Finger Prick

      There was a petite girl sitting in an upstairs room sewing. Her needles were new and sharp and her hands, although trembling with excitement, were swift. It was the night before her wedding day and she was sewing to keep her mind occupied. Tiny red stitches of thread filled the black fabric in lightening speed. She mindlessly sewed these stitches as if she were a machine. She had sewn these simple sutures so many times that she might as well have been simply designed to do these menial tasks. Yet, she was to be a homemaker and she was trained well to do so. She abruptly stopped when she felt a sharp prick into her left ring finger.

      “Ouch. What did I do?” her small, quick elf-like voice spoke to herself.

      She looked down to find a small, yet growing, dot of dark scarlet blood forming at the tip of her left ring finger. It was slowly beginning to form a maroon river towards the direction of her engagement ring.

      “Venous blood, that’s all. I will heal before I’m married” she laughed softly to herself.

      She wrapped her small, thin, bleeding finger into her innocent white dress and applied pressure to the puncture wound in order to stop the bleeding. After a few moments, she unwrapped her finger from the dress to find a small circle of dried blood staining the white dress and her finger appearing as if nothing had injured it.
    “See, healed before I am married” she giggled to herself.

      Suddenly she felt drowsy and dizzy. Her head was spinning and her eyes were uncontrollably closing on her.

    “My goodness, maybe I should lie down. I may give myself another finger prick if I continue” she grabbed her right temple gingerly and spoke drowsily.

      She carefully stumbled over to her soft, feather down filled bed and lied herself down. Her eyes immediately closed. Soon after, her eyes proceeded to roll back into her head. She felt as if she were falling down into a spiral. Everything slowly faded to black and everything was silent. Abruptly, she heard a voice.

    “It’ll only hurt for a second, Rowan, be a brave little girl” a woman’s sweet voice spoke to her in a British accent. Rowan still could not see anything. She felt a sharp pain into the anticubital vein in her right arm and warm fluid slowly running down her arm.
    “Muhhhh” Rowan could only drowsily moan.
    “It will be OK, my little dear, just hold still” the same woman’s voice spoke.
    “What’s happening?” she could finally speak. Her eyes began to awaken.

      She blinked her eyes open. The light was blindingly bright to her. She was lying down in very white sheets. There was a woman dressed in all white next to her. Her hair and skin and eyes were pale. She looked as if she were made of porcelain.

    “Ah, you’re awake, my little one” the pale woman spoke.
    “Where am I?” Rowan yawned.
    “The infirmary” the porcelain woman answered kindly. She could only presume she was the nurse there.
    “For a finger prick?” Rowan spoke in a startled tone.
    “No, no, no, my child, you are very sick” the nurse stroked Rowan’s forehead attempting to comfort her.

    Rowan looked down at her sore right arm. There was a small hole bleeding dark red venous blood. It was slowly dripping out of her and running down her arm like a river, bleeding a small scarlet lake into the pure, white sheets.

    “What are you doing to me?!” Rowan jumped, sitting up the best that she could. She was dizzy still.
    “Bloodletting” the pale woman tersely answered.
    “What?! No, stop!” Rowan demanded.
    “Oh, dear, it will be fine. You’re very sick. We’re taking good care of you. We need to remove the dirty blood you have. Please hold still. We don’t want to start another site. This was the only vein that was giving us blood” the pale woman spoke calmly.

    The woman in white turned her back for a moment to get something. Rowan immediately went to wrap the bleeding wound in the sheets in order to make a tourniquet to stop the blood flow. She was going to bleed to death if she left it.

    “Now, Rowan, don’t touch that arm. We don’t want to start a new site, do we?” the woman spoke with her back turned towards Rowan as if she had eyes in the back of her head.

      The woman brought back something in a glass for Rowan to drink. It was a pale, lavender-colored liquid.

      “Here, drink this, my dear, it’ll help you to relax” the woman spoke.

      Rowan obeyed and took a drink of the strong, thick bittersweet liquid. She made a small scowl to the taste of it.

      “What is this?” Rowan choked.
      “Deadly Nightshade” the woman chuckled.
      “Are you insane?” Rowan was afraid.
      “Oh, dear, you’ll be fine. You’ll be better for your wedding day. Just drink some more and you will be fine” the nurse smiled.

      Rowan couldn’t go on. The Deadly Nightshade had begun to already make her drowsy. Her eyes quickly shut and she was at rest until her limbs began to uncontrollably jerk erratically. She could feel the convulsions painfully moving her limbs. She wanted them to stop, but it was not within her power to control her own body movements. She was terrified. She could hear nothing more than her arms and legs hitting the hard mattress and the nurse repeating “There, there, you will be fine, just wait for the convulsions to stop. Be a brave girl and they will stop. You will be well before your wedding day” in her fine, pleasing, calm voice.

    Suddenly the nurse’s voice transformed itself into a duet with a male’s soft voice.

    “There, there, you will be fine, my dear” continued. The male’s voice was familiar to her. The convulsions seemed to calm as the voice took over in her head. Rowan was able to flicker her eyes open. The same bright white light blinded her, yet the light was now contrasted with a man with pale skin and dark hair and clothing.

      “Oh, thank goodness, only a dream. I am home with Edward here. It was just a horrible dream. We will be married and things will be fine” Rowan thought with relief.
      “Edward?” she questioned her fiancé.
      “Yes” the man spoke reassuringly as he intertwined his hand with Rowan’s.
      “What has happened?” she questioned innocently, ensuring that they were still to be married and that she was safe.
      “You’re very sick, but you’ll be better before our wedding day” Edward smiled.
      “With what? I-I-I don’t feel sick!” Rowan stuttered horrified. She thought that she had woken up from the nightmare of the infirmary.
      “Hysteria. You pricked yourself while sewing and then it appeared as if the needle had been poisoned. But don’t worry yourself, love, you’ll be better after they fix your head. Our wedding day will carry on after the surgery has been completed” Edward reassured.
      “Surgery? Fix my head? Edward, I feel perfectly fine!” Rowan protested.
      “Oh, dear, you are not perfectly fine. Just relax and let the doctor and the nurse take care of you” Edward stroked her sweaty, blonde wavy hair.
      “Yes, it will be fine, just breathe in on this my dear” the same, porcelain nurse spoke as she held a rag soaked with an unusual, characteristic sweet smell. Although the fluid smelled pleasing, Rowan attempted to resist breathing in on the liquid.
      “Please don’t fight it. It will help you to sleep. When you wake up, it will be all over” Edward encouraged.

      And with these words, Rowan finally lost the battle… and her consciousness with it. And things went black and her ears went deaf as she was spiraling into the darkness once again.