' he murmured, taking a shaky breath. 'Okay. I'm going to have to remove the dagger – and it's going to hurt. A lot.' He avoided eye contact. Instead he just went straight into doctor mode. 'I will need you to press down with these bandages to clear the blood flow; otherwise I won't be able to see what I am doing. Can you do that?' I nodded fearfully, my eyes wide open. He gave me the wad of alcoholic smelling gauze and I felt a tear roll down my cheek. A gentle thumb wiped it away, and I stared into Anik's reassuring eyes.

'It's going to be okay,' he murmured. 'Ready?' I took a deep breath and glanced at my wound; a dark red substance was seeping out from the edges and soaking into my clothes. The blood was darker than I had expected. I held the gauze tightly in one hand, prepared to wipe it away. Anik moved his hand forward to grip the knife and I whimpered, ready for an explosion of pain.

He yanked the knife out and blood immediately began flowing out of the wound. I screamed through my teeth; the tears were streaming down my cheeks. It was like a white-hot piece of iron had been pressed against the inside of my stomach.

'Emma!' Anik snapped sternly. I hastily lifted my arm and dabbed at the wound, my eyes squeezed shut. My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I soaked up the blood. The alcohol was stinging and making the pain even worse. A wave of dizziness collapsed on top of me, and I heaved as if to throw up, but nothing surfaced. My arm fell limply by my side as everything went black. Before I closed my eyes I saw Anik's panic-stricken face.

'Stay with me, Emma…' I could hear him pleading as I felt the world slipping away…

ANIK

Emma's body went limp and her head flopped lifelessly to one side. She was unconscious. I turned my attention to her wound; the ebbing of blood had somewhat reduced. I grabbed the roll of gauze and wiped the remaining blood away before inserting the needle and pulling it through to the other side. I shut out the voices yelling inside my head and focussed on threading one stitch after the other.

Eight stitches later, Emma's wound was neatly sewn together. I slipped my arm under her torso and lifted her onto my lap so I could wrap the bandages securely around her abdomen. When the bandages were securely in place and an adequate amount of alcoholic antiseptic smeared over the wound I slumped against the rubble in exhaustion. I absently stroked her hair, imagining for a moment we were back in Oregon, sitting on the couch, watching a movie like we do every Friday night. But we hadn't been able to do that lately, since the discovery of the curse, and then Edison –

I groaned when I remembered I had left Edison unconscious on the other side of the cave-in.

I carefully shifted Emma off my legs and shakily stood up; grabbing the torch and stumbling blearily over to the gap I had created in the pile of rocks. Sliding through, I made my way over to Edison's limp body, kneeling beside him and lifting a closed eye-lid for inspection. He had a nasty gash on the side of his head, but the blood had dried forming a scab. His hair was matted with the sticky blood and fine particles of dirt. There was nothing I could do to help him except wait for him to wake up.

Deciding that I was starving and may as well keep watch over the two unconscious bodies while I waited for them to wake, I lifted Edison by the armpits and dragged him – non too carefully – over to the gap in the rubble. I shoved him through the hole first and then clambered in after him, shifting him into a more confortable sitting position next to Emma.

It was some time (three muesli bars and a bottle of water) later I had nearly drifted off to doze, when Emma awoke. First she began moaning, and then wriggling fretfully around in her sleep. I smoothed back her hair, frowning at her high temperature. Sweat was gathering on her forehead and her cheeks were tinged with a feverish glow. I decided to check her bandages.

I peeled away the strips of gauze that placed pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding, and gasped when I saw her exposed injury. In a couple short hours the neatly stitched stab wound had turned a yellowish colour, and a fiery red infection spread outwards.

'What's wrong?' asked a voice and I hastily turned to face Emma, who was wide-awake and struggling to see what I was so horrified about.

'Nothing,' I hastily replied, quickly winding the bandages around her torso. Emma slumped back down into her lying position, gasping.

'It hurts,' she whimpered, biting her lip.

'I know,' I replied, gently smoothing back her hair, wincing at her high temperature. This was bad. 'I am just going to change the bandages, and you should be right as rain.' I tried to keep my tone light and upbeat, but inside I was absolutely horrified. Her wound looked incredibly infected and pussy. It needed more antiseptic. Emma nodded and closed her eyes, sighing deeply.

'I'm sorry for passing out,' she mumbled as I began to re-undo her bandages.

'No problem,' I answered, staring intently at the task in front of me. 'It was probably best, since you didn't feel any more pain.' Checking once more to see if Emma's eyes were actually closed, I lifted the last piece of gauze and flinched. The closed wound was leaking a yellow-coloured pus, and it was definitely infected because of the large ring of redness that surrounded the swollen sewn area. I didn't understand. Why wasn't it healing?

I reapplied the antiseptic and thoroughly soaked the bandages in the infection-resistant alcoholic antibiotics, cleaning the wound with water beforehand. I didn't understand how something could be contaminated with bacteria and infected so quickly.

Deciding that I had done all I could for now, I wound the bandages securely around her torso and tied them in place.

'How does it look?' Emma whispered anxiously once I had finished.

'Fine,' I lied, handing her the bottle of water. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted the discarded dagger that had pieced Emma's stomach. I hesitantly picked it up and examined it.

'Urgh,' Emma grunted. 'I don't want to see that ever again.' But I wasn't listening. I was staring at the knife; the blade was smeared with blood, but there something else. It was a greenish colour, and seemed to stain the metal of the blade. I swiped my finger across it and sniffed it. It was a smell so acrid, so pungent that I flung the dagger away from me, as if burned and turned to face Emma in horror. Because I now knew that her wound wasn't infected, not at all. The dagger had been covered in poison, and that poison was now running through her veins.

EDISON

By the time I came into consciousness, Anik was in a panic. (Huh. That rhymes. I'll have to remember that one) I blearily blinked open my eyes to see Emma lying awkwardly on the ground and Anik cursing God, Jesus and any other person he could think of.

'Wha-What's going on?' I managed to croak out, confused. The last thing I could remember was hearing Anik yell 'RUN!' before collapsing under the pressure of what felt like an overweight elephant. At that moment the headache hit me and I groaned, clutching my head. Emma shot me a concerned glance, but if I was expecting my awakening to have an effect on Anik, I was wrong. He was just staring at Emma in absolute terror. But that was nothing new. (The staring at Emma, not the terror part)

'I'd like to know that as well,' Emma added, turning to face Anik with an accusatory glance. 'What was the freak-show about?'

'What freak-show?' I asked, thoroughly confused now. 'Anik's always been weird, that's nothing new. And why are you covered in bandages?' Feeling entirely out of the loop and still clutching my head from the pounding headache that was drilling into my skull I tried to piece together what I remembered. I knew that the roof had collapsed, and I guess I must have fallen unconscious because a lot seemed to have happened while I was blissfully passed out. Emma had white bandages wrapped around her torso, and I assumed she had been hurt in the explosion of rocks and rubble when the roof caved in.

'I am just as confused as you are,' Emma snapped. 'And I am bound like a mummy in bandages because - ' and she told me the story of how her sister – or apparition of her sister – had tried to kill her, and nearly succeeded. I listened with dread as she continued the story, letting Anik take over when she got to the part where she had passed out. Anik then continued to say how he had stitched Emma up (I was glad I was asleep for that part, that sounded revolting) and had dragged me through the gap he had made in the pile of rocks.

'Then I decided to check Emma's bandages - ' Anik went on, but I interrupted.

' – Yeah, yeah I don't need to hear that part. Why were you swearing like Hades and looking at Emma like she's going to drop dead?' Anik glared at me.

'Like I said,' Anik continued, picking up where he had left off, 'I checked her bandages… and well… it didn't look good.'

'What do you mean?' Emma interjected quickly. 'You said - '

' - I know what I said,' Anik sighed. 'I lied. You wound looked infected and… well bad. But it's actually worse than that.' Emma and I stared at him expectantly. Anik took a deep breath and said very quickly, 'I think that the dagger was poisoned.' My mouth fell open in shock, which then turned to worry, which then shifted to dread. Emma merely pursed her lips and stared at her hands.

'Well,' she whispered. 'That changes things. Is – is it fatal?' She glanced at Anik, who shook his head.

'I don't know.'

Dun-Dun-Duh!

Sorry to leave it like that.

But anyway, please leave a review!

- Thoughts of a Fangirl