Endosymbiosis

14. Suture Knot

Part 3
Adrenaline

The icy water from the shower ran through my hair and pooled red at my feet. I watched the blood fall in a spiral until it disappeared down the drain, like the stars that were always spinning in free fall towards the galaxy's core, but too fast to succumb. Would I be swallowed like this when I got there too? I didn't want to know the answer.

I got out of the shower, dressed in Arkadi's clothes, and while I brushed my hair, I let myself dream of the end of everything, when I made some world my home and loneliness could no longer find me. A normal life like that seemed worth all the effort...

I sat on the bed and applied a medication to my left ankle that would make it recover in 12 hours and erase the scar. I peeked through the blinds at the view beyond the window, now that we had moved away from the Blood District and were nearing its pore - one of those that connected the worlds of Itopis. The rim glowed like an eclipse, constantly turning as if inviting us inside; but also as if trying to warn us not to. As we crossed it, we were enveloped in the darkness on the other side, and, only a few minutes later, the stars reappeared around us. I wouldn't call this a good sign if I believed in them.

Arkadi then walked past me to get something from his lockers and I noticed he was bent, slow... Hurt.

"Let me see." I asked.

"No need... I've already used my bandages."

"I'm sorry to doubt it, but..." I approached. "I don't think you must have done a good job."

He surrendered, sitting up in bed. Arkadi lifted his shirt and showed the small bandage trying to hold the edge of the cliff open to his muscular abdomen. Yes, humans were predictable.

I cleaned the skin with a soft cloth, and, at some point, I realized I had been holding my breath. I haven't focused like this in a long time. I took a suture needle and slowly closed the cut, layer by layer, from the depths to the surface, until, lost in the work, I let out the murmur:

"They did damage to you, Kadi..."

He glared at me, his gaze like the sun burning my cheeks and his face held hostage in a knowing smile.

"Kadi?"

"Sounds better." I implied, shrugging. I didn't want to confess that it was a slip, a request, an open cut where he could pull my loose strands... So I just teased: "I'll call you that now."

"You tried so hard to find out my name... How about using it now?"

"And you took so long to tell it. Maybe it's because, deep down, you know it's not that good... Kadi."

"Is that how you're going to treat the first human you've seen in so long?"

"And, after so long, this human will force me to call him by that... Peculiar name?"

"Said the 'Donecea'." I rolled my eyes. "But, even if it were 'peculiar', it wouldn't be from someone like you that I would get a new one... Donecea."

"Someone with good taste?" He shook his head.

"Phagas are true to their bad taste. And their bad life decisions."

"It's not just bad names we have in common, then."

We were silent as I concentrated on my work. How many times would we be in this situation? And would we ever be worse off, in a day when my lines wouldn't be enough to bind his halves together and he would unravel in my hands? When my words wouldn't no longer be enough to distract him from his pain and I wouldn't be able to save him? A day when I couldn't save anyone...

"Everything we've done..." I fled my mind. "We attacked an interstellar hospital, deceived a bunch of collectors, started a war in the Blood District... We are creating a very bad image of what it is to be 'human'."

"As if they didn't think that way about us already..." He snorted. "And other humans constructed worse images." I raised an eyebrow.

"So the inhumanities of the past justify the future ones?"

"No." He held up his hands in surrender. "I was just saying that if there was a list of the worst humans who ever lived, we would be far from the top." Maybe it was true, but I didn't want to bring chaos in the universe; not even a mediocre one. He saw this in my eyes, so he continued: "We look at these worlds and see palaces, technologies, laws... But this is all still a jungle. Where we need to be inhuman to exist." Is that what he believed when he wanted to forgive himself? "Nobody blames a fox who kills a rabbit. We just have to choose which side we are on."

"But what if I didn't want to be either? And if I wanted to be... A tree?" He laughed.

"Then you would have had to have been born in very fertile soil... And be content with it." But even trees grew over the others to take the sun for themselves. "Nature never had pity on us. Where would we learn about it?"

I would also be angry if I didn't believe the Empire could return to a glory that would never have made him feel this way.

"With each other."

When Arkadi's - or Kadi's - eyes fell on me, his grim expression softened. It was like all the pain was gone - the one in his body and the one in his mind - and I, somehow, was all he needed.

"So..." I cleared my throat, trying to change the subject and avoiding his eyes. "Did you used to help a lot in the rebellion?"

He laughed at my discomfort and did me the favor of not commenting on it.

"Indirectly... Actually, I was helping myself more than them." He shrugged. "I was just thinking about the money, not what they were doing with what I sold them."

"The cartridges from the stars of the Empire?"

A crime... As if he didn't already have committed enough. Kadi smiled slowly.

"That's the problem with getting involved with smart people... They understand too much, even with little information..."

"A compliment?"

"You're not hard to praise." Kadi muttered. "Besides, my cuts are on your hands. I wouldn't want to piss you off."

"That's the advantage of getting involved with smart people... They make good choices." I gave a slight tug on the suture thread and tightened the last loop, closing the cut. "Done. You now have a bandage I can respect, Kadi."

He rolled his eyes.

"Just when I was starting to tolerate you."