743. Hope and despair, 3
(Temee)
The smell of charred human bodies and burnt plastics from incinerated clothing is sticking to my skin.
I smell them still regularly, while walking or moving my clothes or bag.
It’s a kind of smoke that sips everywhere. I’m uneasy dragging this constant reminder.
We’re walking toward Kamar, the next area. With some luck, if they’re expecting me to only be around Angbat, they won’t be on alert.
I want to find food supplies. I’m empty. And I want to wash. And to wash my clothes, from this smell of ashes and burnt plastics. And to wash Ukhtukht as well, even if it’s different. She sweats very little but it’s good for her as well from time to time.
With some luck, I could rest there for a day or two. I could work even if required.
I’m hoping to find good people...
Good or bad for me, I don’t want to go on killing...
Whether it’s sudden or intended, the shocks, the strength fighting back, the screams, the pains, and the smells... They’re all memories that scar me. They’re not going away, and they’re accumulating. I’m having nausea.
Already fourteen dead and five wounded... I keep counting and recounting them, even though it hurts me. I can’t stop thinking back. I have a vertigo like a lump in my throat that doesn’t goes away, feeling like a growing disease from all these dead people behind me.
The days pass regardless.
The road toward the city is deserted. I end up approaching cautiously while the town slowly appears in sight.
~
Kamar is a city I heard of from my father.
We never betrayed our promises to my Ukhtukht.
My father sometimes was discussing with a scientist from Kamar with whom he got along well.
But he never reached a level of trust sufficient to attempt with me to speak to him about the qualities of me and my sister.
Today, everything is different. He must have heard of us. What I don’t know, is how he would react if I ask him for help to travel.
He’s one of the only people in whom my father had some esteem and trust.
I want to try...
With some luck, a vial of my blood will be enough to mend everything, and I’ll leave on the same day.
I’m entering the outside blocks, with little surveillance, where other inhabitants wander around. They don’t seem to react to me as we pass by each other. I’m sighing my relief, and enter the city.
~
I let my dirty hair covering my face.
I walk cautiously, but I end up being noticed. My heartbeat is going too fast.
I barely hear my own voice, when I’m chatting with the men who called me out. My gaze remains elusive, but I’m painfully on my guard, ready to strike them.
They’re intimidating. I can’t even tell what we’re taking about.
They leave, and two of them make sign for me to follow them.
My heart feels like it’s bursting in relief. They’re taking me to meet the researcher doctor Conrad.
I’m sobbing and brushing my tears away all along the way they’re taking me. They don’t understand who I am nor what’s happening. That I’m a friend is enough to them to help me. And I’m crying relief over it.
We reach a large building well repaired. The hospital.
The hall is empty. We climb the dark stairs toward the floor level where the doctor lives. It’s only the first floor.
An office is opened. The man looks like my father. The stature of a bear, but with a very calm demeanour.
I’m swallowing. I can’t breathe. My right hand is nervously resting near my weapons.
T - I... I am the friend from Kyameli...
Conrad frowns, and his eyes open wider. It takes him some time to react.
The men accompanying me are nervous as well. They fear I’m ill, contaminated. Should they restrain me?
Conrad bursts out in laughter, to make everyone more at ease. He opens his arms as if to hug me. I freeze and step back. He notices I’m nervous and then just offers me his hand to shake.
It takes an eternity, but I shake his hand. The others leave.
We go to sit, and instead of brushing my last tears, I end up bursting out crying.
~
I miss my father.
All happened so fast.
I wasn’t able to speak humanly to anyone since.
That this man listens to me, without doing anything else, it exhausts me in a good way.
The light peace passes, but it soothed me so much.
I told him a little about everything. In disarray and pain. He listened and thinks. He understands the situation. The entire situation.
I end up lifting and giving an arm for him to draw blood. He’s hesitating for a moment. He’s nervous.
C - Temee... I wouldn’t have the means to do anything useful with your blood.
T - What?
C - I almost don’t have any equipment. Your blood would be useless to me...
I was a little dazed. He seemed sorry. I didn’t know what to say, but he was still thinking.
According to him, the only city that likely still had the means to mass produce remedies was at least thirty counties away from here. A very long road, but it was along my journey...
C - I’ll tell them... But I can’t guarantee anything if you try to head there...
T - You can’t do anything to help me?
He was nodding negatively. He couldn’t raise a squad to help me. And he knew other city-states would gut each other to recover me.
C - All I can offer you, it’s to live here, and have pregnancies in this hospital. It’s the better one of the area.
I stepped back instinctively.
C - Well, I could actually take a very small sample of your bloods to do simple analysis. If you still agree?
I don’t back up on my promises. I extend my left arm to him.
He goes to pick up some material in his surroundings. He then cleanses my arm with a cold liquid, and prickles me with a syringe. I’m startled, but it’s quickly over.
Then I undress Ukhtukht. He’s surprised. Very surprised.
He picks a stethoscope to examine her.
In the end, he prickles her in the hip, and the syringe extract a little of dark blood. He betrays a deeper worry as this almost black fluid appears, even though he tries to keep his composure.
He’s sweating. His smell changed suddenly.
C - How long has she been like this?
T - Ever since I was born...
He’s becoming more nervous. A fear.
C - Temee... Your sister is dead... What you’re carrying, it’s no longer human.
I know that...
He’s wrapping with infinite caution the sample from Ukhtukht, while mine lies around unceremoniously on a table.
C - Have you heard about the black plague?
T - No. What is it?
He tells me about it. The symptoms. The death.
C - You’re carrying a microbiological boiler ready to burst, and surely adapted to the human environment now...
He’s sweating a lot. He’s terrified?
C - Please Temee... She is already dead. Leave her here... You’re free to stay as I offered, but she...
He wants to burn her.
No. I can’t. I’m stepping back, packing you back, stepping backward again.
He’s trying to reason me, between fear and tension, open hands toward the ground.
C - I’m begging you Temee...
I can’t... And he panics. Me too. I hit him before he takes my bag away. He falls in blood. He raises his head and looks at me weirdly. His eyes are in complete panic.
He suddenly yells, calling the alarm. I’m running away leaving him behind.
~
The alert propagates while I’m leaving the hospital. I cross the ones who helped me find him. They call me more sharply. The yells from Conrad upstairs can be heard. The men spread and pursue me into the city.
Alarms begin to ring throughout the streets. The links are made. The civilisation realises and makes the right connections.
I’m running fast, but not enough.
People yell at me in front, ready to intercept me. It hurts me again, but I unsheathe my sword and threaten to charge them head on. They step aside and I rush in between.
But from behind, someone catches up with me.
They are numerous. All of them gather in yelling. My backpack is grabbed. Losing balance and broke in my momentum, I strike randomly. I yell, and hit around mostly to keep them away, tears already all over my face.
I’m winning... But so very barely.
They stay at reasonable distance from the edge of my sword.
Those still standing don’t get too close, fearing to soon be hurt and writhing on the ground in pain like the others.
I’m not reassured from just this, stepping back trembling. I yell at them to step back. They don’t step back.
I strike the air in front of them. They step back. Just enough.
I resume running toward the exit of the city.
A barrier is being raised there. I hustle it. I strike the other ones still trying to stop me, hurting them more or less painfully. My sword doesn’t cut their skin. Not that one. But it hurts deep.
I make it out. I run on the road leaving town.
I’m hearing vehicles starting. I change course and leave the road and main paths.
I’m out of breath and tired. A team is sent after me without waiting.
~
