Suddenly, It got harder to breathe.

He began to choke, gasping for any oxygen he was now suddenly being deprived of. Did he inhale some spit or something? No. He could feel something roughly coming up from his lungs, desperately trying to cough it up.

A few more chokes and finally, he could breathe again! There were a few tears in his eyes and phlegm and spit covered his hand from the violent outburst, but he had finally hacked up the damn thing! What was it anyway?

He looked down into his palm that he had been covering his mouth with, and saw something that admittedly shook him.

His eyes immediately spotted what looked to be a few bright pink petals, still covered in spit.

But just as quickly, he shook them off. He knew what it meant, of course. But, despite that, he refused to fully acknowledge it. He refused to admit he was afraid.

So, he went back to tending the fire.

She caught herself looking out the window again... Practically hypnotized by the dying ashes billowing up from the fire-pit below. She quickly shook herself out of the calm haze to try and put focus back onto the computer in front of her.

It was a rather stupid habit she had developed over the years. But, she guessed there was just something about those dancing embers that mesmerized her. Kept her calm or something, she didn't know! But, what she did know, was that it was distracting her from her mission to look up any interesting colleges to apply for!

But, while she forced her eyes to focus back on the screen before her, she couldn't shake off this bad feeling she had stirring in her gut...

Perhaps it just felt like there was something... different this time about those usually soothing flames. Something about those dying embers warned her constantly of something that had her insides knotting uncomfortably.

She shook that thought off fairly quickly however. No need to add to the pile of things that were already stressing her out today, she thought.

So, she went back to scrolling on the computer.