Sand Red

28

I was woken by a rough shaking and I lashed out at the shaker immediately, on instinct. But it was only Yul. My mind exploded as I remembered the events of the previous day. Yul!

I sat up quick as lightning and the pain meant nothing in the beauty of his face.

'Yul!' I said out loud and I threw my arms around him and my ribs brought tears to my eyes but Yul was alive.

He put his arms around my shoulders and my back and we were wrapped around each other with four arms and two shoulders and tears spilled out of my eyes because of my wound and my pain and for a whole minute I felt complete. Then Yul drew away and I was halved again.

I looked around for Aida and Syenin with shining eyes. They sat grinning like idiots a little ways off in the bare sand because this patch was not yet covered by thorn. 'You did it!' I could have laid down and bawled. 'You did it,' I choked. Perhaps my tears were partly from joy.

I could sit up no more and I lowered myself excruciatingly back. 'You're alive.'

Yul smiled down at me like the loveliest angel in the world. 'I'm alive.'

I couldn't stop my tears as my wound fired up in rage at my ill handling of it. 'Ah, goddamnit,' I said.

'What is it?'

'The gunshot. Infected.'

Yul's face changed to dismay. He undid my bandaging in a jiffy and was faced by the sickening sight of my rotting, stinking bullet hole.

'Oh, God.' His face was frozen, his eyes wide, his mouth half open. I did not like to see him distressed. His eyes on my bare stomach made me uncomfortable.

'It'll get better, I said, taking up the ends of my bandages to redo them.

Yul stopped me with a hand. 'Don't kid yourself. Bloody hell.'

I couldn't see well. It was too bright to see while facing the sky. My cut panged maliciously.

'We've got to clean this,' Aida said as she came up and inspected it.

I didn't want to. 'No, please.' It hurt too much already.

Yul shook his head, standing up. 'We've got to.'

I turned my eyes back to the sky. He was alive. I wanted nothing else. I didn't want any more pain.

The smell of burning filled my nostrils. I turned to Aida setting water to boil. 'I don't want to, Aida.' Yul was alive.

She didn't even look up. I felt vaguely upset that she wouldn't listen to me, then all of a sudden I caught sight of an eagle flying close enough to be recognized. I turned my head to watch it flap away, fascinated. If it was flying so close to the ground, it was hunting. My own stomach rumbled in anticipation of food. I shook my thoughts off. Why would an eagle hunt me game? I forced my thoughts back to Aida, dipping fresh rags cut from our red camouflage into the boiling pot. I saw that her fingers were turning pink.

'Don't burn yourself,' I advised her.

She looked up. 'I won't.'

I did not notice it when the rags were boiled to satisfaction. I saw her come up to me and I begged her not to, but she refused to listen.

'I really don't want to, Aida. Please, goddamnit.'

'The infection,' she repliedstolidly.

'I don't care about the infection. I care about the pain.'

She looked me helplessly, pitifully. 'This is the New World, Kun. Pain is a constant.'

'Shut up with the philosophy and clean it, Yul said, taking a rag from her.

'No!' I grabbed at Yul's hand futilely as he shoved the rag down on the wound.

My vision filled with red. There was nothing at all but bloody, red pain. My body convulsed of its own accord and I couldn't stop myself from screaming as he rubbed the gash mercilessly, as though he could scrub the infection away. Someone held my hands down as I attempted to fight Yul off. I couldn't live. White hot pokers were being driven into my bones and I was blind and burning dead. I wanted to die.

Amidst the bloodbath of pain I was in, the sting of the salt hit me. I nearly laughed. The salt was what I feared the most, but it was nothing compared to Yul's harsh treatment of the wound. I was nothing at all but pain.

When they were finally done, I lay there, still unable to perceive anything but red. There was nothing I could do but let the stinging waves wash over me and over me, over and over again. I think I cried. I have been badly injured many times in my life and never have I been in as much pain and thirst and hunger and hell as this gunshot. All my feelings of gladness as Yul's reappearance had disappeared. In the moments until my sight returned and I could feel the sand and Sun again, I hated them. Yul and Aida and Syenin. I hated them with all my might because it was all I could do.

When I was aware of my fingers and toes and surroundings again, I felt thirsty.

'Water,' I crackled.

Aida appeared and tipped the ultimate contents of a waterbag onto my tongue. It was warm and tasted dusty and I realized it was the water my bandaging had been boiled in.

'We should cauterize it,' she told me. 'When we get to the Reds.'

I laughed. No more pain. I was done with pain.

A figure stood up in the corner of my eye. 'We have to go on,' it said in Yul's voice.

'Go where?' I whispered.

'To the Reds.'

'Why?' I had forgotten.

'To find out how to make glass,' Aida said gently. 'Come on, you've got to get up.' I felt her hands on my shoulders, but I didn't move. I couldn't stand the thought of walking in my current pain.

But they pushed me up to standing position and I leaned heavily on Syenin's shoulder yet again. I had not eaten in two days and my limbs were exhausted. Syenin dragged me along and I obeyed because letting go of his shoulder would put me in mind bending agony. Syenin helped me along for most of the day and night and as my muscles grew weaker and my hunger and thirst and hurt merged into one and were indistinguishable.

The Old World was heaven and this was hell. Cerulone was just hell's escapees. The smartest. The elite. And I was neither. I would never see the water planet. They say it is filled with so much forest that trees had to be cut down to avoid a great oxygenation like in the history of Earth. They say trees don't have leaves, but pearls there. They speak of the strangest creatures you have ever imagined lurking in the thick shadows of growth. But of course, none of us has ever seen Cerulone. We will never really know.

Aida was right. Pain was a constant in our existence and I wanted it not to be. I wanted to go to Cerulone.