One month later…

Sitting in her office, Della Street gathered up the papers Perry would need for court, and neatly arranged them in his briefcase. Then she jumped up from her chair in order to retrieve one last file.

As she walked the two steps to the file cabinet, the room suddenly seemed to spin around her. She grasped onto the cabinet and drew in deep, shaky breaths, waiting for the spell to pass. Very, very slowly, it did.

"This is getting to be more than a little annoying," she mumbled to herself, trying to downplay the frightening experience.

Over the last two weeks, Della had started to experience a constellation of insidious symptoms. It had started with mild breathlessness whenever she climbed a flight of stairs, and then slowly progressed to constant fatigue. About a week ago, getting out of bed had become quite a chore, as it was accompanied by instant lightheadedness. And in the last few days, even getting out of a chair too quickly had managed to make her dizzy.

Convinced that it must be three years of late nights and skipped meals finally catching up to her, Della had tried to conscientiously go to bed as soon as she entered her apartment each night, and made it a rule to eat breakfast before she left for work each morning. Instead of improving, however, her malady got worse.

Thankfully, she had not yet had such an episode of lightheadedness in front of Perry, and she meant to keep it that way. Although he was usually a first-class observer of everything that went on around him, the current case he was working on was so complicated that he scarcely looked at her, or anyone – if he was not elbow-deep in law books, he was calling Paul for updates on his detective work, or running downtown to see his client. Della knew how important the case was to him, and the last thing she wanted to do was to divert his attention, or worry him.

Thus, Della finished packing the briefcase, clicked it closed and, tucking it under her arm, went into Perry's office as if nothing had happened.

…..

In court, that afternoon, Perry passed Della a note.

'Call Paul, and see if he has any updates,' it read.

Obediently, Della immediately rose and left the courtroom, hurrying straight for the pay phone.

Halfway there, walking suddenly became a very effortful thing. Gasping for breath, she stumbled into the phone booth, and had to sit down on the bench in it for a full three minutes before she felt able to dial Paul's number. Quickly jotting down what the private detective told her, Della thanked him, hung the receiver up, took several deep breaths and prepared herself for the odyssey back into the courtroom.

Fumbling through her purse, she pulled out the thermos bottle which she had filled that morning with coffee, milk, and an unhealthy dose of sugar. Hoping that the fluids and calories in it would sustain her until the hour of adjournment, she took several long drinks of the concoction. Then she gingerly stood up from the bench.

Despite the precautionary measures, another wave of dizziness nearly overwhelmed her as she slowly walked back to her seat at the defense table. She managed to make it, however, and passed Perry the note she had written during her conversation with Paul. Silently sighing to herself, Della finally overcame her denial. No, it was not normal for a young woman to struggle so much when she was merely walking a few dozen feet at a very reasonable pace. Something was seriously wrong with her. She would finish out the workday, but she would take tomorrow off, look up a good doctor, and make an appointment. Her mind made up, she sat back in her chair, and watched Perry begin to carry out what Della suspected would be the last cross-examination of the current case.

Obviously, something is happening to Della, and it's not good.

Please review!