Each breath I took felt like trying to breathe in an ocean. If the ocean happened to have been the lymphatic fluid flooding my lungs at an alarming rate. As I struggled to breath, foam began to pour from my mouth, and when I tried to wipe it away, my appendages stiffened. I felt like a scarecrow, poised to remain forever outstretched on an open field, warding away the threat of the flying, black vermin.

But lying there on the stretcher, I could only vaguely make out the fluorescent lights swimming above me. A voice somewhere said, "He's going into cardiac arrest." The stretcher came to a halt, and I felt hands press down deep into my chest, bruising one of my ribs, I was sure. Darkness tainted the edges of my vision. "1, 2, 3," the voice said in time with each of the compressions. 4, 5, 6. 7... 8... and finally - finally - the blackness consumed me.

***

When I came to, I attempted to shut my alarm clock off, the beeping having cut through a dream I was having. In the dream, I had taken a cup of what I thought was wine and grinned at it for a reason I did not know as it fell from my hand; the red liquid flew from the glass like drops of blood, spattering the clean, white floor. When the glass hit the floor, however, the flute cracked into a thousand perfect crystals, the blood-like drops momentarily refracting back in them as they dispersed around me.

Although, currently, I slammed my hand upon the machine nearby, only to feel fabric instead. Still refusing to open my eyes for fear of the light to pierce into the pounding of my skull, I slammed my hand down again, much to the same effect.

Giving in, I opened my eyes, first taking in the TV across the room, showing news of another supposed robbery. Permitting myself to look away, an ache traveling up my neck as I did, I noticed the bouquets of flowers to the left of me, polished, white linoleum floor, white walls, medical equipment, and fluorescent lights, my stomach dropping at the realization of my circumstances.

A hand reached out to grab a hold onto my arm, rubbing it in small circles. I glanced to my right.

"How are you feeling?" Nancy asked. I noted the dark circles surrounding her striking blue eyes and the wrinkles forming around her otherwise spotless face. And while her raven hair still maintained its reflective sheen, it appeared to not have been brushed in days. Stress did not look flattering on my younger sister.

"Like death," I rasped, trying for a smile, but Nancy's frown only deepend. She looked down as if she were purposely trying to avoid my gaze. On a closer inspection, I came to the startling realization that was exactly what she was doing.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Recognizing her error much too late, she snapped her head up.

"Fine." She tried for a smile, which further pronounced her newly-formed wrinkles. "Would you like some blueberry muffins? Maria made them," she added, holding up a wicker basket.

"I don't think they'd let you as I recall, I'm probably only allowed to eat crappy hospital Jell-O, aren't I?"

Finally, Nancy gave a slight chuckle, but the change in humor didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Nancy, what happened?" Almost immediately, the facade dropped from her face, and a small bit of guilt kicked at me for asking the question so directly. "I don't remember... I just remember the toast and then..." I furrowed my eyebrows ...and then the sound of glass breaking on the floor. "And then it gets fuzzy." Nancy cleared her throat.

"You choked," she said, her jaw set, daring to press further.

"I don't think so..." Her chest began to heave with pronounced effort as if she were running as opposed to conversing with her incapacitated brother.

"Would you like a blueberry muffin?" she asked again, proffering the basket.

"Nancy, what happened?" She swallowed.

"We had the family reunion." She licked her lips. "Jean was there."

"I know that. What happened next? What happened to me?" I asked, feeling my muscles tense and the ache that followed. Whatever guilt I had harbored before evaporated with Nancy's insistence to evade the truth.

"I told you - you choked. On wine." I gritted my teeth.

"I did not choke on wine. Tell me what happened." Noting the change of tone in my voice, she set the basket aside.

"You were poisoned." Silence settled over us for a moment like a thick blanket. Suddenly the events came tumbling back in a flash: Mom's bizarre toast, the complaints, the compliments, the concealed contempt, Jean, and suddenly my throat caving in on itself. And the horrid clarity only made possible by the element of pain, the slowness of the scene: the chairs scraping against the mahogany floor, the faces crowding my vision. Then only a collection of garbled images.

"What else aren't you telling me?" Instead of replying, however, Nancy merely looked down at her nails, rubbing at an invisible imperfection.

"Nancy."

"The doctors were only able to temporarily revive you." My throat became as dry as sandpaper.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my throat sounding impossibly small in my own ears.

"I mean" - and at this, she met my gaze directly - "that you are doing to die in three days." I eased out a strangled breath. "The doctors are unfamiliar with this kind of poison, so they can't formulate the proper antidote. And we don't know who tried to..." She paused looking for an appropriate euphemism, I was sure. "... tamper with your cup, so we wouldn't know the first place to start looking for that poison." The lights above me began to pierce into my skull, driving it into all of the niches of my head.

"And - and they don't have any prime suspects, I take it?" She shook her head, her cropped hair flying about her head. "Whoever did this was meticulous, Ace - no fingerprints on the glass, except your own, of course, but you had the glass with you all night. And surely, no one poured any inside with all of us watching."

"Or maybe, that's exactly when they did it." A thought began to stir in the recesses of my pained mind. "I was wrong."

"About what?"

"There were fifteen people in that room. So only fifteen could've done it."

"Axel, it was probably some crazed fan. They're probably miles away by now-"

"Nancy, we both know how much all those people in that room would have loved to see me dead. This wasn't some crazed fan... I have three days, you say?"

"Yes, so you should rest-"

"Nancy, I have three days. And you, more than anyone, know that I sure as hell won't spend it, waiting to die." She leaned over, pulling my covers over me.

"Axel, you really need rest-"

"As of now, I have 72 hours." I grinned, sure that it looked positively wild on my deathly pale face. "I'll just have to hope that will be enough... Nancy, tell them I'm awake- I want to talk with them." This time Nancy obliged me, her hand moving toward her bag and pulling out her phone.

"I hope you know what you're doing." Luckily for me, I never knew what I was doing. She cupped the phone beside her ear. "Hello? Maria? He's awake - he wants to talk with you - all of you."