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WE MADE IT!!! AAAHhhh! (Happy Dance!)
1000+ views in 30 days, in my first month!
Thank you! Thank you, thank you - wonderful readers, wonderful Substack, for making this possible!
Okay, down to business.
I know I am late. I apologize. I didn’t want to make excuses, but I have been quite unwell for the past few days and took a few extra writing hours to sleep. (Bronchitis is not for sissies.)
Now that that’s out of the way, this one is a bit long.
I’m not sure what the length limit is on your email. If you can’t see it all, just click on the “view entire message” thing there at the bottom, or better yet, click the title to view the post in your browser. There are five scenes, and at the end, I will say this is the end (of the chapter), just so you know you haven’t missed anything.
I am thinking I will probably split this in two at some point, to make it easier on the system and everyone who has limited time to read such long passages, but I promised, so for you few, here it is.
I am still working on the formatting and the links, (bugs, ugh) but hopefully, it’ll all be fixed soon and you can get your fix a little more easily if you were missing any. And I have so many ideas and little surprises for you guys in the works, including an audio version for those who would rather listen than read and a virtual guestbook, which I found on
’ Talebones. (It’s totally awesome if you wanna check her out.)Anyway, as promised, here’s the rest of chapter two. It is long, but hopefully so exciting you won’t mind, and I really do hope you’ll stick around to the end because it only gets better from here. (Excited squeal!)
INDEX | Chapter Two | Scene One | Scene Two | Scene Three | Scenes Four through Eight | Next Chapter →
"Hello." Luke greets us both without breaking step, completely cool and collected.
My gaze flits repeatedly between the two of them. The girl lies still in her hospital bed, eyes locked on Luke’s shiny oxfords and black wool slacks, radiating tension but not moving. I can't help but wonder if her lack of reaction is because she chooses not to react or if she is unable to react. Oh, my Diety! What harm did I do?! Those few seconds staring into her eyes, there seemed to be something there, but I know that that could be wishful thinking. I resist the urge to hide my face in my sticky, orangejuiceified hands and shift my weight in the armchair, my mind racing, alternating between guilt and wondering if there’s a way I can get a towel without moving.
Luke, unfazed, introduces himself and me, casually as though this girl is just a normal patient, not someone who attacked, unprovoked, the last time she woke up from a nap. She follows his gestures, nodding at him and frowning at me, as though she is thinking hard, her lips pressed together in a hard line.
"We mean you no harm." Luke speaks the cliche reassurance as she stares at her clenched fists. She doesn’t react. "You were badly injured and have been asleep for many days." He pauses, waiting for any kind of response. She looks at him tilting her head a little, looks at her hands relaxes them, and her frown, sighs softly. There seems to be at least some degree of understanding.
"Can you tell us your name?" Luke asks tentatively and I quietly draw in a deep breath, inching a little closer to the edge of my damp seat.
Her expression becomes thoughtful again, her brow furrows even further, she inclines her head, looks at Luke, then at me then back at her hands. For a moment it looks like she wants to say something. She opens her mouth, closes it, huffs out of her nostrils, and shakes her head slightly, looking defeated.
“Take your time,” Luke says, waiting, giving her every opportunity to speak, but then she looks at him lips tightly pressed together, jaw clenched - nothing.
"Can you tell us the last thing you remember?" Her shoulders draw upward in a shrug, and she chews her bottom lip but still gives no answer. I try not to move, or draw attention to myself lest I break her concentration, acutely aware of the drying orange juice, which is starting to itch.
Luke straightens his sky-blue tie that stands out so well against the white labcoat, subtly adjusting the focus of his influence. I blink at the intensity of it. Even though it is not directed at me, I can feel the unnatural calm and trust in him seeping into my pores, and it is just this side of nauseating.
"I know you must be feeling confused and disoriented." He ventures when it becomes clear that she isn't going to say anything. "When we found you, you were very badly injured.” He says oozing sincerity and concern, she nods, not meeting his gaze, looking like she is trying to count the little lilac blossoms on her cream sheets, splaying her fingers across them.
“We took you aboard our vessel to tend your wounds but before being able to do so, we were met by a large company of soldiers.”
She flinches when he says the word ‘soldiers’, crushing the linnen reflexively.
“They did not greet us kindly. They told us we had to leave Telera, not knowing you were aboard. We brought you home with us, to Earth Prime.”
She looks up at him, releasing the now creased fabric, the most pitiful relief playing in her eyes. I wonder why she would be so afraid of her own people and it occurs to me that I never asked Luke if he could tell how she got hurt so badly. I’ve heard of kids who stop talking after a trauma, sometimes for years and I wonder if that is what happened here. It is the deciding factor. No matter how boring this gets, I will stay, and observe and make sure she is okay.
“It has been eight of our days since then,” Luke says then asks her permission to examine her injuries, staring at her intensely, just long enough to make me wonder if it is some kind of telepathic showdown.
Luke hasn’t said anything about getting into her head yet, but I know he has been trying even though his abilities are limited if the subject is unconscious. But now that she is awake there is no reason he shouldn’t be able to get in there and pluck every bit of information he wants right out of her brain, or force her to tell him. Luke is that good. But now he is looking frustrated and preoccupied, instead of his usual smug confidence.
Elle breaks eye contact abruptly after about thirty seconds and turns to the window, also an unusual thing given that by now Luke should be in complete control. He apparently takes her disinterest as a sign that he may continue, and since she hasn’t done anything violent yet, I decide it is safe to grab a towel from Luke’s trolley and clean myself up.
He pokes and prods and lifts, as the perfect square of light that fell across her legs at sunrise, moves down the room becoming more and more a rhombus, and she submits with due grace and very little hesitation. I sit in the corner and watch and wait, pretty much silently, wondering if Luke has finally won her over, wishing either of them would notice I am here and at the same time grateful they haven’t.
Trying to guess what she is thinking from her body language alone is exhausting. I stand up and pace across the thick cream carpet, trying to focus instead on the scan data which flashes with blinding speed across the various screens in the room as it saves to the main computer to process and compile. Big picture, she seems fine, but it is impossible to make out any details from a single frame. I will have to ask Luke about it later. Frustrated I glance out the window and catch a glimpse of a sparrow flying by. Its nest must be somewhere under the eaves.
There is a moment when Elle sees the IV and the bandages keeping her chest together, Luke stares into her eyes with such laser focus that it can only mean one thing; Her expression becomes strained, her movements forced. He touches her hand gently and her eyes glaze over and I can see the strain in him as well, though it only lasts a few seconds. Then he suddenly breaks the contact, and their expressions both clear, and Luke's influence recedes completely. After that, his demeanor seems changed, more curt.
When he is finished with all the scans and tests I imagine he is capable of, Luke pulls out a tray of fruit from a compartment in his trolley and offers it to her. I wonder if he really knew she’d be awake or if he just always had that tray of fresh fruit in there, just in case.
She looks uncertainly at the bite-sized pieces of banana, strawberry, and apple then her gaze flits over to the orange that rolled away from me earlier. She is hesitant but soon decides she is hungry and digs in.
At last, she pushes the tray away slightly, wearing a satisfied smile - her first since we found her, and it is as beautiful as it is fleeting.
Luke replaces the tray in its compartment and then he picks up the needle. Elle's expression changes from contentment to trepidation. He doesn't seem to notice, draws the dose, and moves to inject it. The trepidation turns to panic, which he blatantly ignores, muttering something about it helping her chest. I quickly grab her hand so she won’t jerk away as he pushes the needle into her biceps muscle. It is his 'Shock cocktail,' I see; supplement, sedative, and opiate, developed for the Manorian system to relieve pain, relax muscles, and boost immunity... general recovery from injuries. Within minutes her eyes droop and her grip slackens.
* * *
"It's not your fault." He smiles at me when her eyes close completely. I know he is referring to her not talking.
"Are you sure?" I ask pathetically, hating myself for sounding so childish.
"Scans show no brain damage. Her frontal and temporal lobes are intact and functioning normally, the Broca and Wernicke’s areas of her brain, which turn ideas and thoughts into words, both lit up like a fireworks display every time I asked a question. The problem is not physical."
"Thank you." I breathe a sigh of relief and fall gratefully back into the stained armchair as he wheels his cart out. He seems irritated, and somewhat disappointed, when he should be relieved and elated at the extent of her recovery. It doesn’t make sense.
I stay with her all that day and the next as she sleeps wondering what ticked Luke off so badly earlier. Since then he has kept her on a steady dose of shock cocktail. Going by the gradual strengthening of her presence, it seems to be working.
Eventually Luke convinces me to eat something solid and get some sleep but I return just after dawn on the third day after he started dosing her, to find her standing at the window in a daze. Her skin seems to have lost what little color it had and is hot to the touch, and when she finally turns to look at me I notice dark rings under her eyes.
Sigh.
I feel sweat beading on my skin. The air is still. I do not know how much time has passed since Logan held my hand as Luke drugged me but things have changed. I am alone now and a dreadfully familiar ache has settled into my core. I pluck out the needle in my forearm, groan involuntarily while pushing myself upright, and step down from the edge of the bed. I feel like a half-filled water skin. The padding on the floor feels warm and makes walking unfamiliar. On trembling and unsteady legs I pad over to the window, which is also warm to the touch and apparently does not open. I push and tug on the frame, then knock and then hit the pane with my palm but it only shimmers slightly with some kind of force field.
Sigh. I could probably break through with some effort but it seems poor recompense to Luke for saving my life that I destroy part of his house for a breath of fresh air, and in all likelihood, it wouldn't help much anyway.
Outside the window, the ground is as dark as my cell at TTH, but the sky is magnificent. I did not even know that so many stars exist. We know no moon on Telera except for the large red crescent of Maxillia that hangs just above the horizon where the suns set, and even on our darkest night when the sky is deep cobalt and the ground is bathed in shadow no more than a few hundred stars shimmer through.
This black canopy is hung with a shining disk that is pale as bone and uncountable twinkling gems that glitter and sparkle. At first, it seems like they are standing still but as I stare out, imagining the cool freshness of the night air, gradually, they start to move. The constellations trek achingly slowly in perfect unison, marching across to disappear on the horizon and it is enough to distract me from my discomfort for some time.
It does happen to cross my mind, sometime during the night that I have left my old life behind. No more training with Teag. No more mind games with James. No more sparring room with its heavy blue light. No more TTH. These people seem good and kind and there is only the burning within me and the loss of Chrys to dampen my joy at the limitless possibilities of this new freedom.
I start to wonder at the turn my life has taken. These people are not the Maxillian rebels that were supposed to have met Chrys and me, beyond the caves. They seem to be just some random visitors, some kind of scientist, and his two adopted sons. Now, I have been saved, from a training program designed to either break or kill its students, in the hope of making them into something more, and, shell-shocked as I am, it occurs to me that my saviors are going to expect something in return. They must realize that I have nothing to offer them. Chrys had been the prize for the rebels. The crown princess is a rare commodity, alive. The Maxillian rebels probably wouldn't even have taken me if I showed up without her, without even the words to explain.
The sky starts to lighten as I rock back and forth on my heels. Black is fading to grey, which brightens to blue, and I cannot tear my eyes away. At its brightest, the color is paler than Telera's night but deeper than our day. There are wisps of cloud tinted every shade of natural flame, floating, swirling, and below them, the world, this Earth, is alive and full of green growing things. One bright spot appears, biting a chunk out of the horizon, growing it as it rises. I wipe the sweat from my brow as the light of one yellow sun floods the room.
The spell breaks as I startle when Logan quietly walks up behind me. I didn't even hear the door open. I drop my gaze on instinct and exhale slowly, balling my shaking hands to steady them, hoping he wouldn’t have seen. I know it would not have fooled Teag or James, but suddenly all I feel is the heat that my body is generating and the bandages restricting my breath.
My bound chest rises and falls and the scene outside has become hazy and indistinct. I feel irritated. I should have sensed his presence from the other side of the building, followed his energy as he approached. I should have been able to hear his footfalls in the passage, and feel the change in air pressure as the door opened.
I force another too-shallow breath.
Then Logan puts his hand over mine and all resistance flows out of me. I follow his lead and totter back to the bed. Clambering up, I feel terribly clumsy. Fluidity of movement is one of the hardest lessons I learned at TTH. It took nights and nights of painful mind games with James followed by full days of practice under Teag's perfectionism to fine-tune my muscular control to the point of perfect grace, but now I am more awkward than I was when I was learning my first forms at age three. I lie back trying to hide my ragged breathing and force thoughts of tomorrow from my mind. No use dwelling on it. There is no way to stop it from happening. Rest and ride it out. It will be over soon.
Luke's scanner beeps constantly as he finishes up his latest examination. I stand rolling the bandages up quietly, remembering the sight of Elle's torso as the last layer of gauze fell off. My eyes flit to where her chest rises and falls rhythmically, unable to forget the sight of the black and blue bruises now hidden by her soft green gown. I still see some of the blotchy yellowing contusions and bile rises in my throat. That is because of me.
Luke hardly gave them a passing glance.
It has been ten days and her recovery is nothing short of miraculous. The internal injuries have all but healed, the bones set and the inflammation is subsiding, even the incision is already knitted and scarring over. There is hardly a trace left of the older injuries from when we found her. Luke says he has never seen anything like it. At this rate, she should be fully recovered in a matter of days, with hardly a trace remaining. For the thousandth time since we got home, I force the thought that I was almost a murderer out of my mind. She is fine, recovering, but then why the fever?
"So it’s not an infection from the operation?" I ask Luke again, trying to sound less pathetic than I feel as I roll up the last bandage and put it in the basket.
"None of this is your fault, Son. As I've told you before." He mutters absently, tapping furiously on his tab. The scanner buzzes and clicks. There is still a lot of data to collect, apparently.
"But what could be causing it then?"
"That is what I am attempting to find out." He looks up impatiently, then continues to ignore me.
* * *
The treadmill starts slowly, I turn it up to a comfortable jog and let my mind dissect every detail of this horrible day as my feet take over. Elle was already pretty out of it when I found her at dawn, staring out the window. She was shivering violently, drenched in sweat, and dazed, hardly made it back to the bed before passing out. She was breathing raggedly, and burning hot. Luke got the fever down a little with medication but it flared up again a few hours later so we spent the rest of the day checking over every inch of her body to try to find a cause, but to no avail.
I turn up the speed another notch and I can feel my tensed muscles loosening as I start to warm up. It would be so much easier if she could just say where it hurts. Luke's answer to that question is post-traumatic stress disorder. She should eventually snap out of it on her own. It will take time.
I recall the look on her face, sitting there holding her arms above her head. After open heart surgery maintaining such a position should have been excruciating, or at least difficult, but she never faltered for a second. She didn't even grimace, just looked at me serenely, even when the last layers of support fell away. The whole time I was trying to figure out what could've been going on in her head. Even though her eyes stayed fixed on me, they had somehow lost the intensity that was there before. It was just blank, like some kind of trance.
I know Luke has been trying his tricks, and I also know he has not succeeded. His frustration is making him detach as well, his clinical attitude, the lack of empathy. It is all because he can't get into her head, and since she can't or won't let us get to know her the conventional way, he thinks that's all that's left.
Another notch up, and my feet pound the belt as perspiration starts to form at the back of my neck.
* * *
In the morning I find her back at the window, half out of her mind with delirium. It's like it was on the ship all over again, moaning, incoherent... I manage to coax her back to her bed but it takes Luke's magic potion to keep her there and even then it doesn't knock her out completely for long. It's getting worse and I don't feel right leaving her alone.
The day drags, Luke comes around every few hours to administer another dose but her cries have turned soft and timid. Sometimes she cringes and weeps others she is completely unresponsive. By sunset, she seems to be in real pain. When she is awake, she holds her head with one hand and clutches the other to her chest, curled up like a baby and crying.
"It could be viral but her immune response seems to be fading... Whatever it is, it doesn't look like we've caused it." Luke says when we leave her to rest after yet another double dose of Shock Cocktail.
"What else could it be? Allergy? Environmental, but then it should have shown sooner, right? It would take longer to build a tolerance for the sedative, wouldn't it?" I offer tentatively as we walk slowly down the hallway to relax in the Library before supper. He looks quizzically at me as he considers my questions but says nothing.
"What?" I smile, disguising my chagrin with humor, "I do listen. Sometimes." He smirks briefly and then continues with his hand on the Library door handle.
"The scans can only tell me so much about her physiology and how she might react to our medications," He says before pushing the doors wide. I flop down onto the soft white leather sofa and listen to Luke thinking aloud as he builds the fire.
"More likely the fever is just burning off the sedation, I can suppress it but that'll do little more than buy time for us to find the underlying cause. I can’t treat what I can’t find." He lights a match, shrugs, and stands as he tosses it onto the kindling, then sighs, turning to face me: "There are many things I need to study further." There is a long pause as he pokes in the grate and goes over into thinking mode, retreating to his usual cool detachment.
"Like?" I ask, trying to get him back but all it does is start him off on a tangent.
"Well," he says thoughtfully, more to himself than to me, "Teleran bio-mechanics are not necessarily equivalent even to Manorians'. We all may look the same on the outside. Even you and Thomas have traits that make you visually almost indistinguishable from humans, but you know how I have to adapt things for you two. Your bodies simply don’t react the same way to the same things. And there are so many things that can influence it.” He sighs exasperated. “Take the girl’s rate of healing. is unprecedented, and then there's her metabolism, and her ability to control raw energy, maybe..." He trails off, staring off towards the side then lunges over to pick up his tablet and bring up the scan data... "None of my early scans picked up any resonant energy. You said you couldn't sense her presence at all when we found her. You said- and yet she used raw energy, and in the fight on the ship. But if it is energy then...I don't know what I can do..."
* * *
Friday comes around and Tom comes back. I am almost asleep in a hard plastic chair, back in the infirmary, but I sense him come in by the front door and follow his steps mentally. I am surprised by just how much I have missed him. He stops on the way somewhere near Luke. His energy level spikes slightly, maybe irritation, and then subsides and he continues on his way.
We moved Elle back downstairs when Luke stopped the Shock Cocktail because of the side effects. It had been working well enough to keep her comfortable, but the dark rings around her eyes worsened and then spread, and her breathing became very labored. After a while, the marks started looking like a purple bruise all the way from her eye sockets to her eyebrows onto her forehead and down both cheeks, like some weird butterfly mask that had been tattooed on.
We tried buprenorphine, to try and relieve the pressure on her renal system, but it sent her into a tonic-clonic seizure so fast that we had to scurry around for an anticonvulsant. By the time Luke got to her with it, it was already over. Safer to have her in the infirmary where everything is at hand.
He eventually settled on a combination of hydromorphone and ketamine, with a synthetic of his own making to help the effects last longer, but she was moving around too much for a drip. We tried hospital-grade restraints but she snapped them in minutes, mangling the frame of her bed the first time, and cutting her head open falling out the second. After that Luke dug out a cargo strap from the hold on his spaceship, made of a special material that his father perfected, called lonsdaleite fiber.
Lonsdaleite is a material harder than diamonds with a nearly unbreakable crystalline structure. Alexander McKeen developed the formula to synthesize it into a woven fiber stronger than graphene and built the machine that prints it.
We keep straps of various lengths and widths as well as lonsdaleite buckles to fasten them, in the hanger, for securing cargo on the spaceship because it is so reliable. The strap we used for Elle was about four centimeters wide and made to measure a little more than the width of the hospital bed. Two buckles and some padded cuffs later, it kept her hands on either side of her body, and her body in the center of the bed.
It doesn't hold her still enough for an IV but it does prevent her from slipping off again in her hysterics.
"At least she can't fall out again and hurt herself," I mutter to myself rubbing my eyes, half thinking Tom is standing beside me. Exhaustion is messing with my head. I must look a haggard sight. I cannot rightly remember when last I ate a proper meal or stole more than an hour's nap, never mind took a shower. Luke came round with his sedative about an hour ago, so Elle is peaceful when Tom finally reaches me. The quiet is nice.
"You look refreshed." I smile warmly at my brother, looking up at him over my shoulder when he pauses in the doorway.
"You look terrible." He answers with a grimace. His whole stance has changed, he is more relaxed and has a slight tan making his short blonde hair look almost white. His break has been well spent.
"Yeah, I've felt better," I state ironically, chuckling a little, my elation at seeing him again quickly dissipating. He just stands there for a minute watching. I look at him inquiringly, an invitation to speak his mind.
"Do you even know what you're doing here?" He asks critically and I am taken aback by the judgment in his tone. "Why are you torturing yourself, bro? Luke has made it clear there's nothing more to be done. Let nature take its course. And what is she to you anyway?"
I swallow hard, gritting my teeth, and ball my fists, but say nothing. "All I'm saying is that it is clearly not your fault. The overdose was an accident and based on the circumstances it happened under... There's no one here that blames you. Her heart is beating just fine. Her shocked systems are all healed. Even the incision is all but gone. This is something else, and it's not on you." She stirs and moans in her little girl voice and even he can't keep his eyes averted.
"Well, it doesn't feel that way," I mutter under my breath and take Elle's little hand in mine, trying not to tug at the cuff, and Tom storms off without a backward glance.
I know this feeling. The heat, the weight in my chest, the way it hurts. It surprised me one morning when I was little and woke up with this sickening ache in the pit of my belly, but now I know exactly what is coming, and even though it has happened before it is no less terrifying than the first time.
Rest now, sweetling. It will be over soon. Chrys' voice says softly to me, as I turn my head into the mattress so that my crying won’t make as much noise, and I drift and dream while I can.
Dreams and memories are all that is left of my world now. Awareness comes in fits and spurts, the nightmares mingle with the waking nightmare and the pain. I can hardly tell the difference anymore. It is all the same anyway.
I cannot feel the injections nor even sense the strange energy signatures coming and going. There is only the burning and the fear of how much worse it will get and that this might be the last time and my life is at its end.
There is much that I would say if only I had words, but they refuse to form on my lips.
I wish I could have been a better daughter, more considerate, less selfish.
I wish that I had been a more dutiful student, more obedient, less defiant.
I wish I had time to learn to be a better friend.
Now the pain is reaching its height and my mind is a mess of memories and flashbacks.
I want my life to have been different.
I wish I had never left TTH.
I wish James were here, now.
It is so hard to breathe.
I just want it to be over,
The world is tinted the color of my raw energy.
I feel my heartbeat getting really fast.
I can hear screaming.
A long drawn-out wail sends shivers down my spine. I stir, check my wristwatch for the time, and then pull the pillow over my head for a few more seconds. Even though it has been over two hours since Luke came by with his magic potion, it feels like I have only just closed my eyes. Sitting up and blinking in the gloom, I see the hospital bed and equipment all around, and remember I am back in the infirmary. Elle groans again and I throw aside the blue pinstriped covers of my cot, sending mental alarm bells in Luke's direction. Time for another dose.
By the time Luke arrives, the skin on Elle's wrists is chafed and bleeding from pulling at the strap. I am clutching her left hand talking softly about peaceful things. Sometimes it helps to calm her a little, this time it doesn't seem to be. She tries to turn her head into the pillow, arching her back and gritting her teeth against the squeals she can no longer suppress, but she can't roll over far enough because of the restraint.
I adjust my grip to hold her shoulder and neck still as Luke inverts another new vial and draws a large dose. Even injected directly into her carotid artery it takes a long minute to kick in as the purple rings around her eyes darken a little more, but eventually, her screams weaken and her small body relaxes.
Tom is here, I see when I look up at last. He looks pained as Luke pushes past him, shaking his head with an exasperated sigh, but says nothing.
I clamber back onto my cot and roll over to make the most of the next hour or two. The overhead light clicks off.
* * *
The library's grandfather clock dings four times. Dawn is threatening. I rub my eyes and then stand up to poke the dying embers in the grate. The log on top smolders and emits another thin trickle of smoke then finally starts to catch.
They say that torture affects the mind of a spectator as much as that of the victim. I left Elle's side for good when Luke stopped the meds. I've been here upstairs for more than half a day now. The infirmary is two floors below in the opposite wing and I can still hear her.
Trying to reconcile all that has happened in the last fourteen days with some form of intrinsic justice has left me feeling hopeless. The dots just won't connect.
When we found her she was on the run, who knows for how long but considering her injuries it would have to have been a couple of days at least. She attacked us, which despite the display, I'm not convinced was in order to scare us off. Then there were the soldiers. Luke's recon suggested capture not rescue as their intention which is an important distinction and also lends itself to another theory. She was stuck, between a rock and a hard place, exhausted, and considering what we know about Teleran/Manorian relations, maybe she hoped to end it all by provoking her natural enemy. Then the whole thing on the ship, which we can probably chalk up to exhaustion and shock, and the fight after we landed, which was pure terror and nothing more. Then the overdose. She seemed to be recovering in spite of it all. Never mind the fact that she won't talk if it's PTSD or whatever. Who can even guess what she's been through? Her physical wounds have healed almost completely.
Now this.
An inexplicable fever and debilitating pain with seemingly no source. What could have made her sick? Could she have been infected with something from the start? Luke's lab and infirmary are equipped with the best there is. We have no means of gathering more information and so the only thing to do is manage the pain and ride it out but we have officially run out of ways to do so. Luke can't even find a way to sedate her anymore! Meds are burning up before they can fully take effect and the volumes it was taking to give her even some relief were obviously poisoning her. There is nothing more we can do but wait for it to run its course.
It starts out with whimpering, then sobs, and after a few minutes the screaming. After half an hour or so the screams seem to reach a crescendo, and then she loses consciousness and a few minutes later it starts up again. Luke says it is like a seizure, when the pain gets too intense her brain cuts out and resets itself, but that doesn't solve the problem so when she comes around it just goes on.
Each time it happens there's this dreadful moment when you start to wonder if she will come to again, maybe it’s finally over, but then you find out that it isn't and you wonder which is worse... When exactly was it that her voice lost the childlike quality? I can't remember. My brain feels like mush. She has to be nearing the limit of her endurance.
I draw the thick curtains closed to block out the graying sky and flop back down on the sofa. Maybe the gloom will help me deny the pit of despair that threatens to overwhelm me. I run my hands through my hair for the thousandth time since coming here, pushing my greasy head back to look at the ceiling, and wishing it would just end.
The bright spots from the flames that have burned into my retina make pretty patterns on the white moldings. In the depths of sleep deprivation, I have caught myself wondering if there's a way to put her out of her misery for good but if Luke had to find out I'd been thinking like that he'd probably send me to a sanitarium. The Deity knows I probably need one by now.
* * *
Sometime during the day or night, I can't tell which anymore, exhaustion claims me and I sleep in spite of the screams. When I wake, it is with the sense that something has changed. A sliver of dark gray sky shining through a crack between the curtains suggests predawn.
At first, I can't place it. It's quiet again which doesn't necessarily mean much. I can just barely make out Tom and Luke's energy signals moving below me, but there is another, much stronger force, right where Elle's should be. After another moment's silence, there is a sudden piercing shriek. I leap from the sofa to the ground, speeding around corners and bounding through doorways. As the screaming continues, my mind outpaces my feet. It has never started like that before, with screaming right away, and the tenor of the screams has changed. There is more urgency and anger.
Luke and Tom are standing just inside the swinging double doors when I get there, but I don't pause to consider what may be holding them back. The energy is breathtakingly powerful, and the scene before me explains everything.
Elle is suspended in mid-air, with what is left of her hospital bed dangling from the strap, mangled out of proportion by her paroxysms. She has her arms partway stretched out in front of her, the completely destroyed metal frame and smoking mattress pulled up hard against her back.
She is glowing a sickly green from head to foot. The silver-green light, sort of pulses, just below her skin, subtle then growing and subsiding again. It seems to be slightly more concentrated along her arms just below the elbow where the straps should be digging in, but with the pulse, it is hard to be sure.
As we watch, fixated, she draws a deep breath, and strains, screaming through clenched teeth. The bed frame and clothes buckle further away from her and then with one final push a sound like a whip cracking splits the air.
Lonsdaleite shrapnel goes flying in all directions. A piece grazes my right arm, another few narrowly miss my temple. Tom is still looking at those that pass him when I catch sight of the bedding falling away, then Elle pauses in her screams to take more one long shuddering breath which is followed by a howling shriek, and then silence.
She is curled into the fetal position suspended nearly two meters above the pile of mangled bed. The glow, reflecting off of the high ceiling just above her, has intensified to the point where it is no longer possible to make out the milky shade of her skin beneath it. The energy in the air is stifling, and with each passing second it keeps intensifying, as the girl rises slowly. Struggling for each breath between clenched teeth clutching her head with both hands her knees drawn inward as if to protect her most vulnerable core. Another few seconds and even my lungs are burning for want of air.
She pants faster and faster, the green light brightening. Her energy grows so heavy it feels like we are being crushed. Tom and I barely keep our feet, Luke takes a knee.
The light coming off of her is blinding.
Luke falls forward onto all fours, but I can't move to steady him. My every thought becomes occupied with staying upright and getting enough air into my lungs so that my vision stays sharp.
Then suddenly everything stops and I greedily inhale precious oxygen. Elle draws one more labored breath, and the pressure lifts as if all of the ambient energy has been reabsorbed - but only for a second, and then the dam bursts.
Instinctively I surround myself in a cocoon of my own innate power to protect me from the flow, extending it towards Luke, while hoping Tom would have thought to do the same, as Elle's raw energy sweeps past us in a flood.
Her energy has the quality of water; heavy, yet fluid. As it passes in seeming slow motion, knocking us over and pushing everything back up against the walls, I note absently that it carries only what it can move, warping around or passing through the rest, leaving it covered in steaming film, slowly dissipating.
I am first back to my feet, blinking. The lab is mostly still intact. The greenish energy steams all around but there seems to be little damage except for the fact that anything that wasn't bolted down is now against the walls.
Was that it?
Then I see Elle, lying in the middle of the now cleared floor, naked again, her soft green gown having burned off, unmoving.
A second passes, and another, and then the first trace of dust trickles down from above. I can sense Tom moving, he grunts, his voice oddly muffled, "We have to get out! The whole house is coming down!"
I hear the stone crumbling above me before the first small block of rubble falls. A piece the size of a football, about a hand-span away from Elle's head. I glance behind me hoping to catch a glimpse of Luke or my brother, when there is another faint rumbling above. I bound forward without hesitating, rolling away just as half a cubic meter of mansion, drops into the exact spot where I had been standing. Tom yells from somewhere out of sight: "To the ship!" but I look back at Elle. She is probably dead, fifteen meters away. "Save yourself!” flashes through my mind like a scrolling marquee as another slab of stone drops in slow motion before my eyes, and I move.
Ducking and weaving between falling bits of rubble I manage to dodge the biggest ones and pause only a fraction of a second to scoop Elle's miniature body into a fireman's hold over my shoulder before repeating the test of agility on the way out. I see Luke's emergency kit lying next to a couple of undamaged units of synthesized blood, fallen out of a cabinet, by the swinging doors. Without considering how they got there I thank the Deity and snatch them up in passing, just in case.
Rubble is falling now with unavoidable regularity as I fly out through the kitchen, which is blanketed in a thick cloud of grit and dust. I slit my eyes and glimpse Luke, with Tom supporting him on the path going to the ship in the backyard.
They are running together as I clear the door, but something is wrong with the way they are moving. There are large drops of blood all along the path and a lucky ray of rising sunlight manages to pierce the growing dust cloud to reflect off of some metal as they reach the ramp and both collapse.
* * *
This is the end of Chapter 2.
Okay, as always, if you like what you read, it’s completely free for the time being, so please
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Next issue comes out Friday, on time, if I can shake this ick that has me.
Good suspense! The touch and go health of Misty and the frustration at not being able to figure out what to do. I felt it all. Nice work Jenny. I look forward to chapter 3. Happy holidays
What a beautiful narrative sequence, switching narrators at just the right moment, keeping it juiced and involving the reader in the story without hardly being aware! Boy o boy it moves and flows! You have set a high bar to maintain.