I walked through the upper vilge as the sun started to set, trying my best to walk fast to get home before dark. The area where the markets usually stood was desote. Empty. It was just a big open area with sand and a bit of trash littering the ground.

  I walked quicker. My heels were starting to hurt again, despite the bandages that Asher had put on earlier, covering them.

  I walked past Damian’s painting shop. It was the first time I’d seen it all closed up. No lights on, door closed and locked. No beautiful paintings being dispyed outside. The vilges were very quiet and vacant during and just before nightfall.

  Right past his shop was the lower vilge. The poorer part. Not everyone in the lower vilge was specifically poor, but they weren’t rich, like the upper vilge. There was only an upper and lower vilge, but there was a small part in between that was for the middle css people and Damian’s shop was almost in it, just a bit more in the upper vilge so it could be near the markets.

  I reached my house just as the sun was gone behind the valley and the stars started poking out in the night sky. I opened the door to my house slowly, wincing as it creaked loudly. I didn’t want to wake my dad up. He was most likely asleep at that time. I slowly closed the door and let it shut with a soft click.

  The house was dark, so I fumbled around to find a wall. When I did find one, I leant my left hand against it and used my other hand to slide my high heels off. I gently id my high heels on the wooden floorboards, sitting neatly next to each other. I tiptoed through the house and was about to go upstairs to my room before I heard a hacking cough.

  I turned around and quickly made my way to my dad’s bedroom, still making no noise with my feet. I opened the door to his room slightly so I could just see through a crack. His bed was empty. Bnkets and sheets all messed up on the bed, as if he had struggled to even stand up off of the bed.

  I quickly turned around and ran from room to room, trying to find where the coughing was coming from and then I opened the door to the living room.

  As soon as the door was opened, the coughing became extremely loud. It was nasal and rough and haggard. And my dad was on the floor. On hands and knees. Coughing like he couldn’t breathe at all. He probably couldn’t. His chest shook with every breath that he took. Wheezing and wheezing. I was frozen for too long before I dropped beside him, my hand on his back, trying to figure out what was wrong.

  He only stopped coughing for about two seconds to gnce up at me out of the corner of his eyes before they shut tightly again, his body shuddering aggressively. I panicked. Watching him like that made bile rise up in my throat, threatening to spill out onto the red and yellow patterned rug. I swallowed it down, hard.

  I needed to get my dad to a doctor.