She took a deep breath to summon her strength, grabbed the edge of the toilet bowl and heaved herself up so she could lean over it and stick her fingers down her throat.

The problem was that no matter how far down she shoved her fingers, the only result was a series of gagging convulsions that made her feel like she was about to snap in half. Not even poking at her uvula brought up anything other than a small amount of searing bile.

And blood. Black lumps of clotted blood.

That was what scared her the most. A bleeding ulcer meant her stomach might be perforated, which was serious enough in itself. But when she thought about it, she hadn’t had any symptoms until yesterday, which meant this was probably something else entirely.

For the first time in her life, she felt a clear, unequivocal fear of death. What she had once looked down on as a weakness suddenly yawned before her like an abyss.

She wasn’t ready to die, not by a long shot. She, who had just got started and had so many things left to experience. Others might lie down and give up, but not her. It would take more than this to break her.

Her phone… She had to find her phone and call someone. Anyone. If she waited much longer, she wouldn’t be able to. Where had she put it? She tried to stand up but was too weak, so she crawled into the hallway on all fours.

The sun was streaming in through the living room window, hitting the hallway floor, which it only did in the afternoon. So she had been sick for somewhere between ten and fifteen hours, since coming home the night before. She had noticed the nausea going up the stairs, and she had only just managed to get her coat off before having to run to the toilet.

Her boots were still sprawled on the floor by the front door, and apparently she had balled up her coat and tossed it on the shelf above the hooks. Of course, that’s where her phone was, as high up as possible and, given her condition, practically impossible to reach.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she started crawling towards the front door. But after no more than a few feet, she had to lie down on her stomach and drag herself the last bit.

When she reached the door, she coughed up a few more lumps of coagulated blood before summoning her last ounce of strength and pulling herself up via the door handle and her raincoat, which was hanging on its hook.