Arwa

19- Our Condolence

What did she just say? What the hell did she just say?!

You gotta be pulling on my godforsaken leg Hallow, you can't be... you've been fine you can't just be... dying. When she said those words Chimaera had made a little noise, I don't know if it was a shriek or a gasp or a cry. Either way his face had fallen further than I could of ever thought it would have, he had stopped taken her temperature and whatever he had been holding fell to the floor. He was the next to speak,
"Hallow... y-you c-can't be dying. You were fine... ya were..." Hallow pulled down a part of her clothes that was covering her shoulder, her skin looked withered, dry. Patches that she had been hiding round her neck were hollowed, lifeless even as her veins looked wooden.

Chimaera was shaking his head, backing away. He seemed to know what this was. He didn't dare speak. Hallow knew this and she turned to me,
"Child, do you know what 'Cancer' is?" I nodded. No humans got cancer anymore, we'd found a cure for that long ago, yet we were still taught about it. Some say everybody had it at one point, even the youngest ones. Hallow took a pained breath in,"Well, Mynx have something similar. It is named Kouves, the Hundred Hour Plague. I discovered it, four days ago was it? I found it unwise to tell you both."

We'd been with Hallow for longer than hundred hours,
"Well... if it's a hundred hours, that means you only have a couple more hours to go, then you'll be fine!" I turned to Chimaera, he seemed empty. His voice was too, a whisper, no hope was left in his words,
"Arwa, it... it's called the Hundred Hour Plague coz it..." I clenched my fists, Hallow was going to be ok I was sure of it everything was going to be alright.
"What?!" I already knew what Chimaera was going to say. I didn't want it to be true,
"Arwa, it kills ya in hundred hours."

I remember what I had just said. It's been four days, around nighty six hours. No, no, no, no, no.
"YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DIE! YOU'RE NOT HALLOW, I CAN'T LET YOU DIE LIKE THAT YOU..." The others both looked at me until I realised I had just been shouting. Hallow's eyes were getting darker, paler. "You are not going to die, you can't die! E-Everything was gonna be fine, everything was gonna be alright..." Hallow put her freezing hands on mine,
"Child, don't dwell on the future. The future is inevitable and knowing what will happen before it does is none of my business. We can only focus on the now, and I would prefer to live my last breathing hours in happiness, rather than surrounded by solemnity."

Then she got up, she got up from her hammock. We tried to stop her, but she just put a hand on our shoulders,"I can still walk, this blasted disease hasn't gotten to me just yet." She got to a wall of shelves, me and Chimaera were both wary, and she reached up to the highest shelf and grabbed something large and dusty as well as a small brown satchel, also dusty and worn.

She sat in the hammock and asked Chimaera to come to her. He did quietly as Hallow dusted the large dusty thing off to show a book. If was a large journal, pages seemed to be clipped and shoved in, different pieces seemed to be fallen out and other parts were worn like they had been written a long time before the others. It was bursting, almost to the point of colapse. Hallow also took something from her neck, a tiny vial of clear liquid that could of been mistaken for water. Well, if it didn't have tiny little silvery stuff floating around in it.

Chimaera looked down at the book and I heard him gasp and then speak to her. She nodded. He also looked at the vial and seemed to be angry, I heard him speak so he must of been speaking loudly,
"You can't just give that to me! You need it, look at you!" He turned to me, I asked him why he was shouting. His face was disgruntled, Hallow seemed somewhat... amused? "Arwa, this is what Mynx call, the Vitality Compound. 'Hoomans used to call it-"
"The Essence of Life." Hallow put her pasty eye to the glass,"This here is used to enhance medicines with very strong healing properties. However has been traditionally used to purify mutated things back to health."

I looked straight at that liquid. It cam purify mutated things she said? I can see why Chimaera was angry,
"Use this on yourself! This can heal you!"

But Hallow shook her head. She put the liquid on the top of the leather cover the book in Chimaera's arms as she spoke slowly,"I have lived a long fruitful life, children. I felt almost relieved when I found out I had this illness, for I had been living in solitude for so long. But then of course, you two had cam my way. It would truly be a waste of the Vitality Compound using it on me, I'm old and it cannot be remade. This is truly rare and besides, even if I wasn't suffering from this, I'm ready to die."